Post Tillicum Mania event

Over the weekend, Robin Sather from Brickville in Vancouver came over to do the Tillicum Lego Mania event, now in it’s third year. Our local Lego club, VicLUG, was there to help Robin wherever needed.

This year we made the Bay Street Armoury, a military compound built in 1915 and still in active use. It’s quite close to downtown Victoria and is a well recognized landmark. Using photo reference and Google satellite/streetmap info, Robin was able to figure out the dimensions of the structure and build it over the course of the weekend. It has about 26,000 pieces and is almost 50/50 Duplo vs Lego.

The club had a display table of mocs and a street scene with a Where’s Waldo fig find. There was a very successful kids contest with a silly amount of wonderful entries and registration for it was filled within 4 days. We had a kid build area that was divided between baby/toddler and older kids as well.

If we talked at this event please followup the conversation by writing the club: lego@viclug.ca

Our next event is coming up soon, the Cherrybomb Toy and Hobby show on April 1st at Pearkes Arena!

http://www.tillicumkids.com/

http://www.brickville.ca

Article on the Times Colonist:

http://www.timescolonist.com/Photos+Lego+Mania+Challenge+Victoria/6285112/story.html

Article on Saanich News:

http://www.saanichnews.com/community/142538065.html

Great article on scrimporsplurge.ca that is very knowledgeable about everyone involved:

http://scrimporsplurge.ca/2011/03/lego-exhibits-in-victoria-and-sidney-unleash-the-imagination-in-adults-and-children-alike/

*edit: Ted noticed that this article is from last year’s Tillicum event, but all the facts hold true except for the dates interestingly enough

John Langrish’s photoset on flickr of the event:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/j1a3l5/sets/72157629573544919/

Photos Joseph took of the event:

View post on imgur.com

Tillicum is Go!

The event is going great and the turnout is amazing. I’m making this post because I talked to *so many* people today and hopefully got our contact info to everyone. If you find this post and wondering… ok what now?

Our next event is April 1st at Cherrybomb Toy & Hobby Show at Pearkes, just trip outside the parking lot of Tillicum and there you are.

If you are interested in joining the forums please email me: joseph@viclug.ca and we’ll get things rolling.

Met a lot of great builders today and don’t want lose track of you people! Tomorrow is a big day, really looking forward to it!

Post Gottacon

Wow that was a lot of fun! It’s going to take a bit to recover but wanted to say hi to anyone we might have met at the con that found our site.

To everyone who wanted to see the rules for VicWars they will be here: www.viclug.ca/vicwars.html
As of the writing of this post it’s a text doc of our outdated ruleset

To those who are wanting to join the forums, I will get to that either tonight or tomorrow! Please remember we have a show coming up in March at Tillicum and it would be great to see you there 🙂 You don’t have to have any mocs made, we need lots of hands on deck to make the Duplo structure and work the crowds and contest. It’s a great chance to meet the whole club since most of us will be in attendance at the same time.

To Carson & Evan and all the countless volunteers and other event co-ordinators: thanks for putting on the best con yet!

Huge thanks to the huge crowd and all the awesome kids and adult sized kids who made playing VicWars a blast. Your imagination and wackiness is soul nectar.

First Lego League

Vancouver Island had it’s regional qualifier on December 3rd and VicLUG was on hand to help out! Steve & Rod wore the referee shirts ( and crazy hats ) while Joseph took on Design Judge this time around.

We had a lot of fun and the kids’ creations were amazing and inspiring! Here is the winner list and hopefully we’ll be hearing more about these teams moving on.

1 – Fungus Stormers
2 – Hurricanes
3 – Gear Girls
4 – Team Rock Solid
5 – Legobots
6 – Masterminds

The end of the Universe – LEGO closing the door on its MMOG after 15 months of building fun

It saddens me to share this since I feel very attached to the game that I (albeit peripherally) shared in the development of.

Posted this morning on the official forum:

“Hello Adventurer, today we are very sad to announce that LEGO Universe will be closing on Janurary 31, 2012. This was a very difficult decision to make, but unfortunately LEGO Universe has not been able to attract the number of members needed to keep the game open.

We are thankful to have had the opportunity to share this adventure wiith an amazing community of players. We hope you will continue to enjoy LEGO Universe for the last few months. As a thank you, if you are a paying subscriber on December 31, 2011, we will provide you the full game for the final month for free.

Again, we want to thank the fantastic community of players who made LEGO Universe such a vibrant, fun and creative experience.

Sincerely,
The LEGO Universe Team
The Details:

• The game will be turned off on January 31, 2012 at midnight (EST).

• All current subscribers (1, 6 or 12 month plans) who still have active subscriptions on December 31 will receive a refund for any remaining game time remaining after December 31 as well as free play from January 1, 2012 until January 31.
o For example, if you purchased a 6-month subscription on September 1, 2011 (which would expire on February 29, 2012), you would be refunded $16.66 for the 2 months following December 31.

• We will begin processing all refunds on February 1, 2012. All refunds will be made to the credit card used for the original subscription.

• If your subscription expires before December 31 you will need to purchase an additional 1 month subscription by December 31 in order to get the free game play in January (again, any unused game time as of December 31 will be refunded.)

• LEGO Universe game cards can only be used until December 1st 2011. Unused game cards after December 1st can be converted to LEGO Shop @Home gift cards for the same value.
o Please note: Details on how to convert unused game cards will be posted on December 1.

• You can continue to enjoy the free to play zone until January 31, 2012 but your last chance to convert to a paying subscription is December 31, 2011.”