big bird

The London AFOLs were sharing a stand at the London Model Engineering Exhibition with Brickish at Ally Pally over the weekend. Several of our members had built GBC modules and they were all put together to make a ridiculously pointless ball-carrying contraption, including two of mine. The punters loved it! Here’s a video of the circuit:

I was helping to run the machine all day, and heard many complimentary comments. The two best ones were:

This is the best LEGO model I’ve ever seen!

and

This is the best model in the whole show!

High praise indeed… Anyway, here are my two contributions merrily shifting balls.

LMEE '18 - My GBC Modules — LMEE ’18 – My GBC Modules

And the public clearly loved it – there were loads of questions from young and old alike.

LMEE '18 - Punters Enjoy Our GBC — LMEE ’18 – Punters Enjoy Our GBC

I was allowed out for a little while to look at the rest of the LEGO on display, here is a selection of photos of other builds:

LMEE '18 Fairy Bricks Bus — LMEE ’18 Fairy Bricks Bus

LMEE '18 Lunar Lander — LMEE ’18 Lunar Lander

LMEE' 18 Tanks And Trains — LMEE’ 18 Tanks And Trains

LMEE '18 Two Spaceships By Alec Hole — LMEE ’18 Two Spaceships By Alec Hole

LMEE '18 NCS Surface Rover By Alec Hole — LMEE ’18 NCS Surface Rover By Alec Hole

LMEE '18 Brickish Seaside Display — LMEE ’18 Brickish Seaside Display

LMEE '18 Brickish Seaside & Rocket — LMEE ’18 Brickish Seaside & Rocket

LMEE '18 Brickton On Sea — LMEE ’18 Brickton On Sea

So all in all my first experience at exhibiting was a good one, great fun and excellent company. When’s the next one?

As a complete novice, I have been doing some research to find a fairly simple GBC module to build. I found plans for a Classic Marble Pump on Planet-GBC, then went rummaging in my parts drawers to see if I had enough bits to put it together. This is what I came up with!

The plans built me the input side, which I dubbed Big Bird. Then of course I had to add some wings and eyes! It is built from mainly System bricks apart from some gearing and the motor hidden behind. I didn’t have enough of the same coloured bricks to build it out of one colour, but who cares – multicoloured is more fun!

Then I had to get the balls back down again to the right height for the next module’s input. I decided on a pinball type board, built from Technic beams, with pins stuck in them in a triangular pattern, built to my own design. I think it works quite well. Tomorrow we are taking it to Caterham for a test run with other GBC modules made by the London AFOLs.

Exhibition: LMEE 2018

GBC: Big Bird & Pinball