Google's at it Again

Those folks at Google just can't seem to shake their LEGO obsession. Check out this story, reporting on the latest LEGO-scheme in Google's bag of tricks to be creative business leaders.

Countdown to Halo 3

The folks over at MTV’s Multiplayer have commissioned the busy Nathan Sawaya to recreate Halo’s Master Chief brick by brick. Click here to check out the stop animation build.

Growing Trend: First-Time Teacher Encourages LEGO Play

Seattle Post-Intelligencer recently published a story on a first-time teacher who left a career in television and radio journalism to fulfill her passion for teaching children. According to the article, Jackie Flaherty is part of a growing trend of professionals entering the teaching profession as a second or third career. And wouldn’t you know? Ms. Flaherty encourages her students to build with LEGO bricks to stimulate their creativity. Read all about it here

Get Jeff Lewis Some Legos!

Apparently the uber high-strung Jeff Lewis, star of this summer’s “Flipping Out,” loved playing with Legos as a kid. Me thinks he needs a grown-up zen moment with Lego bricks STAT! Dude, calm down and stop firing folks.

Can you ever really have TOO many LEGO bricks?

Oh goodness…If you come into my home you may be able to check off MOST of the signs BBSpot.com listed as the “Top Eleven Signs You Have Too Many LEGO Bricks”

Signs You Have Too Many LEGO Bricks
11. The spreadsheet you keep track of your LEGO sets on just ran out of rows.
10. You evict your kid from their room so you have somewhere to place your LEGO model of Manhattan.
9. You seriously considered doing the addition to your home in LEGO bricks.
8. You search the Internet hoping to find the "Nutrition Facts" for LEGO bricks.
7. There's a statue of you in every village in Denmark.
6. You know someone got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night because you can hear their yelps of pain as they step on LEGO bricks you left lying around.
5. Three of your nephews went into the "LEGO room" two weeks ago, and haven't returned. You have to rent a backhoe to unearth them.
4. "LEGO sets" is the largest item in the family budget.
3. Your house is targeted by DHS for having Weapons of Mass Construction.
2. It's not uncommon to bite into a piece of homemade pie and find a LEGO brick that accidentally fell in the filling.
1. Your house burns down and all that's left is a molten lake of plastic.

Who will be next to be cast in LEGO sculpture?

Our friends over at boingboing have uncovered a very intricate sculpture of Stephen Hawking from the pages of Brickshelf. Check it out here!

And the Oscar Goes to…

Look out Tarantino and Soderbergh: some unexpected moviemakers might just steal your thunder. Hot right now is brickfilm, where moviemakers use Lego parts and people to create stop-animation films. Content is just about anything, ranging from recreations of existing movies to original films to music videos. As this ABC News story points out, the actors don’t talk back…or show up late thanks to a night out partying like *some* young starlets these days. Hmmm, maybe MTV should have created a mini brickfilm to open the VMAs. Tiny, Lego Brit may have done a better job.

Vacuum LEGO Style

For everyone who said chores can't be fun think again! Here's a great new use for your vacuum - LEGO Jousting! All you need are a few minifigures and a vacuum or two - Geek Dad used the Roomba, but my guess is that you can get this to work with any vacuum. Check out the full article here.

Everything’s Relative!

It’s a LEGO-version of an Escher picture (Relativity, 1953. Lithograph) that shows off fancy SNOT building—that’s “studs not on top” for you non-avid LEGO builders out there. Click here to see the behind-the-scenes work on this build and photo session. To be inspired by some more of Andrew Lipson’s building prowess check this out!

A smokin’ hot, fire-breathin model!

With nearly one million (you know you want to say that in the voice of Austen Powers) LEGO bricks, check out this amazing dragon that Katie Aldred spent 2,200 hours building for LEGOLAND Windsor.

Heart-Felt Story

Here’s a heart-felt story. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently published a story on Bennett Shakoske, a senior driven to beat the odds and finish high school. He had difficulty reading in the first grade and considering “giving up” until he repeated first grade with a teacher who used his love of LEGO building to instill self-confidence. According to the Florida Center for Reading Research at Florida State University, a child who is four or five months behind a the end of the first grade has only one chance in five or six of reading at grade level in a traditional school environment. However, in Bennett’s case, just one teacher’s encouragement can impact a student’s path to success. What a cool way to spark confidence.
You can read all about Bennett here

Hey Detroit, Where's Your LEGO Car Test?

Imagine translating your childhood obsession with building LEGO cars into the real-world. It's reported that the state of Arkansas is now using a LEGO car building exercise developed by a local university in its recruiting process for autoparts workers. Maybe they're taking a page out of Google's book about looking at a person's ability to work with the brick as a testament of their candidacy.

While we're on the subject of LEGO building and car assembly, check out this wild YouTube video of a LEGO MINDSTORMS powered car assembly line that actually assembles a LEGO car piece by piece.

LEGO Play is Serious Work

Who says the 9 to 5 has to be boring? And who says playing with LEGO bricks is only for kids? A growing number of companies are seeing the value that LEGO play can bring to their teams across all kinds of factors, like teamwork, communication, innovative ideation and more fun. Check out this story that talks about LEGO Serious Play -- a way to harness creative LEGO play for the benefit of offices around the world.

Learn more about Serious Play here.

Creation Nation Rocks Canada!

Creation Nation has invaded Canada, stopping at the CNE in Toronto to encourage thousands of kids and adults to add their creativity to the efforts to break the world record for the largest LEGO Tower! And of course they did it! The tower was topped off yesterday at 29.03 meters (95 feet), beating the previous record by more than 1 meter. It will be on display until the end of the month, so be sure to check it out!

LEGO Building Inspires Teachers

Creative LEGO play came to life this week at the Vandenberg Middle School library where faculty members participating in a brainstorm were asked to represent a more student-centered culture through LEGO bricks. Teachers used LEGO bricks to create individual representations of their ideal classrooms and their classroom community goals.

The assignment gave teachers a chance to express their creative ideas. One teacher created a “learning community” complete with ladders, a tree and a spider. He explained, “The tree is organic and growing, the way the brain works. The spider represents the gross stuff in history.”

You can read all about it here

Listen Up, Nation

What office professional doesn't love Mr. Stephen Colbert? This Office Manager was backstage earlier this week for the debut of everyone's favorite lawyer cum LEGO artist, Nathan Sawaya, in the hot seat across from Stephen. Things got a little sticky as Stephen questioned the value of LEGO art, until he saw himself in life-sized 3D LEGO glory, at which point he declared he was "starting to see the value of the work now." Check it out here!

Bugs Beware... Mindstorms is Here

Are bugs preventing you from enjoying your summer swim? Worry no more. A family in New Zealand has just created SPIT - Swimming Pool Insect Terminator. And they created it out of Mindstorms NXT. The robot floats on the water, locates the bugs and then destroys them, making for a more peaceful summer night. Check out all of the details, including building instructions, here.

LEGO Madness!

You’ve probably been reading the press about the new book for boys The Dangerous Book -- a guide book for dads as well as their sons, to recover some of the lost arts of things to do like knot-tying and making paper airplanes. When you’re done with that you can check out another “dangerous” book for grown up boys “Forbidden LEGO” I can’t wait to try out some of the projects that my mom would never have let me build when I was young.

What will the readers of Gizmodo think of next?

A LEGO ipod? Yes—someone in the community has finally celebrated one design icon using bricks. While there is some friendly debate about the design quality—we still think it ‘rocks!’ Between this and the recent Guitar Hero controller, these posts are making me want to get musical!

LEGO Video of my “High School Musical” …. “Grease!!!”

All of the hype around High School Musical 2 has reminded me of my favorite “high school musical” Grease! Check out this awesome stop animation video of Summer Nights!