How the LEGO® element team designed the new gear wheels

We’ve really enjoyed this latest Parts Festival, which now draws to a close, and we are so grateful to the talented artists who gave us their time and creative talents for everyone’s pleasure; in no particular order – Jessica Farrell, Inthert, Jaap Bijl, Duncan Lindbo, Samuel Pister, Sarah Beyer and Jaroslaw Walter.

To complete the festival we will take another look at what are arguably the most noticeable parts in the selection; the new gear wheel plates that we affectionately named ‘splat gears’. You may recall back in March, Elspeth wrote a fantastic post listing the different kinds of LEGO gears through history, including an examination of the new splat gear family.

It seems LEGO enjoyed her post too! – we later received this fascinating email from Marinus Jasperse on behalf of the Element Design Platform Team at the LEGO Group about the development of the new gear family...

Recycle my Bicycle: The entries, part 1

Our recent building competition invited you to use the new LEGO® bicycle frame (Design ID 50015) as something different. It closed last week, and before we announce the five winners we're going to show you all 33 entries; half today and half tomorrow.

Switch My Lantern Up: The entries (Vol. 2)

Today we continue revealing the entries to our LEGO® building contest, where you had to find a new use for the Super Heroes lantern (part 65581). Let's see what the next 30 entries were!

Peacock by Krakenbrix

In this build, I used the seed part as feathers for a peacock. The feathers are attached to a wedge belt tire (part 2815 and 4185) to obtain the radial design.

Recycle my Bicycle: The entries, part 2

Here is the second half of entries we received to our recent building competition where we invited you to use the new LEGO® bicycle frame (Design ID 50015) as something different. The five winners will be announced tomorrow, but who is your favourite? If you missed the first half, check them out here.

Double Headed Dragon

Ben Tritschler (modestolus)

Once I went to the flea market and found something for my living room. It was a small model of a "Double Headed Dragon" which now is hanging on the wall in the living room - as you can see on the first picture.

2019 Parts Fest #1: Jarekwally's flowers, vase and butterfly

Our second Parts Festival participant is Jaroslaw Walter (jarekwally on Flickr, Facebook & Instagram), a Polish LEGO® builder living in Ireland who is a member of the LEGO User Groups LUGPOL, Zbudujmy.to, Brick.ie and Lug.ie. Here's the first of the varied creations he's made for us.

Building LEGO should make us happy. Personally I build to de-stress and forget about everyday problems. It helps a lot. I like enter to my room, sit down and combine different elements. At some point, ideas come to my mind. 

For this creation I used various parts from the selection provided by New Elementary.

2019 Parts Fest #1: Jarekwally's Space Base, candle and summer break

Following his first creation for our Parts Festival, LEGO® builder Jaroslaw Walter (jarekwally on Flickr, Facebook & Instagram) returns today with three more varied builds all using our seed parts.

Base in Space

2019 Parts Fest #1: Tom Loftus is Starry-Eyed

The next Parts Festival participant to introduce you to is Tom Loftus (Inthert on Flickr), a UK-based LEGO® builder who was one of the winners of our Build 'n' Fix contest earlier this year with his lovely spade, although spaceships are really his thing. Here's the first of his investigations into our 19 seed parts.

At first, I questioned how useful the star element (Design Plate 4X4X2/3 No. 1 in Bright Yellow/ Yellow – Element ID 6248804| Design ID 39611) would be, especially without straying straight into illegal techniques. This is simply down to its number of connection points which, for a part of its size, is pretty limited. A star with nine friends is a slightly different story though.

2019 Parts Fest #1: Jarekwally's chair and speeder

Following his earlier creations for our Parts Festival, LEGO® builder Jaroslaw Walter (jarekwally) focuses on some of the stranger elements among our seed parts.

Office chair

For the base of my retro furniture I used three of the seed parts: Black Turntable 2X2X1 w/ Function (6252373| 40145), Dark Stone Grey Turntable Holder W/ Cross Axle (6252372|40144) and Black Pneumatic Connecting Piece, No. 1 (6249327|41817).

Switch My Lantern Up: The entries (Vol. 1)

Our LEGO® building contest, where you had to find a new use for the Super Heroes lantern (part 65581) has now closed, so while our judges are getting all judgey and deciding which five win the LEGO Fiats, let's look at all the entries we received!

There were a whopping 89 fabulous creations submitted by you lot, and we will reveal them over the course of three days, in the order we received them. Thank you all, for sharing these wonderful ideas.