A LEGO® train circles a fantastic LEGO® street scene at the
Brickworld 2009 fan event in Wheeling. (credit: Renée Carver)
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Visitors to the 2009 Brickworld LEGO® fan event in Wheeling on June 20 and 21 could view an almost overwhelming variety of themed collaborative displays and miniworlds constructed solely from LEGO® bricks.
Collaborative displays of LEGO® sets
To keep things organized, Brickworld provided registrants with suggested themes and guidelines ahead of time for certain kinds of collaborative displays. When many LEGO® building enthusiasts join their talents and bricks together, the effect is stunning.
The ballrooms at the Westin Hotel & Convention Center were packed with tables covered with everything from Viking villages and pirate fleets to armies of tiny minifigs to seemingly normal town streets experiencing "bad days" via monster attacks and other catastrophes. (See the slideshow below for a sampling of some of the best.)
Creativity and LEGO® building
Kids examining the themed LEGO® displays could learn several lessons about creativity and imaginative play. After all, the original LEGO® sets contained only bricks, which forced kids to use problem-solving skills to figure out how to build different objects whose shapes might not at first seem possible to replicate with only blocks.
A huge LEGO® mountain scene at Brickworld 2009.
(credit: Renée Carver)
Over the years, however, LEGO® sets have become more strongly themed, including larger numbers of parts shaped exactly like real-world objects. All too often, kids today open a new LEGO® set, follow the directions exactly to build the model shown on the box, and call it a day.
The builders at Brickworld 2009 demonstrated how even themed kits can be used for imaginative creation and play. By combining many of the same kind of kit or even kits from different LEGO® lines, these LEGO® artists showed kids how to break free from the limitations of the builder's instruction sheets that come with each LEGO® set and start creating one's own LEGO® worlds.
Better yet, children could pick up creative construction ideas, such as using clear bricks to create a cross-section effect that lets the viewer peek underground or underwater to see creatures interacting with LEGO® miners or menacing swimmers. Or what about building a boat with rail wheels underneath so that it can "sail" around a city on railroad tracks? And even a normal street scene becomes exciting once a natural disaster or monster attack is added to the mix.
Both entertaining and educational, Brickworld themed displays can help builders young and old think "outside of the box" when working with their LEGO® bricks.
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