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THIS IS THE TEST SITE OF EUROBRICKS! ×
THIS IS THE TEST SITE OF EUROBRICKS!

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Posted

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All pics link to Flickr!

Description: The villagers of Okoto play this ancient sport to bring pride to their villages. The first villager to shoot a gem through the hoop three times wins the ceremonial mask. They are armed with weapons to knock away the opponent's gems and shooters to fire their gems through the hoop. Two score counters are also included.

Background: This year I was able to attend the LEGO Inside Tour for the first time. The 34-person group I was in, which toured from the 19th of May to the 22nd, was the second tour group for 2015 and the 28th since the LEGO Inside Tour began.

The most thrilling part of the LEGO Inside Tour, for me, was getting to meet and spend time with so many LEGO designers and others who help to make the LEGO Group the company that it is. However, the biggest surprise for me was connected with the building competition at the end of the first day. All tour participants were invited to think like a LEGO designer and design a potential set to meet certain constraints. The designers would judge them the next day before announcing the winners at an awards ceremony that evening.

The parts provided for us included many BIONICLE pieces, but I was one of the only builders to create a primarily BIONICLE-based creation, since that is the style of building that comes most naturally to me. When I finished my model at around 10:20pm, a lot of other builders were still working on their own creations, so I didn't get to see what my model was up against until the awards ceremony.

To my amazement, the model I created won first prize! It was the first BIONICLE creation to win first prize in the history of the LEGO Inside Tour. The designers liked that it had a clear play scenario and hit the desired price point almost exactly. I was awarded a LEGO set and a brick-built trophy printed with the Inside Tour logo. And yes, they let me keep my creation!

Bonus pics:

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Posted

Tbh, it'd be pretty cool if this ended up being a set, I'd definately buy it, several times at that, it's got some amazing parts, not to mention the whole "building a team and holding a tournament" aspect I can clearly see happening here.

What was the price point they asked for?

Posted

Great job here, Aanch; and congrats! You definitely deserve it.

Thanks!

Bionicle needs $10-$12 "Speedorz" type sets like this....

That could certainly be interesting! And that was definitely sort of the idea I was going for, although this was envisioned as more of a single $20–$25 set. It'd be hard to include more than one fully-articulated figure at a $10–$12 price point — the Protectors alone are already at the $10 mark. But I could see a model like this being released as a "starter set" and individual villager figures being released with more specific (and potentially single-player) challenges, much like the Speedorz or some of the old LEGO Sports sets.

Tbh, it'd be pretty cool if this ended up being a set, I'd definately buy it, several times at that, it's got some amazing parts, not to mention the whole "building a team and holding a tournament" aspect I can clearly see happening here.

What was the price point they asked for?

They weren't totally specific about price point. If they had been, it might have confused people, since there were people from so many different countries in attendance, and price points can vary wildly from country to country even among countries that share a common currency, like the euro. But they had a bunch of sets out as examples including Cloud Cuckoo Palace, Fire Emergency, Snowspeeder, and Avengers Hydra Showdown, so I can only assume they wanted us to shoot for a price point somewhere between 20 and 40 dollars/euros.

The designers were more concerned about builders pushing the price too high than too low — stick a huge supply of pieces in front of a bunch of LEGO builders and it's easy for them want to pile more and more pieces and features onto their model. Some of the models that were awarded "honorable mention" did overshoot the desired price point a bit, like one builder's subway and street scene or another builder's playground.

Posted

Congrats on winning first place! That is certainly an amazing achievement. A creative idea also, taking the tournament play pattern and applying it to Bionicle.

My favorite touch is that the Protectors are for the most part identical, outside of color schemes and weapons. This certainly gives a feeling of equality that reaches across the set, which is great because one of the kids that would be playing with this theoretical set is not sad they received the 'worst' figure. Also, thanks for reminding me that I need to get some of the large gold beast feet (which are used wonderfully as a point counter).

Posted

I absolutely adore this concept and design. Might even build my own version for funsies! I could definitely see this on store shelves.

Glad you like it!

Congrats on winning first place! That is certainly an amazing achievement. A creative idea also, taking the tournament play pattern and applying it to Bionicle.

My favorite touch is that the Protectors are for the most part identical, outside of color schemes and weapons. This certainly gives a feeling of equality that reaches across the set, which is great because one of the kids that would be playing with this theoretical set is not sad they received the 'worst' figure. Also, thanks for reminding me that I need to get some of the large gold beast feet (which are used wonderfully as a point counter).

Yeah, the villagers being largely identical was a mix between trying to keep the set "balanced" and trying to stay accurate to their appearance in the webisodes. Although I did take some liberties from the villagers in the webisodes by giving them transparent arms and lower legs (that was one of my brother's suggestions, and it really does liven the designs up).

Would it be a bad thing to ask how the goal is built? I really want to make this model with the parts that I have.

Of course not! Here's a diagram built on LDD. It's a very simple design, although if I had built it at home I'd probably have needed to use the right angle connectors in Dark Stone Grey rather than black (not that it makes a big difference). I actually didn't even realize they had come in black until I saw them among the parts for this competition, but apparently four black ones were used in this year's Technic cherry picker.

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