Little Coloured Bricks

Lego has consistently come up with various themes that appeal to the general public – both the kids and the kids at heart.  Although it is fitting to say that the themes usually ride on whatever is common  or popular at a certain period of time, the Wild West remains wild and alive with the Lego System Cowboys minifligs.

Sheriff’s Showdown is an adaptation of a criminal chase – in the wild west.  With just enough pieces to set the imaginary cowboy feel, the bad-ass looking bandit and the clean and “awarded” cowboy sheriff minifligs completes the set with a very elegant touch of realism.

Covered Wagon is a simple system, primarily capturing a transport theme.  The Cavalry Lieutenant miniflig completes the set together with the horse lego, wheels and the pieces that shall comprise the wagon.

If you want to complete an ideal event, try to combine Sheriff’s Showdown with Sheriff’s Lock-up. Sheriff’s Lock-up creates the jail break set-up as in this system, there are 2 bandits and only 1 soldier which is the sheriff.  Another cowboy miniflig is included but that can be treated as a casualty during a jail break.  This shall add tons of fun in the Lego Cowboy world.

Bandit’s Secret Hide-Out is all about crime never paying.  From the title itself, the hide-out is supposed to keep out everyone else and with the 3 bandits outnumbering the 2 soldiers in minifligs number, this is the bandit’s turf.  No harm can come to them with their guns, canons and tower-like hole.

What’s a cowboy theme without the bank robbery?  Gold City Junction captures this concept perfectly, situating only 2 soldier minifligs which includes the sheriff and 4 cowboys including the banker and the bandit.  Conspiracy is the key.  The theme is set in major action with bricks and pieces that connote a shoot-out or perhaps a “run” too common for the Wild.

Fort Legoredo is the ultimate Cowboy themed Lego System.  Coming with 10 minifligs and over 500 pieces to set-up a police headquarters, the set encourages many action-packed possibilities.  The watch tower at the back and the two towers in front are great look-out standpoint.  The spacious headquarters, the prison and the stable inside Fort Legoredo are also good areas of action.  Generally, the 4 bandits will not stand a chance over the 6 Cavalry soldiers properly positioned in the system however, with great imagination, that picture can be reversed.

The Lego System Cowboys Sets were first released in 1996.  It was re-issued recently and is still considered a valuable collection item.

Woody and the gang are back and they are back with a Lego vengeance. Through Lego’s newest collection called Lego Toy Story, the story of Andy’s toys continues. Woody also known as Cowboy is the chief of police in Andy’s room. His status as the favorite among the toys has been challenged lots of times and the ultimate challenge for the toy was Buzz Lightyear. The story is loved by many animation film fans and now that these characters are in Lego, it makes things a lot better than before. If you are already a Lego Toy Story fan you can play the “The Claw” online and enjoy a Lego Toy Story adventure.

Legoland is rejoicing for the arrival of these minifigs. For Jessie fans, Jessie, the yodeling cowgirl is now in Legoland along with Woody of course and the rest of the gang. Bullseye, Woody’s steed is also in Lego along with Prospector more popularly known to fans as Stinky Pete. Do not hesitate to buy this minifig though because he is not stinky at all. Space Ranger Buzz Lightning has also arrived in Legoland already, now Lego minifigs can breathe easy because this action hero/defender of the galaxies is finally in town to defend Legoland from aliens like Alien (the friendly alien in Toy Story). Alien is not ferocious though so Buzz doesn’t really have to worry about anything.

If you are into the darker side and want a minifig that is bad to the bone, you can get a Lego Zurg. The rumored father of Buzz Lightning sure fits this description and if he is not stopped he will destroy the whole planet earth. Good thing there is Woody and all the soldiers in Andy’s room to help stop Zurg. Even if these Lego soldiers are stuck to platform bases, they can move, move, move.

Join the expedition to Atlantis through Lego’s newest collection inspired by the controversial civilization. For those interested in the quest you can log on to Lego’s main website for the Atlantis adventure. The lost city can be explored by Lego fanatics (both children and adults) through the online quest. All you have to do is to defeat Atlantis’ guardians and win treasure keys along the way. The quest will lead you to a wondrous journey under the sea. You can take photographs of the beautiful places in Atlantis and collect sunken treasures while you’re at it. The ocean floor will not be as friendly as you may imagine it to be since there will be guardians everywhere.

Using your LEGO ID, you will be able to experience the journey to Atlantis and experience the lost city itself. Your progress will be saved in your computer and you can just login whenever you feel like exploring this lost civilization.  The Impossible Quest is the first chapter of Lego Atlantis. The second chapter will be coming this March 2010 so those who are playing Lego Atlantis already you should sit back and wait for the next chapter. Chapter 3 (title unrevealed) will be coming in a month after the second chapter. The third chapter on the other hand will be available by June 2010 and the 5^th chapter in July.

If you are already a fan of Lego Atlantis maybe you should also see the Lego movie about it. The Lego Atlantis movie is a top-class animation and it includes characters such as Ace, Dr. Fisher, First Mate Lance Spears,  and other fun characters. Get to know these Lego minifigs in The Atlantis Movie. In terms of storyline and plot, this movie is a winner and it does not fall short of exciting scenes as well. If you want to see the movie you can click here but be sure to come back to this page for more of the newest Lego stuff.

On the last day of the year 2002, a webcomic, called Irregular Webcomic, photographically illustrated with Lego figures debuted on the Internet. Although it did not set an established frequency for its installments, the webcomic was able to pose updates everyday and has been one of the regular comics on the web. Aside from the strips on the Internet, extra Irregular Webcomic strips are also available every two weeks on the gaming magazine Pyramid.

Irregular Webcomic has a number of different themes with their own sets of characters and exclusive story arcs. However, like most popular comic franchises like Marvel and DC Comics, the themes in Irregular Webcomic also occasionally have crossovers. Some of the strips have side commentaries, including sometimes an explanation of the humor used in the story or further details about an obscure reference, or stories on how a comic was created.

Some of the most familiar themes that are featured in Irregular Webcomics are Harry Potter, Shakespeare, and Star Wars. With the Harry Potter theme, readers are able to see the Harry Potter characters in a different light, particularly the protagonist himself. With the Shakespeare theme, it showed how William Shakespeare would have lived if he had been born in modern times. According to Irregular Webcomics, the English playwright would have been a technical writer sidelining as a Harry Potter fanfic author and Nigerian internet moneymaking entrepreneur -which is a bit odd and funny at the same time. He would also be writing a novel version of The Lord of Rings movies. Finally, with the Star Wars theme, the comic creator was able to indicate a few of the conflicts and peculiarities in the universe of this dimension. This theme became a particularly controversial issue among Star Wars fans.

Irregular Webcomic has been popular among fans not only for having an intricate indexing method but also for having one of the most unique comic themes in the worldwide web.

Lego Mindstorms are toys manufactured by the Lego group that are made of robotics or construction blocks that can be programmed which stemmed from the educational toys that had programmable feeler blocks. It is named after a book by Seymour Papert entitled Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas. The first Lego Mindstorms version available to the public was produced more than 10 years ago and was commercially promoted as the Robotics Invention System or RIS. The next edition was released only four years ago and it was called Lego Mindstorms NXT. The latest of this line called Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 went out in the market just last year.

The beginning of the hardware and software of the Mindstorms RIS kit can be traced back to the programmable block that was made at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. This block used the Brick Logo in its programming. A programming environment based on AgentSheets known as LegoSheets was used for this block and was made by the University of Colorado four years before the first release of Lego Mindstorms. The first Mindstorms RIS kit had one light sensor, two touch sensors, and two motors while both NXT editions have three servomechanism motors and four sensors, one for touch, one for light, one for sound, and one for distance.

Lego Mindstorms can be used to construct an embedded system model that has electromechanical pieces that are controlled by a computer. A lot of embedded systems used in real life may be represented in a smaller scale using these Mindstorms blocks like elevator controllers and robots used for industrial purposes. Aside from that, Lego Mindstorms can also be used as an educational toy. In fact, there is already an educational edition of this line known as Lego Mindstorms for Schools.