Blondie-Wan

The Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 LEGO Speed Champions project by AbFab1974 has achieved 10,000 supports, becoming the seventh product idea to enter the current batch. Congratulations!

Ah, right! I remember now. I supported it earlier, I’m happy to report. It’s a very fine-looking engine, I must say. Best of luck!

Done. Best of luck! Very cool! That’s a fantastic opportunity. What project is it? I think that’s actually the primary obstacle (beyond LEGO’s assessment of the business case and whether they’d want to allocate resources to this over something else). I don’t think the threat of swallowing an element is actually a huge issue, as they can address it by simply choosing an appropriate age range, but complying with food safety regulations would likely mean dealing with inspectors for certification, possibly subjecting entire bins of elements for inspection. We all know the bricks are nontoxic for toy safety, but complying with food safety regs would probably mean an additional layer of hassles that’s possibly just not worth it to them even if the parts are already easily in compliance. But again, you never know. And if and when the idea does get declined, we won’t know for sure if it was for that reason. ____________________________________ After a few weeks with the Ideas site redesign, I regretfully still haven’t warmed up to it. When we went from the old LEGO CUUSOO site to the first “LEGO Ideas” version, the transition was much smoother; everything seemed more natural and intuitive. The current design feels like a step backwards. I’m learning my way around it, though...

Oh, jeez, way way way too many. I have so many that I could actually put some of the smaller ones together in less time than it would take to list them all.

Engines of one sort of another have been the subject matter of model kits and such, so clearly some market exists. That’s not to say this product idea is a sure thing, but I wouldn’t completely discount the possibility (especially after recent years have shown us all how unpredictable the review results can be to those of us on the outside). As far the space projects, again, one never knows. I don’t know how much of a conflict there’ll be with the existing Apollo Saturn V set - that set has been out a year already, while this batch hasn’t even closed yet and formally entered review (that’ll happen in late August or early September). The review results will be announced probably early next year, about a year and a half after the Saturn V was released, and then it will be even more months before whatever sets are announced are released. Anything’s possible, but I don’t know that LEGO is going to be too concerned about cannibalizing sales of a set that would be two years old by then anyway.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

I think your point is only a potential issue for very young children, for whom LEGO doesn’t design its System / non-DUPLO sets anyway. A child who would mistake one of these elements for an M&M could just as easily eat an element from any random LEGO set, but they haven’t discontinued all LEGO production and ceased operations because of that.

They’ve finally added congratulatory official LEGO comments to all the projects that have reached 10k supports now, including this M&M’s dispenser. Indeed (in fact, according to Wikipedia, Smarties actually inspired M&M’s), but given that the product idea is clearly, specifically designated an M&M’s dispenser (and submitted in commemoration of the candy’s anniversary), they might not be willing to change that. It’s likely a certain percentage of the votes came from people who don’t just like small candies of this type in general but are specifically fans of the M&M’s brand in particular. Changing the branding could be seen as altering a fundamental aspect of the idea, even if the physical brick build were kept exactly the same (in much the same way changing an idea for a Ford Mustang into one for a Chevrolet Camaro or a generic car would be seen as turning an idea into something fundamentally different from what its supporters had supported).

I... don’t understand this post at all, I have to confess. I don’t see how this project encourages children of any size to eat LEGO. It encourages them to eat M&M’s, certainly, but saying this LEGO-built candy dispenser encourages people to eat LEGO is like saying my ceramic coffee mug encourages me to eat ceramics. And how exactly would this infringe the M&M’s trademark? It would obviously be licensed from Mars, Inc., the owner of the M&M’s trademark, the same way Minecraft, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, The Big Bang Theory, WALL•E, Doctor Who, Caterham, etc. are licensed from those other IP’s rightsholders.

What’s to debate? With the possible exception of Clikkits, those are all LEGO elements that work with other LEGO elements.

*snip* It has now been ten days since the latter project achieved support, and over two weeks since the former did, yet neither of them has received the congratulatory official LEGO comment that projects usually get upon reaching 10k. Have they stopped doing that? What’s going on?

Around me, the game has now entirely disappeared from my two nearest Targets, and is gone or nearly gone from most Walmarts, though I still see a few packs here and there. The one nice thing is that the base game is dirt-cheap now; I see Starter Packs (what few remain) at prices from $20 or $25 (at Best Buy) to a mere $12 (at Walmart). At that latter price, I picked up a copy for PS3; at that price it’s more than worth it for the bricks alone, and I now have the option to play it on either of the two Sony platforms it supports, plus I just have a backup toy pad in case anything ever happens to one. It’s sad seeing it go, though at least the game did better (and remains in better shape) than LEGO Universe...

Do you mean that this other company actually makes LEGO’s own products for them? That seems exceptionally bizarre...

I think so, as long as it’s not the main image but just one of many supplemental ones. It’s probably best to ask the Ideas team directly, though.

Here’s what it says under “Prizes and Rewards” in their Product Idea Guidelines: If your Product Idea is not approved in Review, you will receive the following consolation prizes. Up to three LEGO products totaling $500 USD in combined value, subject to availability. Huh. It doesn’t say whether they choose or not, though the “subject to availability” but makes me think it’s chosen by the user. You know, we have multiple users here who’ve had projects make it to review and then get no farther. Perhaps one of them will be kind enough to tell us (assuming they’re free to do so)...

Which three? There are at least seven people who’ve had three or more projects make it to review, possibly more (sometimes in collaboration, sometimes individually)...

Actually, looking at the wording in the rules more closely, it seems they may have already been doing this a while, and that most of us just didn’t know about it before:

I don’t know about 48x48, but the 16x16 baseplate has been released in trans-clear in multiple sets. There might be technical reasons along those lines, and indeed there are technical reasons why certain things haven’t happened such as all-transparent minifigures, but there are in fact lots of large transparent elements, including some in the very set you mention. The largest elements in the Ship in a Bottle are transparent. I suspect the main reason why a given element might not exist in transparent or in some other given color is because there simply hasn’t been a need for it. LEGO has molded railroad track elements in trans-clear, the same way they’ve molded Darth Vader helmets in red, but they’ve never released them in sets, just as they’ve never released XL motors in parapink, 16x32 baseplates in chrome gold, or tyrannosaurus heads in glow-in-the-dark.

The basteball minifigures actually had normal-length arms (though some of them had specialized, single-piece arm/hand molds designed to allow them to hold but quickly release a basketball). The minifigures with notably longer versions of the classic minifigure arms were all from the Toy Story theme.

I’m not. Space is cool! For that matter, science stuff in general is popular with the Ideas crowd, and has given us at least one additional set besides the ones I mentioned earlier (Shinkai 6500, and of course the Research Institute represents both chemistry and paleontology as well as astronomy). And for all these sets, there have been a slew of additional ideas that made it to review but not production - a previous ISS, scientists in the field, multiple particle accelerators, multiple natural history museums, an observatory, the first computer, and more. Space exploration is just the most popular specific area with the Ideas crowd out of scientific exploration, discovery and research in general. I think LEGO likes variety in its Ideas output, but at the same time I know it likes ideas that stir and inspire and carry actual educational value. Given how these latest three space projects all came in at 10k one after another, in such short time frames, and covering such similar subject matter (particularly the two SpaceX projects), I think there’s a real chance one will be approved. Then again, I’ve been wrong so many times before...

Right; these are about real-life space exploration, which is clearly a very popular subject for Ideas (see: Hayabusa, Curiosity, Research Institute, NASA Apollo Saturn V, Women of NASA).

SpaceX - The Ultimate Collection, a Product Idea featuring an assortment of SpaceX craft (including a Falcon Heavy) all in 1:110 scale (like the NASA Apollo Saturn V set) has just rocketed its way to 10,000 supports in just over 7 weeks, becoming the third Idea in the Second 2018 Review - after this SpaceX Falcon Heavy project, which attained its support in four months and six days, and this International Space Station project, which attained its support in just under eight months. The Ideas user base continues to send a clear, strong message about wanting spacey LEGO sets.

I think these are key. Social media promotion is critical. Good luck!

And now the long-awaited Voltron set has finally been revealed. It looks great! And it’s the largest (by piece count) and most expensive LEGO Ideas set yet.