Several weeks ago in the excellent weekly b3ta newsletter, they suggested that they would like someone to:
"BUILD A GARDEN SHED WITH LEGO - and live in it for a week. Complete with lego bog."
Easy we thought. And we emailed L*** asking them if they would lend us the L*** blocks to do it with. They politely declined. And will henceforth be known as L***. They didn't want the free publicity, so they jolly well shan't have it. They crushed our fragile little ***s.
Plan B was to buying new L*** blocks. We worked out how much it would cost to buy the blocks from www.l***.com. Our estimate was based on using standard height 8 spot by 2 spot blocks. From our calculations, to build a wall will cost £285 per square metre. To build a small shed like this would need around 10 square metres, and that's before we even think about roofing and door hinges. Basically, to build a £149.99 (inc. delivery) shed out of L*** would cost in excess of £2850 (excl. P&P). Admittedly it would never need to be painted, but that still didn't justify the business case. We didn't win the lottery that night, and thus Plan C was born.
Plan C was to buy the L*** in charity shops. Living in Portsmouth there is a positive surfeit of charity shops, so success was assured. After visiting each and every one of the charity shops in North End, Cosham and Albert Road, we decided that either nobody donates L*** to charity shops, or someone gets there before us to buy it.
In Plan D we gave up on getting L*** and decided to instead use the superbly suited Mega Bloks. Not only are they larger than L*** blocks, they are also cheaper, and available in charity shops making them ideally suited to over-ambitious construction projects during a credit crisis.
Armed with our supply of blocks we returned to our laboratory to construct this:
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As you can see, we slightly misunderestimated the number of Mega Bloks we would need. Either that, or we needed a smaller person.
After further trips to charity shops we still weren't sure that we had enough blocks to build a shed or even a small Plastic Brick Shithouse. We decided to scale back our ambitions in line with our limited budget and planned to make a shed for small children. And indoors, too, as we didn't want to risk killing our children with hypothermia. We also gave up on making the toilet due to the complexity of plumbing the U-bend into the sewer and the risk of soiled carpets.
Finally, we managed to make this small fortress, ideal for containing a 1 year-old for up to 10 seconds:
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As you can see it was not only guarded by a Wizard, a Pirate, a Dragon and a Knight, but also by a Ninja!
So, time to add up the scores: lego
- Build a garden shed with L*** = fail
- Live in it for a week = fail
- Complete with l*** bog = fail
That's an overall score of 0/3. Please send more Mega Bloks.
6 comments:
Nice try, good idea. I wonder if anyone has done it.
At this time of year you would need to site it indoors, as I'm not sure you could build a leak proof and gas tight central heating system from lego. Or Mega Bloks for that matter. And a solid fuel fireplace would be out of the question due to meltage. Maybe a complex arrangement of Solar Panels would be better suited? Or a plug in fan heater with an extension cable.
In the UK, Mega Bloks are called Duplo.
Fact.
Anonymous,
You are so wrong that it must hurt. Duplo is made by Lego in Denmark and is completely different stuff to Mega Bloks which are made in Canada. They do however clip together nicely as they are made in similar sizes, which may be where your confusion comes from.
Please feel free to check your facts and then apologise.
C-. must try harder.
build a small shed, then boil wash your baldmonkey until it's small enough to fit in it. this make take several weeks boiling in bleach solution, but it'll get there eventually.
glad i found this actually... im trying to build a house out of lego for a self chosen school project (just using the standard 8-dot pieces). we go back to school in a week, in which time my friend and i will start really working on it, but so far, just through spreading the word, i have 129 bricks... enough for a small tower.
we arent going to give up though... we are doing everything possible, raffling off things for money to buy in bulk off ebay, advertising in newsletters, offering to engrave a persons name into a brick if they make a decent donation, you name it. its tricky, but i think if we keep at it for long enough, we should be able to fit a small child in it. and when its all over, what will we have to show for it? a giant lego house. wish me luck!
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