Photo © Shannon Conrad

So, there are only two days left until Valentine’s Day, and you’re stuck for something really romantic to get for your significant other. Or maybe you have some ideas, but find yourself frustrated with the difficulty of finding something that meets your (and your significant other’s) geeky sensibilities as well as your romantic ones.

Well, you can stop worrying, because Etsy seller Shannon Conrad (aka rubygirl) has had the great idea of creating interlocking LEGO rings. These sterling silver rings look like the top and bottom of a 2 x 2 LEGO brick, respectively, and will fit together (though not click into place like the plastic pieces). This seems like it would be an ideal gift for a couple to buy together, and each give the other one of the rings — thereby making it less necessary for them to arrive in time for Valentine’s Day, too.

The rings can be made in any size and cost $125 (shipping is free). If you’re not interested in the pair of rings, you can also get just the top ring (for $70), on which you can evidently build with real LEGO pieces — it comes with a few, but it seems to me it might be fun to change them out based on your mood, and how cool would it be to put a minifig on it?

Hat tip: Craftzine.

The other day my four-year-old son and I put together one of the Ben 10 Alien Force models from Lego, a Big Chill the company sent me to review.

The first thing I noticed was how few pieces came in the box — 20, which is pretty low for a Lego model. This is because the various body parts come in one piece — upper and lower arms and legs, hands and feet, torso, head and two wings make for 16 of the 20 elements — the other four are snap-on decorative pieces. There aren’t even any Technic pins!

I was immediately reminded of Lego’s Bionicle line, which also feature relatively simplified models made up of fewer but more specialized parts. I’ll admit that I’m prejudiced against this sort of model — in many ways, my instincts tell me this is dumbed-down Lego, not in the same league as the magnificent thousand-piece models the company is known for. But here are 3 reasons why Lego’s Ben 10 products actually rock:

1) Playability. I loved building the Republic Gunship but you put it in a room with a 5-year-old and it will be in twenty pieces in no time. Lego’s Ben 10 products feature Bionicle’s tough ball & socket connectors for limbs, and these pack far more holding power than Lego’s System bricks (studs & tubes) but without the challenges of their far-stronger Technic pins and holes. The end result: great playability for little kids.

2) Ease of building. As the parent of young kids who, frankly, are too young for regular Lego but too old for Duplo, these models are cool enough to interest kids without being too hard to build. Building a 20-piece model is a challenge for a 4 or 5-year-old; building a thousand-piece model is an impossibility.

3) Creativity. At first blush these models don’t seem to offer as much creativity as System models. However, here are two reasons why this is not the case. First, Lego provides downloadable instructions on how to combine multiple kits into larger, cooler, non-canonical models. Second, there’s simply the fact that they’re not action figures, they’re models made up of multiple pieces. Inevitably, kids will mix pieces from different kits to create their own masterpieces. Furthermore, while these models don’t need Technic pins to fit together, they do have Technic holes in them so you could add Ben 10 elements to other creations.

If you have younger kids who just want to play and have fun, but don’t have the patience for building a big Lego model, you can do a lot worse than Lego’s Ben 10 Big Chill.

Photo by Anton Olsen

I may never understand why LEGO didn’t make it into the first two Toy Story movies, but they will definitely have a part in the 3rd one. What appears to be a geeky match made in heaven, LEGO Set 7595 merges three awesome toys into one great product.

There are no real surprises in Army Men on Patrol. About $15, 90 pieces, a slim pamphlet of build instructions and a lot of green LEGO. The instructions are very simple with no alternatives.

The Jeep is well constructed and durable. We “drove” it into the baseboards a few times before pieces started falling off. The army men, however, have a few problems. The plastic base will fall off after two or three “steps” in the standard little green army gate. Some of the accessories like the mine sweeper and rifle are awkward to pose.

WIRED: LEGO has recreated this iconic toy in a way that remains true to all the brands involved. The army men are visually appealing and retain the simple design of the injection molded plastic men we had as kids. The Jeep is durable, fun to build and well designed.

TIRED: Like some of LEGO’s newer sets, there are a few durability issues. The men easily lose their base, hats, and accessories with gentle play.

Recon tells me that the enemy is setting up an ambush north of our position. I’d better cut this short and get the drop on them before they get dug in. Anyone have some air support I can call on?

Photo: Greig Chisholm

Christmas 2009 brought a good haul of LEGO, including another entry in the LEGO gaming range: Race 3000.

Race 3000 allows you to build a LEGO Grand Prix track and to race around it with up to 4 players, overtaking, switching lanes, avoiding oil slicks and taking shortcuts. There’s even a little LEGO podium for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd placed cars to assemble after the race.

The game requires a little building to put together. There are about sixteen steps to build the race track and the instructions are well laid out as you would expect from LEGO. It took us about 15 minutes to build the game and the board is designed with a convenient break-point to allow it to fit back in the box without disassembling.

At its most basic level, this is a simple dice race. You roll the die and move the indicated number of spaces around the board. The die itself warrants special mention as it plays a crucial role (no pun intended) in the game. It is the same rubberized cube found in Minotaurus, but you start with only a couple of tiles relating to the turbo boosts on the die. As you roll, you add tiles of your color to the face that is showing, allowing the die to develop differently with every game. Depending on the tiles visible after a roll, multiple players may get to move their cars on each turn. This really adds a lot to the depth and replayability of the game.

The die mechanic, whilst quite ingenious, brings with it a problem. Because there can be a number of actions each roll, there is a certain amount of patience required, which can be a bit of a stretch for younger players. A turn can involve adding another tile to the die, moving, and then allowing the other players to move as well, all with reference to the original roll. We found our youngest almost had to sit on his hands to stop him from fiddling with the die during an extended turn.

The rules run to 3 well illustrated pages, though they need careful reading as some of the rules are a little abstract and hard to follow. Players are encouraged to create their own rules and upload them to the LEGO website. Unfortunately there isn’t much structure to this and the rules suggestions seem to take the form of a long, rambling forum thread. I would have liked to have seen something a little more formal and organized. With regard to house rules, there is one that we quickly implemented. The game keeps playing until a first, second and third player have been found. Once the winner has finished there is isn’t much guidance in the rules for how to bring the game to a speedy conclusion. When we play, once a player completes the race, his tiles are removed from the die and he takes no more turns in the game. With the free spaces on the die, the end of the game goes much faster and the remaining players can add their tiles to the newly revealed spaces.

Our initial impression of this game was that it was a little clumsy to play, but once we had played a few turns, the rules started to make sense and a good time was had by all.

Wired: The die mechanic is excellent and plays to Lego’s strengths. Captures the feel of high speed racing, with LEGO!

Tired: The rules are slightly clumsy and take careful reading. Requires some attention to detail that younger players may struggle with.

Flickr user Levork / Creative Commons Licensed

Great minds really do think alike. Here are several awesome Star Wars-themed chess sets built out of LEGO bricks:

• icgetaway’s “Star Wars: A New Hope Lego Chess Set” (seen on MetaFilter by Matt)  (also photographed by this user, as well as this one, and this one, and several others)
• Levork’s “Lego Star Wars Chess Set,” which he made as a gift for a groomsman
• Arkimedes’s “Star Wars Lego Chess–Saga Edition” (one set for each movie)
• Asp228’s Clone Wars-themed set

If you build a set, be sure to share it in the GeekDad Flickr pool so we can all enjoy!

Promotional image via Lego

There are six sets in this release of Lego Toy Story suitable for ages 6-12 and 7-14. Firstly we have “Woody and Buzz to the Rescue”, recreating the chase on the RC car at the end of the first movie. Woody and Buzz minifigs are included and the car has a pull back motor.

The premium set of the range seems to be “Woody’s Round-up”. Containing 502 pieces, it recreates the scene of the titular TV show and includes Bullseye, Woody, Jessie and Stinky Pete minifigs.

The Buzz versus Zurg battle is given the Lego treatment in the “Buzz’s Star Command Spaceship” set, a fairly chunky looking spaceship that comes with Buzz and Emperor Zurg minifigs.

Stepping away from the minifig scale, two sets are offered which allow construction of larger models of both Buzz and Zurg. These sets are known as “Construct-a-Buzz” and “Construct-a-Zurg” respectively. Both of these sets come with an Alien minifig.

Finally we have “Army Men on Patrol”. The minifig Army Men come equipped with a jeep, stretcher and their equipment. I predict a healthy aftermarket for these figures on eBay - imagine an army of minifig Army Men taking on an army of minfig Stormtroopers, or Knights or Pirates. . . Why are Lego minifig Army Men better than regular Army Men? You shouldn’t even have to ask. . . .

image(s) (The LEGO Group)

There are moments in life that we have have experienced that put all the other moments to shame. These are moments when suddenly everything seems to come together at once. An idea is formed, a solution is realized, a problems is solved. At the pinnacle of these moments, there is a sub-moment. A sliver of time where everything just seems to click into place. LEGO recognizes that moment, and wants to help everyone who ever yells “eureka” to share that moment with the world and each other. So LEGO created a new portal to bring every inventor, artist, innovator, and creative person to one place. This place is called LEGO CLICK.

LEGO CLICK promises a rich community of collaboration on new ideas relating to toys, products and technology. The site itself is a social media sandbox. After the site loads, bricks come flying down from the top of the screen, stacking on top of each other. Each one a different piece of featured content from a different section. The bricks stack on the factory floor and last time I checked, are stacked into the sky being circled by LEGO choppers and planes. By the time you read this however, the bricks will most likely be through the atmosphere and into space.

The sections of LEGO CLICK are self explanatory, one pulls tweets from a Twitter feed with the hashtag #legoclick, one shows uploaded photos while another shows uploaded videos. The posts feed appears to be pulling in an RSS feed of anything mentioning LEGO. That seems a bit limiting, but then again - it is their house. Then there is a featured feed, which appears to be in house articles on LEGO.

The options for sharing and modifying the main page are plentiful and fun. If you choose to remove a LEGO brick from view, it doesn’t just disappear. A mini-fig on a jet pack races up and smashes it into smaller blocks. Want to share one of the messages on the blocks with the world? Simply drag the block to the social networking sites linked on the side bar. LEGO CLICK is all about sharing ideas, even if they aren’t yours.

The criticism on a site like this is clear, “another networking or social media website. Whoopie doo.” Except for one thing, it’s LEGO. LEGO could create a site dedicated to the design and manufacturing of thimbles and it would be cool. LEGO could make a site that does nothing but sling insults at you, but it would be LEGO and would probably be pretty awesome. A LEGO insult generator… hmmm. I have to give LEGO some credit on this one though. They are managing to bridge their physical world of toys with the virtual one pretty seamlessly. With the LEGO Universe MMOG coming soon and their very successful video games, it was only a matter of time before LEGO invaded the social media space as well.

image (LEGO Group)

In addition, they have created a free iPhone app for those times you have a click moment and want to capture it, then turn it into a LEGO CLICK moment with LEGO Photo. The app takes whatever picture you just took and turns it into LEGO, then you can upload directly to LEGO CLICK. Really, I think we all saw that coming when I said iPhone app in an article about LEGO. I can’t imagine it doing anything else. Perhaps blending your face with that of a mini-fig? That’d be pretty cool. Disclaimer: that doesn’t actually exist on the app.

Last but not least, check out this pretty sweet video promoting the LEGO CLICK community. It was created by people who do weird music videos for groups like Chemical Brothers, Coldplay & New Order. I know, that’s all they told me on the release. One word can explain this video: whimsical.

To share personal CLICK moments, email LEGOCLICK@gmail.com, post a comment to the LEGO CLICK fan page on Facebook or send a tweet with the hashtag #legoclick.

Ike-Dog Image: Dave Banks

There’s a great little app that’s just made its way to the iTunes store. It’s called LEGO Photo (links to iTunes), and it allows you to take any photo from your camera lens or your existing library and turn the pixels into LEGO bricks. It’s simple to use - just take or pick out a photo, click the button … and you’re done. If you’re not happy with the outcome, simply touch the screen and the app chooses a new palette of colors. Once you’re satisfied, click save and your LEGOized photo is saved to your photo library. And the best part of all - LEGO Photo is free.

Update: A fun suggestion from GeekDad Matt Blum: Take a screenshot on your phone (press Home button & Sleep/Wake button simultaneously - it will be saved in your photo album) and turn it into LEGO bricks.

Newton uses a prism to demonstrate that white light can be broken down into a spectrum of colors. In Lego. Credit: Kubik-Rubik

Today is Sir Isaac Newton’s birthday, as you know if you’ve been on Google’s homepage. In addition to laying out the Laws of Motion, he also did innovative work on the properties of light, as can be seen in this Lego re-enactment. I’ll be reviewing a new kids’ book about Newton — who was quite an interesting and somewhat quirky guy — very soon.

Kathy Ceceri also blogs at Home Physics.

All hands on deck! This amazingly detailed and realistic historical ship has three removable sections. The main hull contains 4 firing cannons, ammunition crates, muskets, torches, cannonballs, a prison with a rat, a fully-equipped ship’s kitchen, working anchor, moving rudder and a saw shark minifigurehead. The front deck has an opening door to the inside of the ship and sails with masts and rigging. The back house deck has opening doors to the captain’s chambers containing a map, poison bottle, organ and a treasure chest full of jewels and gold. The Imperial Flagship has 6 opening windows, a telescope and sextant and 3 deck lanterns. Includes 9 minifigures: the ship’s captain, his daughter, a pirate captain prisoner with shackles, the ship’s cook, a lieutenant, and 4 soldiers. Measures 29.5” (75 cm) long and 23.6” (60 cm) tall.

The touch I like the most is the pipe organ in the captain’s quarters. But don’t look for this bad boy in your local toy shop, apparently it’s exclusive to Lego’s online store.