During 2015, I took the opportunity to reach out and work more closely with a cross-department counterpart of mine. LEGO Education has been evolving very quickly during the last several months and one such evolution was an emphasis on “community.” I was put in touch with Caleb Smith from LEGO Education who had been tasked with managing the relationship between the LEGO Education Brand and Educators community in the geographic area of the Unites States.
The obvious similarities between our roles was a kick start into a more routine dialog and even opportunity for us to shadow one another at our respective business trips. In April, I was privileged to join Caleb and a number of individuals from the LEGO Education team, at ISTE in Philadelphia. It was fascinating to see that area of the business’s focus and approach to supporting educators and events. As a tradeoff of sorts, Caleb arranged to attend three AFOL conventions in the US! I asked if he would be willing to share his thoughts here on the LAN and he agreed- although it took some time due to his busy schedule.
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This year, I had the privilege of traveling with Kevin Hinkle to BrickFair in Chantilly, VA and BrickCon in Seattle, WA, as well as solo attend Brick Fiesta in Austin, TX. Let me sum it up in just a few words… It was awesome!
BrickFiesta
My first trip led me to Austin, TX, where I attended my first AFOL Convention, Brick Fiesta. Unlike my two later trips (which I will talk about soon), I came to Brick Fiesta with the sole purpose of introducing AFOLs and convention visitors to LEGO Education.
Isn’t that just a wonderful booth? I brought our LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 Core Set and Expansion Set to the convention hall and had quite a blast. Many people were incredibly excited to talk to someone from LEGO Education and to actually see some of what we have, especially in comparison to what MINDSTORMS sets you can find in a LEGO Brand Retail Store. One of the best parts of Brick Fiesta was working with a small group of children who decided to program our robot to move based on colors – almost like a remote control with the color sensor.
The second best part was meeting this guy – the LEGO Movie characters watching the LEGO Movie – How cool is that??
BrickFair VA
My next trip led me to the great city of Chantilly, VA, to attend Brick Fair VA with Kevin.
This was by far the most intimidating convention I went to – Look at all of those awesome people! The next few days were pretty great and inspiring. As someone from LEGO Education, it’s not too often we interact with AFOLs and see what awesome builds have been made. The coolest project I had seen was the Great Ball Contraption – all of the modules that fans have built were just incredible.
The highlight of the trip was participating in a Q&A with my fellow LEGO Colleagues – LEGO Designer, LEGOLAND Master Builder, Kevin and myself. It doesn’t get much better than that, right? The questions were pretty funny at times and really made BrickFair VA 2015 an event that I will remember for many years to come. If I had to choose a favorite event I had visited, it would have been this one. The AFOL activities were brilliant and fascinating. The builds were also more fascinating based on my interests – It’s hard to beat those giant city builds with sweet looking trains.
BrickCon
The last trip of the year led me to BrickCon in Seattle, WA. As a longtime fan of Seattle, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to visit the city and visit the longest running AFOL convention in North America.
This is one of those events that I wish I had taken more pictures of every detail of every build – they were just astonishing! I spent several days here with some more of my LEGO colleagues, including a colleague from LEGO Ideas and Tanja Friberg from the LEGO Community team (Kevin’s immediate Manager). It was quite the adventure! Did you know that Seattle has a lot of pizza restaurants within walking distance of the convention center? Pretty sure I was able to visit at least a quarter of them!
The LEGO Group has some very passionate fans of our products. I can safely say that I learned more about MINDSTORMS robotics during these events than I had during my two years working for LEGO Education. Everyone was passionate about what they built and that was very motivating to me. When asked about how these events differ from the events I attend- It’s almost an unfair question. There is quite a big difference between trade fairs and fan conventions! The biggest difference was engaging with people who know more about the LEGO Brand than myself, or any of my colleagues. I felt like I was constantly learning about the LEGO Brand through the AFOL community, instead of educating others on our brand as they came to visit us. However, I did notice there was also a lack of robotics – we do love our robotics at LEGO Education!
The year 2015 is finally coming to a close – but I am looking forward to seeing what conventions I will be able to attend in 2016! I hope to see you at one of them!
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I’d like to offer another sincere thanks to Caleb for taking time out of his schedule to engage with our AFOL community and experience some of the amazing events we get to attend. We’ve been able to share some learnings between the two of us and take advantage of the opportunity to bounce ideas and questions from across the table. I’d also like to thank the owners of Brick Fiesta, BrickFair Virginia and BrickCon for their assistance in speaking with Caleb about their events and to the countless members of the community that welcomed him. Our colleagues are consistently inspired by our amazing community.
If you'd like to learn a bit more about Caleb and his role at LEGO Education. Beyond the Brick shot a quick interview while we were at BrickFair Virginia earlier in the year. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/embed/GLmQxEv1c5o
Edited by Kim Thomsen | LEGO
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