I was one of the judges for the
Brick Science contest over on Reasonably Clever. Now that the
winners have been announced, I'd like to post some thoughts on a few of my favorites. Most appropriately to this blog, I'll start with the
real or fictional scientist vignette category. One note overall on my judging. Since "science" was one of the criteria, I tended to give higher marks to MOCs incorporating some real scientific details. I'm also always looking for new building techniques, unique part usage, etc. Overall coolness of design is always important, of course. Presentation wasn't a specific part of my grading, but the best MOC can be obscured by a poorly lit, blurry photo from a bad angle with a busy background.
Ean H's
Theoretical Physics won the category, with Moog the caveman inventing fire, perhaps the most important scientific discovery of all time. A fairly simple build, but the idea here is a clever take on the category. The rat getting at Moog's food is a nice touch.
Rknum's
Louis Pasteur was one of my own favorites, as Pasteur is perhaps my favorite scientist. The ring stand design is very nice, also the old-school shields as burners, with the trans red one as hot, are a neat idea.
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a clever two-sided vig with "before" and "after" scenes. My favorite bits are how Hyde is destroying the scene, tearing down the "E", breaking the table (note how that's connected with a stickshift) and spilling the potion.
TK1420's
Dr. Bakker on a dig uses the skeletal horse from the castle line as a fossil. This has been seen before. The cool thing here is that the palentologist is someone that TK1420 knows and he even joined in the fun, being photographed with his LEGO likeness. How cool is that?
Kaptain Kobold's
Charles Darwin has the scientist in the Galapagos Islands studying a giant tortoise. I'm actually not a fan of the tortoise design, but the forced perspective with the microscale HMS Beagle in the distance makes this vig stand out.
Lord Pappadhum's
Eureka is a simple build, but it clearly illustrates the famous story of Archimedes in a funny way. I love the water spilled out on the ground.
While we're on it, SuperDave's
Archimedes illustrates the same story. The water spilling is well done, as is his head and arm coming out of the water. The best bit here, though, is that huge exclamation mark. Well played.
Kaczor's
Mendeleev includes a nice periodic table, abbreviated down to fit the size restrictions. I showed this creation to my intro chemistry students when I was talking about Mendeleev.
Rook's
Dr. Ivan Pavlov has a really nice solution for the bell.
Joonce's
Dr. Gaius Baltar has a nice chair design and the legs on the woman are well done.
Nightmare's
Bat trap does the best job of the contest at depicting action. Most of the other builds are rather static.
Nolnet's
Conrad Zuse was Graviton's pick for the winner with good reason. The computer is really well done, and the filter on the photo is really effective.
Zwitl's
Robert Goddard has some really interesting parts usage in the design of the rocket (for instance, check out the SW blasters).
