LEGO Masters Australia
Season 4 Episode 4 – Car of the Future Challenge
Heading into the second week of LEGO Masters and we are up to our first elimination challenge. There are two challenges for our LEGO Masters to get through. The winner of the first build gets an advantage for the second. Greeting the teams is Hamish in a sparkly suit setting the theme for “Car of the future”. The curtain goes down to reveal: The Hamish; a car from the future floating on a magnetic plate. The team has six hours to build and one hour to get the car balanced just right at the end. Brickman points out that the magnetic plate is very sensitive, so the car needs to be balanced perfectly.
The Builds
Branko & Max – The Explorer Vehicle
An electric-powered vehicle that comes with an ethereal sound system. Ever the engineer Branko keeps testing and is assured it’ll work. They carefully balance it on the plate as the curtain drops and the car topples off the palate onto the ground.
Caleb & Alex – The Rock ‘n Roller
Caleb loves music so he wants to turn his car of the future into an ode to music. Their car starts having structural issues during testing but manages to keep afloat at the end.
Crystal & Andrew – The Influencer Mobile
Taking a cue from Crystal’s influencer background. Crystal is making the car she wishes she had when creating content with room for clothes and a burger joint so she can eat on the go.
Their hot pink creation manages to stay up.
Joss & Henry – The Post Apocalypse
The duo focus on creating a mail van of the future. The car can travel in space and has a large storage compartment and a cannon that fires out the mail to it’s destination. The car is placed on the magnet, but despite all the testing the car fails to hover. Brickman loves the concept but feels for the guys as their car fell off the plate.
Kirsti & Daniel – Retro-Futuristic Hotrod
Taking design cues from the ’50s they aim to have a retro-future look to their car. A retro-styled convertible powered by rockets. Their early tests have the car float so far. But as they put it on the plate and the curtain drops, the magnets connect. Brickman loves the aesthetics and states it’s done a great job at embodying the parameters of the challenge.
Lexi & Rachel – Pocket Full of Sunshine
A bright car with a rainbow canopy. With 30 minutes to go Brickman checks in on if they’ve tested the car. Lexi doesn’t want to test fearing the car will break, they try with two minutes remaining and give it a test. It floats. but as the curtain drops, something fails and the car collapses onto the platform.
Nick & Gene – The Axle-Otl
A mix between an eastern European/cyberpunk with an aquatic theme running through the car. Brickman comments how practical it is. Early tests shows the car is a touch heavy and unbalanced for the magnetic plate. The car goes on the plate and as the curtain drops it balances and spins. Brickman loves the car having an emblem made from a crab as well as using a canoe to create the front bumper.
Paul & Trent – Ipanema Dreaming
Their car is marketed towards the DINKs – Dual Income, No Kids (with dogs). The perfect vehicle for the unattached to have a getaway with the pooches. The curtain drops and the guys are happy to have a rotating vehicle. Brickman loves the idea having a customer in mind and the striking colours along with the perfect balance.
The Verdict
The top two teams are Nick and Gene along with Paul and Trent. Nick and Gene’s build is praised for how car like it looks and that it has a clear functionality. Trent and Paul are praised for designing with a customer in mind. The car of the future goes to Nick and Gene. They still hold the titanium brick making them safe from elimination as well as the ability to choose for the team in the next challenge.
Old is New Challenge
With the first big challenge over the team walk back in and are greeted with a range of old items with some baseplates stuck on. The challenge is to create something new out of these items. With Gene and Nick as the winners they get to choose who gets what item.
The teams have 11 hours to get their big creations complete.
The Builds
Branko & Max – Fridge – Rat Infested Fridge
Taking on the challenge of having a big fridge to fill Branko decides to set the scene by having it full of rats gnawing on all the food. Brickman gives points to the clear storytelling, but points out how some elements like a great milk carton is hidden behind a rat, but it passes the delta test.
Caleb & Alex – Television – Mice Cinema
As Alex is a mouse fan, so they tap into this and start working on a mouse cinema. Alex finds mice delicious (so did the Romans who served dormice as delicacies). Brickman comes by and asks Caleb to try his Brickman impression on him, which gets him a roasting in response.
Brickman loves the humour in the scene, especially on how they have created their own mice which fill the scene with whimsy.
Crystal & Andrew – Sewing Machine Monster
With Crystal being a fashionista, they are focusing on Crystal having a journey from punk, goth, emo, scene and couture. Brickman comments that the story is very personal and is hard to read without knowing the context. They realise that halfway through the sewing machine hasn’t really been used so decide to change the machine into a monster.
Brickman asks if the revised story will pass “the Delta test”. The final piece has many elements across the concept, but fails in execution as Brickman notes they had to explain what many things were. Also having to reuse elements from the first try hinders the final composition.
Joss & Henry – Piano – Duet between Life and Death
Finding piano music sombre so they decide to create two hands playing as the motif transitions between life and death. The team struggle a bit with trying to get the story clear deciding to shift the arms to create a dramatic composition. Brickman notes their idea evolved to a strong piece and loves the final build. His only critique is a bridge in the middle. While it’s well built, it detracts from the build.
Kirsti & Daniel – Spinning Wheel – Carnival
Noting they have an object that can freely spin Daniel decides to hook up a motor to the spinning wheel and gets it to move. They decide to create a giant ferris wheel. Brickman comes by and asks about what is their key feature. There is a challenge with them going up against another team with a big moving object. They decide to up the ante and create a tower-drop attraction that ends with a dramatic drop which puts the two in stitches.
Dan flips the switch and the ride gets moving. Brickman notes that despite a good execution there’s a few minor details missing, such as the drop ride not having a sign and the battery box sitting out in the open.
Lexi & Rachel – Japan in a suitcase.
Lexi draws from her love of Japan and creates a tableau inside a suitcase. Rachel has been set to task on creating her first character, a monkey that is chilling inside a hot spring. But with the clock running down the build is going much slower than they anticipated. As the timer ticks down the team realise they don’t have a finished build. Brickman gives Rachel points for creating a great monkey. The composition gets critique with elements such as a plain skyline, a distracting tori gate and a blocky blossom tree.
Nick & Gene – Record player – Underground Jazz Bar
As the turntable isn’t functioning they decide to create a mechanism to rotate a baseplate for the record player. Brickman sets them a challenge to have extra parts to make the dancers spin. But the team have the titanium brick on hand and wonder if theirs don’t hold up against the rest of the room.
Brickman loves how the abstract shapes and the dynamic poses sell the scene but has a concern that there there isn’t much LEGO used.
Paul & Trent – Grandfather Clock – Clock Monster
The husbands decide to create a monster crawling out of a clock and sneakily changing time.
Brickman initially wasn’t sure what the story of the monster was, but seeing the gears made it have more sense.
The Verdict
With all the judging complete the teams are lined up and await the first elimination. First up, the top two: Daniel and Kirsti and Nick and Gene.
Nick and Gene’s precise use of bricks helps their build capture the emotion needed.Dan and Kirsti’s imagination in creating a Ferris wheel out of a spinning wheel is acclaimed. But in the end Nick and Gene’s build earns them a consecutive win.
The bottom two are announced. Lexi and Rachel and Andrew and Crystal. Brickman steps through the criteria. Story, Andrew and Crystal’s is quite muddled. Lexi and Rachel also have poor storytelling. The sewing machine scene is very busy and Japan is very sparse. Rachel is given points for her monkey which saves their build and means that Andrew and Crystal are the first team to be eliminated.
Next time – A cut away challenge.
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