Brick show attracts thousands
Matthew Bennett used 65,000 Lego bricks to recreate the Mackenzie Country’s Lake Pukaki and Mt Cook.
The Christchurch man spent all weekend at the Christchurch Brick Show building his scaled topographic map of New Zealand’s largest mountain and nearby lake.
He begun planning the 3 metre by 80 centimetre exhibit in May and started building it in June. He expected it would still take another two weeks to finish, although he would not be working on it fulltime.
‘‘It’ll drive me crazy to do it all day every day.’’
Bennett was one of 200 exhibitors from all over New Zealand who were showing off their Lego creations at the annual show at Horncastle Arena at the weekend.
More than 12,000 people attended the show.
Exhibitors, including many family groups, had spent months – and in some cases even years – planning their creations. Children as young as 6 built creations.
There were town scenes, famous city scapes, a talking robot, trains, a pre-historic scene with dinosaurs, castles and the New Brighton Pier. There was also a Lego machine that could solve a jumbled Rubix cube in seconds.
Exhibitor Michael Falls said it had taken him four years to collect enough white bricks to build the Battle of Hoth scene from Star Wars, which he entered with his son Ollie.
Motukarara man Andrew Dean and his 10-year-old son Avery won first in show with their Victorian steam punk Lego duelling robot, Lord Doolin.
The talking and moving robot gave people a chance to have a duel using a laser tag gun.
Dean said he built the robot over a week and his son spent another week creating the computer program.
They did not have time to fully test it before the show, so had no idea if Lord Doolin would run smoothly. ‘‘As it happened, everything came together and he’s had 800 duels this weekend without a glitch.’’
It was the second year the pair took out first in show; last year they won for their talking puppets exhibit. ‘‘My son likes to bring things to life.’’
The People’s Choice award went to the Nixon family of Motueka for their city display.
Margaret Nixon said she and her husband Tony and grandson Riley, 10, spent about six months putting the city together. ‘‘We didn’t come down to win people’s choice, but all that work we put into it has paid off. Everybody who looked at it, enjoyed it and that’s what it’s all about.’’
The event, in its fifth year, is organised by Bug 4/2 Incorporated Society, which operates the Imagination Station in central Christchurch.