UPDATE: submission is now live and ready for voting! You can vote here:
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And it just so happens I have a design for them.
Lego has an ongoing, crowdsourced design competition called Lego Ideas that has led to a growing series of limited-run sets in recent years. It’s extremely competitive, and a long shot. But the Model D seems like an obvious choice, given that they recently released a set based on the most iconic guitar ever – why not follow it up with the most iconic synthesizer?
Part of why I’m excited about this idea is that the proportions of the Minimoog actually lend themselves very well to capturing in Lego. When I realized that the 3 1/2 octaves of keys matched up almost perfectly to the grid of the panel layout, I decided I had to at least try a proof of concept.
Why stop there?
I can’t afford or even find a TRx0x… but as Lego?
Like the Millenium Falcon, just a smaller version to spice up the studio landscape. Would love them!
I went smaller because at that scale, it’s getting pretty big (and not all that far from actual size), and the keys don’t match up with the panel (note the awkward 1/4 octave at the end of the keyboard).
Hoping this one hits the sweet spot in between too big and too small.
I made a few revisions: The side panels now use a slope brick instead of approximating the slope with steps (slightly less accurate, but it looks better), and I did some fancy plate-layering to adjust the spacing on the panel so that the red switches never butt up against the knobs.
Finally picked this up again, hoping to make an official submission within the next few weeks. Currently adding a few finishing touches, including printed pieces for the panel groups and the nameplate.
Ever have that thing where a project is about 95% done, but you know it needs a little something and yet you aren’t sure what it is?
This ended up in that awkward place for the past year. The model itself was ready, but the presentation didn’t feel like it was there yet, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do to get it there. Lego Ideas submissions always include a few pictures, but the lead image is the one that you want to get just right, as it’s your one shot to get people in and hopefully vote.
The past few days, I finally sat down with this again, and after a few more tries messing with BrickLink Studio’s indecipherable lighting options, fiddling with camera angles, and painstakingly touching up the background, at last I have an image that feels worthy of putting out front.
I’ve now been rendering and touching up the other views as well as putting together a write-up, so the submission is basically ready to go. It’s supposed to take a few days for it to go through the initial review, but once it’s live and ready for voting, I’ll post an update!
Voting is easy (all you have to do is create an account with your email address), but the process and timeline for what happens next are a bit more involved. There are a few phases:
Get 100 votes within 60 days. This unlocks a year to get to the next phase.
The milestones of 1000 and 5000 votes each add six months to the final deadline.
The final goal is 10,000 votes. While this isn’t a guarantee that the idea will become a commercial product, it does guarantee that it will now go through the Lego product development process where it gets evaluated and revised. If it makes it out the other end, that’s it, it’s going on store shelves worldwide!
I think the thing to see will be whether there’s a big enough overlap between the synth community and Lego fans to take this all the way. 10k votes is a lot, but if any of the bigger synthfluencers end up picking this up, it might just make it. I guess you can always @ them.
awesome idea
