We Love What You Build Creates Awards for the 2021 Hungarian FIRST LEGO League Championships
Despite the global pandemic, building with LEGO bricks never stopped and the 2021 season of the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) LEGO League Championships continued on.
We Love What You Build (WLWYB) was chosen to design and develop the trophies for the Hungarian FIRST LEGO League Championships, season 2021. The association who organizes the FLL championship in Hungary reached out to us in August 2020. The WLWYB team had the opportunity to build the project from the ground up. Our goal was to create a trophy that is mechanical and stands out from the previously seen trophies in other words, we aimed to think “outside of the box”. Even the first blueprints were of a box with a technic gear that emerges from the box when one opens it.
Our idea was to produce the iconic 24 tooth gear x-187 in doubled size made of aircraft grade aluminum. As one knows the x-187 isn’t in production anymore, the second version is, with the ID 3648. It is a similar gear as x-187 although there are a some of differences in the two Technic parts like the cut outs and the holes.
We scouted more than a hundred CNC machining companies to find the one that was able to produce the right product in a suitable lead time and budget.
The box’s final design was created by Tiago Catarino. Tiago was a lead designer at LEGO for several years and since he left his job at LEGO he is a freelance LEGO Designer. We can proudly say that we have worked with Tiago on several projects in the past year, he has a couple of his MOCs uploaded to MOCHUB where one can order those MOCs as a bespoke LEGO set. MOC is the acronym for MY Own Creation in the LEGO niche.
Tiago solved the design and the mechanics of the box perfectly. It’s a 10x10x10 cm (3.9×3.9×3.9in) sized box built of 205 LEGO parts.
The trophy stands were made of plexiglass. Each stand is engraved with the FLL logo, the location of the particular contest and the different winners categories.
As I know it’s not common that a uniquely designed trophy is used at FIRST LEGO League Competitions (although the Hungarian organizers loved the prototype), we were all thrilled when it got a green light by LEGO Education too.
For those who have never heard of FIRST LEGO League before, it’s a STEM competition for kids between the age of 4-16 around the world. The participants build mesmerizing creations of LEGO system and technic bricks and pieces with robotics programs included. There are 6 category prizes in the competition: Best Ream, Best First Core Values, Best innovation, Best Robot Game, Best Robot Design, Best Coach.
In Hungary there will be 5 regional competitions starting at the end of April 2021 and the national competition will be held at the end of May 2021. At last they will be held online, safely.
Our whole team is looking forward to the feedback of the trophies by the participants and winners, We’re sure they’ll be really proud and happy to own this uniquely designed and manufactured prize.
What is WLWYB (WE LOVE WHAT YOU BUILD)?
WE LOVE WHAT YOU BUILD (WLWYB) is a EU based startup venture and has been a key player in the secondary market of LEGO for more than 12 years. It all started when the founder, David Kokai built the Chrysler Building and he had to search for the essential LEGO bricks on Bricklink. The building itself became a more than 3 meters (9ft 10in) high MOC with more than 50 thousand parts. Being an enthusiast of LEGO and data analysis, he started his own Bricklink store that time in his own home. When he found out that this hobby started to become his daily work, he gave up his career after more than 15 years the IT sector and started to grow WE LOVE WHAT YOU BUILD with a small team. The team is still growing, now a group of 11 people.
The first bigger step was in 2017 when the idea of MOCHUB arose and then set out. MOCHUB was the first marketplace in its niche where anyone from around the world can upload their builds with instructions and parts list and anyone around the world can order that MOC as a bespoke LEGO kit. It’s a great opportunity for several builders and designers to monetize their hobby. We are working with more than 150 designers from the well known and upcoming and we have more than 500 MOCs on MOCHUB. Like JK Brickworks, Ben Minder, Tiago Catarino and Rolling Bricks. We ship worldwide and we only work with new and genuine LEGO parts.
Another important year was 2019 when two major events happened. The company received a venture fund from which we could start our major growth and after several years of preparing we started our neurodiversity program, which includes a customized onboarding process and assigning trained office buddies to support new hires. This a real uniqueness in the CEE region and I assume around the globe as well.
WLWYB has 4 main legs:
- Two parts dealerships with a store on BrickLink and Brick Owl with more than 30k SKUs on new and genuine LEGO parts.
- MOCHUB, the B2B leg where we work with companies designing annual company gifts and huge designs in their office or trade shows built
of LEGO parts. - Our new business line with own developed products started in December 2020. The first own developed product of ours was the Periodic Table of LEGO Colors which became a huge hype among LEGO Designers, LEGO enthusiasts, geeks and artists, now available in the second version.
We’re always proud of everyone we work with and place a tremendous emphasis on every LEGO artist we collaborate with. Stay tuned because we are working on our next crazy ideas, releasing a new products every quarter of the year.
