Happy Holidays from the Great Ball Pit

2019 has been a great year for Lego Great Ball Contraption!  There was a large amount of new modules and mechanisms created throughout the year.  Personal highlights were BrickCan 2019, where I was able to meet Lawrie and check out his Mini-Golf modules in person.  Second to that, I enjoyed helping contribute to the largest GBC the Pacific Northwest has ever seen at BrickCon 2019.

2020 will be an interesting "Transition Year" as Lego's Bluetooth initiative takes over and the Power Functions system is discontinued.  Many veteran builders have been stockpiling Power Functions components in anticipation of this situation. 

As for train controllers, they are still available on BrickLink but have increased in average price by approximately $3.00 over the year.  Be sure to grab a couple if you are planning on building GBC in 2020.

Have a great holiday week everyone!

GBC Observer 👁 Week 52, 2019

Week 52, the last GBC observer post for 2019!  There has been a ton of awesome modules built over the last year.  While I plan to do a 2019 recap post soon, let's look at some of the interesting modules that appeared over the last week.

First up is a new module using a familiar design, a hill climbing bucket.  The nice colour scheme matches the 42055 Bucket Wheel Excavator.



Next up some ball flingers.  Huw released a video of his latest shooter and Dunes had a copy built in only a few hours. He is quite the reverse engineer!





Rohan has built a few mini-golf modules using Lawrie's spec.   I love the Fabuland themed one!



Have a great week, and holidays! 🎄🎁

GBC Observer 👁 Week 51, 2019

It's unbelievable that I'm almost finished posting another years worth of Lego GBC here at the Great Ball Pit.  With so many great new modules and mechanisms being created in 2019, will we be able to do better in 2020?

For now, let's observe some interesting Lego Great Ball Contraption videos that have appeared over the last week.

First up, we get the Beyond the Brick layout tour from BrickCon 2019.  There was a lot of new modules this year, and the layout was quite well behaved.

Next up, dunes has created a great double version of the pass circle module that appeared recently.  This design features a double wheel and twice the lift arms to move twice as many balls as the original.

And finally we will end with a great narrated tour of the GBC that was at Swindon 2019 in the UK.  Lots of new modules in here alongside some classics.

Have a great week everyone!

GBC Observer 👁 Week 50, 2019

Welcome to week 50 of the GBC Observer for 2019.  It was a busy holiday shopping weekend here in North America, did you manage to snag some great Lego deals?  Let's take a look at a few new GBC modules that appeared over the last week.

First up, the first 42100 Liebherr ball contraption machine!  It appears that you can simply program the Liebherr to collect balls from an input hopper and deliver them to an output area fairly easily using the built in programming system, very cool!


 
Next, Ryk has recreated one of my favorite modules from 2014: the Dwarf Mine.  This was one of the modules that I looked at quite a bit before I started building GBC so I'm quite happy to see a recreation of it!



And lastly Pikohan shares some details on his "fan" module which is a nice compact wheel/sweeper that is powered by an unusual 4.5v motor.



Have a great week everyone!