Idaho LUG Blog

We had a busy meeting discussing the many STEM events we have been doing around the valley. We have already supported three elementary school STEM nights as well as the BSU Engineering and Science festival. There are still four more already on the calendar.

To help out with facilitating STEM events Greg has put together kits that contain everything you need to support an event. There are signs promoting the group and MOCFEST!, instructions for several STEM activities and all the bricks you need for the event. Two kits are currently available and there are plans to put a few more together.

HACFORT is doing a technology theme this year and asked us to help out with STEM events. Unfortunately we aren't able to support them this year but there is an opportunity to display MOCs indoors at the Grove on Saturday March 23rd. Contact Greg if you would like to display your MOCs. We would like to be able to display a Great Ball Machine (GBC) during the event next year.

MOCFEST! 2024 is scheduled for 18 - 19 May at ABU Games. We are holding weekly planning meetings and all members are welcome to participate. Contact Greg if you would like to attend the planning meetings. There will be several volunteer opportunities as we get closer to the event.

Only one show and tell this month a throwback to some classic Bionical sets, Core Hunter and XT-4

One of our members has two MOCs up on LEGO Ideas if you have an account you can take a look at his contributions under GeckoGamer004. Gecko Diaoramas is currently a staff pick!

In other LEGO news a new gift with purchase (GWP) Micro Rocket Launchpad will be available from February 16th - 18th for all LEGO Insiders with the purchase of $200 or more. There is also a rumor that one of the collectable minifigure (CMF) sets will be based on Dungeons and Dragons. This will probably be available in September.

Many thanks to everyone that attended the meeting. Next meeting is on March 21st at 7PM!

The Boise State University Engineering and Science Festival was a five-hour event from 10AM till 3PM on Saturday, February 3rd. The event took place in many buildings around campus. We were located in the BSU Gymnasium in front of Extra Mile Arena. 

We setup at 9AM and we had a busload of middle school kids show up about 10 minutes before the event officially started. We had a steady stream of kids and some adults that wanted to build towers. We gave away prizes for the tallest tower every hour which motivated several of the builders. Our tallest tower was 47 inches tall but it wasn't sturdy enough to pass the tip test. 

Overall we had nearly 200 towers built during the event and three people arrived to pick up their prizes. We had about ten LUG members come down and help out during the event. We also had four students from the college of engineering who helped as well. The event went very smoothly with a quick setup and tear down. Plenty of people stopped by to build or just hear about the group despite the bad weather.

There are plenty more STEM events on the calendar for this fall. Watch our Facebook page for more opportunities to help out with these events.