Lego is not “just something you’d call a toy,” says Lucas Michlik, president of the newly founded Brock Lego Club.
2023 saw many newly ratified clubs joining the ranks at Brock, one of which being the Brock Lego Club. They held their first weekly event on Sept. 15, a trivia night, and followed it up with a viewing of The LEGO Batman Movie on Sept. 22. They plan to continue running weekly events in the same room, TH240, during the same time as the other meetings: 4 p.m, or close to it.
They have events planned for Christmas and Valentine’s Day, and a massive project planned to go on through the entirety of the year: a microscale replica of the Brock campus made of Lego. Microscale is a way of building Lego models smaller than the traditional minifigure scale, but Lucas says he plans the build to sit at a size of “five feet by two feet.” The club also has plans to visit Brickworld Chicago, a large Lego convention, in June.
Further meetings have elements of “collaborative building” planned, whether that be the building of actual Lego sets, contributing to the model of Brock’s campus or building their own products using online software and potentially displaying them around the campus. Lucas says the club has been offered space at an art gallery in St. Catharines “to show some of [their] work there anytime throughout the school year.”
Lucas describes himself as “a lifelong Lego fan,” interested in both manufactured sets and building his own creations, known in the Lego community as MOCs: “It’s kind of an escape from reality for me. You create your own world, you can design whatever you want, it’s just fantastic… I go home every day, I walk into my house and just seeing my Lego makes me happy… it’s beautiful.” He also explains how Lego fans don’t have to be interested in spending hundreds of dollars on sets or dozens of hours designing their own creations: “There are so many people I know who’ll have a flowers set or a car.”
Some people would call Lego juvenile, but Lucas disagrees: “They haven’t looked at a Lego set in fifteen years. Fifteen years ago, I will admit Lego was more juvenile, [but] even the boxes now, a lot of their sets will have black boxes and it’s meant for adults.” Sets with black boxes are typically categorized by Lego as 18+. “Before a lot of the sets were dollhouse styles or they were just cars, they were boats… Now, they’re going into landmarks, things based off movies… sets based for adults.”
“The sets that I buy… a display piece like the Eiffel Tower, I walk in and I think you could see that in a museum. I don’t think it’s just something you’d call a toy; I would classify it as art.” The Lego Eiffel Tower is a set that retails for $799.99 and stands nearly five feet tall.
Lucas has been frustrated with the funding process through BUSU Clubs, with funding being withheld until Nov. 4, when they will appear before the Clubs Policy Committee to request funds equalling over $1,500. Should they receive funding, Lucas hopes they will be able to visit Brickworld Chicago.
The convention space is 100 times larger than the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre and draws 100,000 people, according to Lucas. He wants to show his club members the “wow factor” of an event where creations exist that “you’d never think you could create… out of Lego. People that call it juvenile, when they see that, they would be like, ‘I don’t believe that’s Lego.’”
The Brock Lego Club provides students the chance to create new worlds and explore their creativity, all by clicking together little plastic bricks.
For more information, visit the Brock Lego Club’s ExperienceBU page.