February 2018 welcomed a new official LEGO event in the USA: LEGO LIVE. This event celebrated community, creativity, and of course those iconic bricks. I, along with Kyle (aka Builderdude35), Justine, and Jon took charge of developing an interactive LEGO MINDSTORMS Booth. Besides showing off some exclusive MOCs, our both was also home to an epic LEGO MINDSTORMS Sumo Challenge!
Our sumo challenge invited guests to modify the tracker robot that can be built with the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 set. Once modified, guests could program the bot with the use of colorful blocks. This idea is hardly new, having previously been used other projects, such as NXT P-Sumo with RFID cards, and color blocks with the EV3 Fix-It Factory. This approach provides an easy interface to program a robot while at a show, without the need for lots of laptops or iPads.
After building and programming their bots, our guests were invited to compete against each other in our sumo right. Yours truly spent the majority of the event announcing matches and celebrating these matches, but traded off with Jon and some of our assistants. With thousands of guests per session, we hosted several hundred sumo matches!
While sumo was a huge draw for the booth, we also came with some unique EV3 MOCs. Kyle brought his hallmark grunt while Jon brought his incredible LEGO birds. Justine showcased her EV3-ified Millennium Falcon. I brought Creep3r. Just naming a few. With so many bots, it was a struggle to keep batteries charged and man all the tables! Not bad for this small group.
The booth often had a wait of 20 or 30 minutes to play sumo. Our MOCs provided a great distraction for kids and adults waiting in line. We were able to catch one calm shot before the crowds and it was impressive to see what 4 AFOLs could create in their spare time!
Even with all the crowds and robots to maintain, we still found time for fun! There were some human-sized minifigs walking around and Justine and I were able to score a selfie with LEGO Lady Liberty!
It was a great weekend and come Sunday night it was hard to believe it was over. Packing up, we were all sad to leave.
As cool as LEGO LIVE was, I was disappointed to leave one MOC behind. I haven’t showcased this creation yet, but here’s a sneak peek for those of you who read the whole post! Stay tuned for more!
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