How I built a stand for the UCS Millennium Falcon

Freestanding Millennium Falcon display with lighting

The Ultimate Collector Series (UCS) Millennium Falcon is an incredible LEGO set. It is absolutely huge, 33" by 23" and 28 pounds. My office has one in our common room, and this year I decided that I wanted to build a stand for it; a standard office table was not doing it justice. 

Acceptable, but boring, way to display the coolest set ever

I started by making paper sketches of stand options. I wanted it to be free standing so that visitors to the office could be greeted in proper geeky fashion. I wanted the 'Falcon to appear to be taking off and easy for viewers to see. 

Initial design (digitized)

I purchased some scrap steel from Coremark Metals and set about making a small scale prototype from 1/4" and 1/8" hot rolled steel. I used Metal Inert Gas (MIG) process welding with the Hobart Handler given to me by my brother Graham, who also makes some pretty cool stuff. 

Small-scale prototype

I was pleased with the small-scale prototype, and my coworkers were too. Bolstered by their feedback and the stability of the small design, I started work on the full size version. I scanned the 'Falcon with Polycam to get measurements and locations of its landing struts, then went back to Coremark to purchase enough steel for the full size version. 

Polycam lets you pull measurements from a 3d model

I purchased about 50 pounds of steel for this project:

• 1/8" Steel sheet for the landing pad
• Squares of 1/4" steel bar for the base (to make it heavy)
• 4' Length of square steel tubing for the upright

I assembled the base first. I used seven square 1/4" steel bars together to make a U shaped base that allowed space for wiring to come down through the upright, with a larger square 1/4" steel bar on top. I drilled a small hole in the center to run wires through. I tacked the small squares together before doing most of the welding, which helped to minimize warping of the steel from welding. 

Base design

I used several additional pieces of 1/4" and 3/16" steel to build a small box to house electronics at the base and cover the gap left at the bottom of the base. I was happy with the upright angle I used on the prototype, so I copied it to the angle to the upright and cut it with an angle grinder. I beveled the edges a little bit to try to minimize the profile of the weld. 

Wiring box

Attaching the landing pad was tricky, as my welding magnets and clamps did not work well to situate the upright. Eventually I made it work.

Full size stand welded and cleaned for painting

I spray painted the stand with a metal primer and glossy black paint (I was excited and probably would have gotten a more durable paint coat if I'd waited longer between primer and paint). I brought it into the office and was pleased with the result.

Fit test

I taped off the locations of the landing struts, then brought it back home again to trim the landing pad and assemble the lighting. I purchased a bunch of pre-wired LEDs and some speaker wire. I set the lights up in three strings, so that I could have multiple lighting settings. I decided to run a positive and negative line for each string to maximize flexibility. 

Trimmed, taped, and wired

I installed a couple of (unnecessarily) large switches at the base, as well as a motion sensor. For the motion sensor I 3D printed an additional mounting bracket, since it had to be located above the base to detect movement. 

Bracket for motion sensor, with rectangular hole at the base for a bar magnet and round hole for wiring. 

I used 1 1/2" bar magnets for several parts of the assembly. First, I used the bar magnets to help anchor the 'Falcon's landing struts so that the force wasn't entirely on the rear struts. Second, I used a bar magnet to attach the motion sensor bracket to the base. Third, I used a bar magnet to hold the battery in place inside the base. Finally, I used bar magnets to attach a steel cover to the wiring chamber of the base. 

I ran blue LEDs to the front and rear of the ship, and red LEDs to the upper gunner's station. I'm pretty happy with the result. 

The gunner's station lights up when people walk by

Everything is powered by a single 9v battery. The only power consumption is from the LEDs and motion sensor, so I am hoping it will last several weeks on one charge. 

 

My LEGO Statistics from 2017-2020

Continuing this month's statistics theme, I also spent some time looking at my LEGO purchases over the last few years. During each of the past few years I've purchased between one and four thousand LEGO bricks. 

Bricks purchased per year

I am a very price-driven LEGO buyer, and it is rare that I purchase a set with a price-per-brick higher than $0.09. My per-brick expense has not varied much since 2017. I included some low-piece-count Technic and Duplo sets in this dataset, so the average skewed high in most years (this is why, in general, median is a better datapoint than average). 

Average and median LEGO brick price from 2017. 

LEGO pretty regularly turns over their product offerings, which means that popular sets become scarce a year or two after their first release. I compared my initial purchase prices for my sets to the the current lowest price on Amazon (not including shipping). 

Price change for sets purchased in a given year to current lowest price on Amazon. 

This chart makes it look like LEGO would be a great investment, but note that what I'm comparing is the asking price on Amazon, not the actual sale price. There are also significant fees when selling items on Amazon or eBay. Here's another look at the price change, this time by series. 

Price change for sets purchased in a given year to current lowest price on Amazon, by series.

LEGO Star Wars, Harry Potter, Technic, and BrickHeadz increased in value most consistently. The highest price increase, 885.30%, was actually for a Harry Potter branded BrickHeadz set, Harry and Hedwig (the only Harry Potter set I purchased in 2017). 

This is a relatively small data set, but it does not appear that LEGO sets increase in value significantly in the years following their retirement. Sets from 2017 that are now retired are not consistently listed for higher prices than sets from 2019. I suspect this trend will continue until the ten or twenty year mark, at which the nostalgia factor will kick in. 

If you're curious to see the individual set details, you can see the full spreadsheet here. I am really pleased with Google's improvements to their pivot table implementation. 

If you enjoyed this post, you should subscribe to our YouTube channel, Bricks and Bikes!

LEGO Competition Finale Winners!

We have a bunch of winners this week! You can see all of their submissions here.

Age 0-5: Pepper

Pepper has a knack for out of the box storytelling that shows though in this wonderfully absurd piece.

Age 6-9: Elijah

Elijah was one of our most consistent designers, regularly delivering ambitious, clever creations.

Elijah also had the top score of all of this week's designers.

Age 10-18: Eliza and James

The team of Eliza and James have delivered imaginative and reflective concepts, such as Eliza's gymnast self portrait.

Creativity - Crank it up to 11: Wes (7)

Wes created a beautifully abstract seaside sunset that captured the imaginations of adults and kids alike. 

Style - Crank it up to 11: Linnea (11)

After a few days of woodland exploration scenes, Linnea changed it up (and turned it up!) with this hugely ambitious rock climbing adventure featuring a crew of climbers and a detailed rock wall. 

Story - Crank it up to 11: Thomas and Henry

Thomas and Henry told a classic story of a land lost and reclaimed.

Story - Crank it up to 11: Brooke

Brooke's story made us laugh more than any other. 

Most Consistent: Levi

Levi was the only designer to participate every single day of the competition! Levi's designs featured tons of superheroes in inventive, surprising situations. Levi's total score for the week: 283.5.

LEGO Competition: Week One Winners!

I am happy to announce our week one winners! Winners were selected based on the sum of their top two scores from the week. Full scores here.

Ages 0 to 5: Pepper

Pepper consistently packed her builds with stories and details, as shown in Thursday's "Doople Party"
Total score: 49

Ages 6 to 9: Violet

Violet's builds are polished and well thought through. She clearly has a broad LEGO skillset, including automated builds (Wednesday's space Winnebago) and action scenes (Thursday's police station escape).
Total score: 55

Ages 10 to 18: Thomas and Henry

Thomas and Henry were one of a few teams that competed this week (teams are categorized based on the oldest member). On Friday they gave us an unexpected spin on a classic western theme with "Food Wars," a battle of hot dogs versus corn dogs.
Total score: 50.5

Prizes!

Each of our winners gets a $30 gift card to a business of their choice from the list below! If there is another option you would like, let me know and we can do that too! 

• Izzy's Ice Cream (Minneapolis)
• Red Balloon Book Store (St Paul)
• Wild Rumpus Book Store (Minneapolis)
• Zenith Bookstore (Duluth)
• J Skylark (Duluth)
• Books and More (Bemidji)

Parents/guardians of winners, please contact me at smith.d.tyler@gmail.com to claim your child's prize.

LEGO Competition Day 02: Escape!

We had our first round of virtual LEGO building submissions today and the results were awesome! The overall highest score went to Louis (6) for his awesome underwater/driving/flying truck!

The theme for tomorrow is: Escape! Build something that tells a story about an escape, is a tool for escape, makes you feel like escaping, or something else entirely! I will try to evaluate video entries, but photos are preferred. 

As with today, you can submit by tagging me in a Facebook post or sending me an email (smith.d.tyler@gmail.com). Any pictures you submit may be posted publicly online. 

Watch the stream at 4:30pm on March 19!

Thank you to everyone who paid the optional entrance fee! We'll have three awards this week (one for each age category). The first award is: A $20 gift card to Izzy's Ice cream! 

Virtual LEGO Competition Day One: Trucks

I'm running a virtual LEGO building competition for everyone who's stuck at home right now. You can read all of the rules here.

The theme for day one is trucks.

Build something with LEGO bricks (or DUPLO) that involves trucks. You are encouraged to be creative (don't use a stock LEGO set) and to tell a story (you can build a scene around the truck).

I'll post the submissions and scores here starting tomorrow!

Why I bought a "girls" Duplo set for my son

Target allegedly is moving away from gender-specific sections. However, this change clearly has not yet reached the Lego aisle.

On the right: rocket ships, construction workers, police, and a myriad of other awesome adventures. All clearly oriented toward boys (every box is blue, red, and yellow).

On the left, beauty shops, princesses, and pop stars. Can you guess who these are targeted at?

Lego has injected some gender balance on the blue side, adding a few female workers and explorers. However, the pink side is still 100% female.

This frustrates me.

1. We're showing girls that while they can be one of a few women in male dominated industries, they're still "at home" as a princess in a castle. They must cross over from the "female side" to the mixed-but-mostly-male side.

2. We're showing boys that there are specific careers which are 'for women', and that women in engineering or science are the exception, not the norm.

Thankfully, my son is just as interested in the bright pink boxes as he is in the blue ones.

I bought him a (pink and yellow) veterinarian set featuring a female doctor. I can't make Target show a balanced representation of men and women, but at least our home Lego collection can.

I'm surely preaching to the choir, but this frustrated me so much that I felt the need to add my voice to the chorus.

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Don't forget to check out my book: The Siege of Abigail Beson! Available now on Amazon, Amazon Kindle, and createspace!