With 2012 being such an important year for LEGO® Australia we wanted to get some of our biggest fans involved from the very start and looked to the Adult Fans Of LEGO (AFOL) community to participate in the first LEGO Festival Of Play activity.

So ahead of Brickvention 2012, with the help of LEGO Certified Professional Ryan McNaught, we set a challenge to 50 AFOLs to create a LEGO build using only 50 bricks to symbolise the 50th anniversary. All 50 creations were then displayed for the public to enjoy at Brickvention and then at Toy Fair (an industry event) in March.

Selecting 50 elements from the vast palette of currently available parts and colours was not an easy task. Many parts that are common staples of construction and many parts that are highly versatile had to be left out. Each element was ultimately chosen for both its versatility and its prominence within the LEGO building system.

In 2011 the 50 elements that were chosen were produced 5 billion times! Over time some of these elements have changed slightly, however they still work and interlock with the same elements that arrived here in Australia 50 years ago.

These elements, including many primary designs such as the ubiquitous 2x4 brick, have been the backbone of the LEGO system and are almost instantly recognisable, whilst others are relatively new designs and have only risen to prominence in the last few years.

One of the least common parts selected is known by many names, but its official title is Angular Brick 1x1. It is also known as ‘Erling Brick’ (named after its designer Erling Dideriksen in 1979), ‘headlight brick’ and ‘washing machine brick.” These names describe its history, original use and its look, but they only hint upon this element’s versatility.

AFOLs could build anything they wanted to as long as they used all 50 bricks and with an almost infinite set of piece combinations we weren’t surprised to see how creative some of the entries were.