Jens Nygaard Knudsen (former Chief LEGO Designer) passes at 78

I just found out from Brickset that former Chief LEGO Designer Jens Nygaard Knudsen passed away last week on Feb 19, 2020 at the age of 78 after battling ALS.

• CNN article - https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/25/business/lego-minifigure-creator-dies-scli-intl/index.html
• People Magazine  article - https://people.com/human-interest/jens-nygaard-knudsen-lego-minifigure-creator-dies-78/
• Brickset's post - https://brickset.com/article/49052/designer-of-the-minifig-passes-away

For those that didn't know, Jens Nygaard Knudsen worked at LEGO from 1968-2000, leading the design team in the 80s and 90s. During his tenure there he was responsible for inventing the LEGO minifigure (42 years "young" now) and designed the entire first LEGO Space (classic) line.

LEGO, and even more specifically LEGO Space had such an influence on my early years. Perhaps many are too young to remember, but before LEGO Star Wars, there was LEGO Space. That LEGO line totally captured my imagination and I spent much of my childhood on LEGO space adventures. It is not an exaggeration to say that LEGO helped shaped my decision to become an #engineer.

#NygaardMemorialFleet

To honour Jens Nygaard Knudsen, I'm joining Huw and others in building a LEGO space ship and posting with the tag "#NygaardMemorialFleet".

It's a variation of the Space Scooter set 885 from 1979 (https://brickset.com/sets/885-1/Space-Scooter). Unfortunately I don't have any of my original LEGO (one of my greatest regrets...) so I had to improvise a bit. I also thought it would be fitting to use the latest iteration of Benny the Spaceman  as well.

I found this quote from People magazine article (above) highly enlightening:

“His imagination was so fantastic,” he said of Knudsen, who reportedly worked for LEGO between 1968 to 2000. “If we had a brainstorm, it was more like a brain hurricane because he had so many ideas.”

Thank you Jens Nygaard Knudsen. RIP.

SAP HQ Waldorf "Stern" Buildings

Sorry for the lack of postings this month but I got a little side-tracked...

It all stared with a post on LinkedIn where I asked for input on my next build. One of my former co-op students suggested I do a MOC of downtown a Toronto. Turns out that I had never done a LEGO architecture type build. Ironic because I think I pretty much own a set from almost every LEGO series (but heavily favouring Star Wars and Marvel/DC). As usual, before I really committed to anything I wanted to “dip my toe in” and make a quick test build/prototype.

So I decided to do a LEGO architecture style MOC of a very unique building in Waldorf, WDF18. It is shaped like an asterisk (“*”) with a large circular middle column and six (6) arms or points. I thought this was a good challenge as it was a mix of curved/circular parts and also non-orthogonal parts.

WDF18 Prototype Build

Shortly after experimenting for a evening, I posted a “prototype” on my LinkedIn. I asked my network if they could recognize the build. I was absolutely shocked when in less than a week I had 10,000 views!

Prototype LinkedIn Post

As the views and likes were flooding in I felt obligated to respond. So I committed to try expand the build. In less than a week I had built out WDF19-20-21, two building that had the “star” shape and the atrium that connected them. I have been to SAP HQ in Waldorf, a few hours from Frankfurt many times, but not in the last two years (my last three trips had been to the Potsdam office near Berlin). So I went from memory and a few pics I could find the on web. A weekend afternoon and a few late nights and I had a much bigger build.

WDF19-20-21

Again my network totally blew away my expectations. While the “prototype” posting had 10,000 views in a week, this posting had 10,000 in 24 hours! (As of this writing it has over 27,000 28,000+ views and  360+ 370+ likes.) At one point it was the top trending posting in #engineering.

Larger MOC LinkedIn Post

I had been asked how long it took me to build it all. The initial prototype was done in a night and took about 3-4 hours? The larger build which is 6 sand-coloured base plates was built in the next week and couldn’t really be more than 21 hours? I still had a full-time job and two young kids, so I was limited to late night and one weekend afternoon. So my best guess is about ~25 hours.

I learned that my LinkedIn network clearly loves LEGO and loves SAP. Below is the latest slightly refactored MOC:

You can see more pics in my Flickr Album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/181958180@N03/albums/72157713228607767

You can also watch a 30s video of MOC on YouTube: https://youtu.be/eGB3fkiJVpo

Look for a part 2 where I will talk about the various parts of the build and techniques used.