Lego exhibition builds popularity

Robots pirate ships space stations and a small city passed through the Morehead Planetarium this weekend.

Lego-Palooza brought along extravagant models and projects all composed of millions of Legos.

The displays including 5-foot-tall cityscapes" a series of structures based on ""Harry Potter"" and a stop-motion ""Star Wars"" film created with Legos drew hundreds of eager young children — and equally enthusiastic adults.

""Anything Lego-related is always a big draw"" said event director Carin Proctor. It's a chance for us to show off what we do and for people to see what else the planetarium has to offer.""

Proctor is the director of the N.C. Lego Users Group" an all-adult group of Lego enthusiasts whose members designed and built all of the models in the display.

The models were built at different times. Some have been in the works for months while others were built upon arrival.

This is the fifth time that the group has held the event at Morehead Planetarium. Proctor said attendance has grown during that time and their group has added more members with each event.

Wall-to-wall crowds filled Morehead Planetarium both days of the exhibit" making the exhibits standing-room only.

The group also hosts other events in the state and attends nationwide ""brick fairs.""

One of the exhibits showcased Lego Mindstorms NXT" a kit released by Lego that allows users to build robots with motorized movement light and touch sensors and to operate them with commands.

Projects created with the hardware and software included remote-controlled battle robots and a fully functional recreation of WALL-E from the animated film.

Another Mindstorms project was the brainchild of Lego group member Dan Pikora. Using an acoustic guitar a few hundred Lego bricks and a Mindstorms kit" Pikora has created a guitar that essentially plays itself.

""I play guitar a little but I'm not that great"" said Pikora. I built this instead.""

Pikora's project utilizes two mechanisms — one is designed to pick the strings and the other has a steel guitar slide attached to a motor that slides up and down a rail along the neck.

The displays in the planetarium were surrounded by curious children"" asking questions about the construction behind each model.

""Children don't get to use their imaginations enough today"" Proctor said. We want to change that.""



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