On the third Wednesday of every month, a group of adults gathers at the CO-Hatch Market in downtown Springfield to see what they can make with LEGOs.
Librarian Catie Stewart calls out different challenges, telling the group to make something surprisingly random — a favorite candy or a landmark from their hometown.
And then everyone starts shuffling through the big bins of bricks.
“With that prompt in mind, we’ve got to find some inspiration,” said Alan Cruz at a recent gathering.
As he picked out blocks, he talked about how LEGOs had influenced his life.
“This was my favorite pastime as a child. I came from poverty, so my parents could just buy one toy, and I would just reuse it, tear it apart, and come up with new ideas. It's actually probably why I'm an engineer now,” Cruz said.
Jose Farias, who grew up 1,200 miles away in Mexico, has a similar story.
“Growing up with LEGOs was part of the reason I studied mechatronics engineering. That’s a little bit of mechanics, electronics, stuff like that,” he said. “So, currently, I'm working for a company that makes car parts.”
But on this Wednesday night, Farias was making a LEGO sculpture of a famous fountain in downtown Cancun. The person at the next table was making a LEGO Niagara Falls.
Cruz found the hometown inspiration he was looking for, too. He decided to make a Wright Brothers plane.
The only catch is that players are on the clock. They usually do a few warmups, at five or 10 minutes for each, then they do a big challenge in 30 minutes.
“One thing you'll notice is that we're all really engaged,” Cruz said. “It’s actually a challenge to find the pieces you need in the time frame we're given and then to come up with some kind of workable idea.”
One unique thing about this Adult LEGO Club is that there are no judges or points, or winners or losers, librarian Stewart said.
“It's sort of like, ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?’” she said. “The score is made up, and the points don't matter. We just provide a place for you to enjoy building and having fun and being creative.”
The Brickmasters
The Springfield group isn’t alone. There are so many LEGO lovers out there that they have their own acronyms. AFOL is an Adult Fan Of LEGO. A LUG is a LEGO Users Group. OKILUG is the Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana LEGO Users Group.
OKILUG helped host a Brickmaster Showcase at the WACO Museum in Troy recently.
Mark Stephens, the president of the nonprofit, is perhaps best known for building “The Brickmore,” a LEGO sculpture of the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. The real Biltmore liked it so much that it's on display there.
Stephens said the final sculpture was about 10 feet wide, 5 feet thick, and 3.5 feet tall. That build may seem extreme, but there are others — entire medieval villages and hotel skyscrapers with rooftop pools.
Jay Bigalke has been building downtown Troy in Miami County in LEGOs for six years now.
“The first building that I actually put together was the bicycle shop and Winans because who doesn't need a little coffee to start a LEGO build?” he said.
There’s also the square in the middle of town with its gigantic Christmas tree. That’s because his ever-expanding LEGO Troy is a downtown window display every holiday season.
And adults aren’t just playing with LEGOs; some of them are making a living from them. Ashley Wildermuth and her husband opened BA Bricks in Troy.
“I always wanted LEGO as a kid, and it was not necessarily in everyone's price range. So, I wanted to be able to keep it accessible,” Wildermuth said. “My son, he’s on the spectrum, and we found out that LEGO was key to helping him progress and grow. So, as soon as we realized what a knack he had for LEGO building, I was like, ‘Yes, of course. Here we go!'”
Wildermuth and her son, Nick Robbins, built a moving LEGO set that has the Earth rotating around the sun, and the moon rotating around the Earth. Robbins motorized the set so it would get more attention at events like the Brickmaster Showcase.
“It’s normally hand-crank powered,” he said. “But we can just turn on the battery, and it goes on its own.”
As for LEGO’s appeal, Robbins is quick to note that “it’s just a really fun thing, no matter your age.”
And one more LEGO acronym: TUBS stands for The Ultimate Brick Show. It will be held at the Greene County Expo Center in Xenia on April 12 and 13.
The show will have activities and workshops, and there will be displays by local builders who were on the LEGO Masters reality TV series.