From tanks to tow trucks, all the models showcased in this book use LEGO Technic gears, pulleys, pneumatics, and electric motors to really move. You’ll find some of the world’s best fan-created LEGO super­cars, construction equipment, monster trucks, watercraft, and more, along with design notes and breakaway views of the truly incredible mechanisms inside. Look closely, and you’ll learn how expert builders use differentials, suspensions, linkages, and complex gearing systems in their creations. Whether you’re a beginning builder or a longtime LEGO fan, Incredible LEGO Technic offers a unique look at the artistry and engineering that can make your LEGO creations come alive.

Worldwide sensation One Direction is back to share all their secrets, dreams and stories from the past year with the fans they love in the latest instalment of their must-have Annual.

Since the "Automatic Binding Bricks" that LEGO produced in 1949, and the LEGO "System of Play" that began with the release of Town Plan No. 1 (1955), LEGO bricks have gone on to become a global phenomenon, and the favorite building toy of children, as well as many an AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO). LEGO has also become a medium into which a wide number of media franchises, including Star Wars, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Batman, Superman, Lord of the Rings, and others, have adapted their characters, vehicles, props, and settings. The LEGO Group itself has become a multimedia empire, including LEGO books, movies, television shows, video games, board games, comic books, theme parks, magazines, and even MMORPGs. LEGO Studies: Examining the Building Blocks of a Transmedial Phenomenon is the first collection to examine LEGO as both a medium into which other franchises can be adapted and a transmedial franchise of its own. Although each essay looks at a particular aspect of the LEGO phenomenon, topics such as adaptation, representation, paratexts, franchises, and interactivity intersect throughout these essays, proposing that the study of LEGO as a medium and a media empire is a rich vein barely touched upon in Media Studies.

LEGOfied: Building Blocks as Media provides a multi-faceted exploration of LEGO fandom, addressing a blindspot in current accounts of LEGO and an emerging area of interest to media scholars: namely, the role of hobbyist enthusiasts and content producers in LEGO's emergence as a ubiquitous transmedia franchise. This book examines a range of LEGO hobbyism and their attendant forms of mediated self-expression and identity (their “technicities”): artists, aspiring Master Builders, collectors, and entrepreneurs who refashion LEGO bricks into new commodities (sets, tchotchkes, and minifigures). The practices and perspectives that constitute this diverse scene lie at the intersection of multiple transformations in contemporary culture, including the shifting relationships between culture industries and the audiences that form their most ardent consumer base, but also the emerging forms of entrepreneurialism, professionalization, and globalization that characterize the burgeoning DIY movement. What makes this a compelling project for media scholars is its mutli-dimensional articulation of how LEGO functions not just as a toy, cultural icon, or as transmedia franchise, but as a media platform. LEGOfied is centered around their shared experiences, qualitative observations, and semi-structured interviews at a number of LEGO hobbyist conventions. Working outwards from these conventions, each chapter engages additional modes of inquiry-media archaeology, aesthetics, posthumanist philosophy, feminist media studies, and science and technology studies-to explore the origins, permutations and implications of different aspects of the contemporary LEGO fandom scene.

"Virtual LEGO" introduces the reader to a suite of software that allows users to create and document computer-generated LEGO models. Written by maintainers of the official hub of LEGO model-building software, the book includes coverage of popular freeware tools such as LDraw, MLCAD, L3P, L3PAO, LPub, POV-Ray, and MegaPOV.