No, I am not affiliated in any way with
the LEGO Group.
Please see my disclaimer for details.
-- David A. Karr
This document is the home page of a World Wide Web resource located at
http://www.porchwithhouse.com/lego/index-txt.html.
There is also a
version of this document
with in-line thumbnail images.
Hot list: The Official LEGO® World Wide Web Site -- my Guide to the LEGO FTP archive -- Joe Lauher's Construction Toy Home Page -- Michael Dorneich's Everything LEGO -- my list of LEGOmaniacs on the Web
If you've been here before, you might want to check the list of what's new, updated on 29 Sep 2003 .
I used to get an occasional question about why I created this Web site. See my explanation on its own Web page.
This is where I show photographs of my own LEGO® designs. Most of these are fairly recent, since unfortunately I have very little evidence left of any of my childhood work.
Nowadays I design most of my models for use with minifigures, but adapting from the style that I developed over many years around the figures I built myself because they were the only ones available. Look at the following pages for complete discussion and links to the images of the models:
My daughters, Jane and Polly, have put together quite a number of models of their own, and have added important enhancements to some models I put together. I think some of these designs and enhancements give insight into the way young children play with LEGO®.
It seems impossible to keep up with all the wonderful LEGO® models that people have posted on the World Wide Web, but take a look at my links to a few of my favorites, including an animation of a walking ``spider,'' a complete two-story house, a large red dragon, a 1959 Cadillac convertible, and several other beautifully finished models.
To try to sort through the many available Web pages, I've very roughly categorized them as follows:
Here are some servers that I think most people will want to see.
A number of the pages that are currently in the list of LEGOmaniacs on the Web really should be in the above list due to the depth and breadth of their content. My apologies to everyone whose excellent efforts I have failed to properly acknowledge here.
There are so many Web sites at schools of all sorts (from fourth grade up through graduate school) that I've had to list them on a separate page. Happy hunting!
The Usenet news group for LEGO® topics is rec.toys.lego. A hypertext version of the rec.toys.lego FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions list) is maintained by Tom Pfeifer in Germany. A plain-text version (not necessarily up-to-date) is in the LEGO® FTP archive (also described above).
In early 1995 a number of subscribers to rec.toys.lego participated in a ``roll call'' by each posting his or her response to a survey. Andy Watkins and I archived as many of these responses as we could, and I continue to archive responses to the periodic reissuance of the survey. These archives are combined in an on-line summary.
The NIC keeps a page of statistics on the rec.toys.lego newsgroup which may be interesting to view; see their guesses about how many of us read the newsgroup and how many hundreds if not thousands of dollars each of our postings costs the Net.
There are frequent sales and auctions of LEGO® on the rec.toys.lego newsgroup. Some of these are for real ``collectors' items,'' but many break up brand-new sets to redistribute the pieces in different assortments; and in my opinion, this is a very good thing in light of LEGO's current organization of their sets.
In 1995, Todd Lehman ran one of these auctions, nicknamed AucZILLA, literally for months. This auction was so big, it even has its own home page on the Web, worth visiting (as long as it stays on line) if you want to see what kind of prices to expect for various pieces in Internet auctions. Todd has written an excellent rec.toys.lego Auction & Shipping FAQ with helpful information on buying and selling LEGO® over the Internet.
Jason Mantor (see his home page) has put his enterprise, RTL Bricks, on the Web. You can select a specific part from the RTL Bricks catalog in a specific color and order it in bulk. There is also a marketplace for individuals to post ads to buy or sell LEGO® of whatever kind they desire. The site has some raytracings of original designs and promises other services in the future.
Global Wholesale Toys has a page offering on-line purchase of LEGO® sets at about a 20% discount from ``normal'' prices. Their prices still seem quite high compared to U.S. Shop-at-Home, but perhaps that merely indicates that ``normal'' prices in New Zealand are much higher than in the United States.
Quite a large number of people have put their own LEGO® lore on the Web, or have volunteered to identify their regular home pages as those of LEGOmaniacs. I've tried to make as complete a list of these pages as I can. There are some real gems on these pages, too many for me to list above, so I highly recommend you peruse the (nearly) complete list of LEGOmaniacs' Web pages.
The Bayer Group---who, as it turns out, supply ABS plastic to the LEGO Group---have a page featuring the life-sized LEGO® Super Car and explaining the LEGO-Bayer connection. In-line images are linked to mind-boggling close-up shots of various parts of the car.
Gryphon Software Corporation is advertising a product called Gryphon Bricks, a three-dimensional drawing program for models built of LEGO-compatible bricks and other elements.