Brick by Brick: LEGO Shipbuilding at HRNM

Participants from last year's LEGO Event building the USS Monitor. 

Calling all ship builders!  Bring your LEGO ships to the Hampton Roads Naval Museum on Saturday, February 2, 2013.  The Hampton Roads Naval Museum, in partnership with the Civil War Navy Sesquicentennial, HARDLUG, and Bricks 4 Kidz, is holding a FREE program about building ships with LEGOs on Saturday, February 2, from 10am to 5pm.  

Several staff of the Hampton Roads Naval Museum/Civil War Navy Sesquicentennial have been getting emails about the event.  To clear the air, here is a breakdown of what you can expect in February. 

What is the same about the event from last year?

• First and foremost, it is FREE and open to the public.  No registration or sign up necessary!  If you must though, you can HERE.
• Bring your creativity!  Free play area to build ship designs for fun or to enter our shipbuilding contest.
• Local Hampton Roads LEGO user group HARDLUG will return with a display of LEGO ships (kit-built and original designs).
• Instructions for ship designs in the shipbuilding gallery will be available - follow the guidelines and build each ship from the keel on up!

What is new?

• For those of you who enter the shipbuilding contest, we have upped the ante this year!  More age groups = better prizes.  Win your own set o the ships debuted at this event, which include  the Monitor and Virginia!   
• LEGO Group Bricks 4 Kidz will be int he back of the museum with a fun demo of their programs.  
• We have all new ship designs to build this year.  This year, you will be able to build a miniature version of the CSS Virginia!  Other new designs include: LST-342, LCVP "Higgins" Boat, USS Norfolk, and USS Ranger.  
• Two SPECIAL EDITION sets for prize winners (USS Wisconsin and USS Connecticut)

All ship designs are based on real models or images of ships included in the HRNM Gallery.  Come and see if you can find them all!

This year's prize packages, which include the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (bottom of image)

The Hampton Roads Naval Museum encourages all those interested to come and check it out.  Last year, over 800 people attended the event.  If you can't make it, please let us know what Civil War ships you would like to see built this upcoming year by commenting on the CWN 150 or HRNM Facebook pages/Twitter (@hrnm/@civilwarnavy)

Want to get started early? Building Instructions for USS Monitor and CSS Virginia.  All instructions are available on the HRNM website to download for FREE. 

For all questions and inquiries, please contact Laura Orr at laura.l.orr@navy.mil or 757-322-3108, or visit HRNM’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/HRNavalMuseum.  A similar blog post on the LEGO event can be found on the HRNM Blog HERE.