The latest 10K Club Interview takes us to the far edges of the Universe! Meet Chris, a.k.a. tonysmyuncle, and their JWST project. Inspired by their love for history! Show your support, and find out more below.
ABOUT YOURSELF
- What is your first name + last name?
Chris Stark, aka tonysmyuncle
- Where are you from?
Maryland, USA
- How old are you?
43
- What do you study or do for a living?
I’m an astronomer. I focus on studying other planetary systems, hopefully finding another one like our own someday!
- What hobbies do you have?
I enjoy most anything typically considered “DIY.” Home renovations, deck and patio building, landscaping, woodworking, etc. I used to dabble in amateur electronics and speaker building. I love anything hands-on, labor intensive, and productive.
- How and when did your interest in LEGO products come about?
I played with LEGO a lot as a child. I was in my room building for hours on end, content to create and destroy as I pleased. The process of building was always more rewarding than the final product. It was a creative outlet for me, but also a way to practice problem solving. I enjoyed the challenge of making the bricks do what I wanted.
I went through my dark ages for quite a while until an opportunity arose: about six years ago, my colleagues and I were brainstorming outreach ideas for a different space telescope we were studying. Someone mentioned building a LEGO model and I thought it sounded like a fun challenge. I had a very short timeline and absolutely no idea how to go about buying specific LEGO bricks! The model ended up being a big hit at astronomy conferences I attended. Since then I’ve been back into LEGO, building with my kids and for fun.
- What does the LEGO hobby mean to you? How does it fit into your life? E.g. build, display, meetups, play the games or 'just' watch the cartoons.
I mostly enjoy creating my own LEGO builds for STEM outreach. LEGO is an excellent medium to engage a larger audience in STEM topics. Most everyone can relate to LEGO, so it draws interest from diverse audiences and provides a great common ground to start conversations. In my line of work, it can also be a surprisingly useful prototyping tool.
- What is your favourite LEGO theme (current or past)? Why? And has any theme inspired your building style or preference in any particular way?
Blacktron, FTW! The theme really captured a sense of mystery and exploration. Hmm…maybe my love for astronomy actually started with LEGO??
- What is your favourite official LEGO set ever? Why?
6876, the Blacktron Alienator. I remember building that with my dad when I was a kid. That memory is in my head like a photograph. It was my first set that had any sort of simple mechanics to it, which I really liked.
- What is your favourite LEGO element? Why?
Hinges, bars, clips, etc.—anything that enables motion and interaction with the set.
- Is there a LEGO designer (official LEGO designer or fan designer) who you are inspired by and look up to? Who and why?
I must give a shout out to fellow astronomer and LEGO designer, Frans Snik. Frans built a model of the Extremely Large Telescope that I ran across at an astronomy conference. It drew quite an audience and left an impression on me. Frans’ efforts to use LEGO as a tool for STEM engagement is inspiring.
I also love Mitsuru Nikaido’s ideas. The aesthetics and building techniques are fantastic, an incredible mix of organic fluidity and rigid technology. And my hat’s off to the designers of the LEGO Fender Stratocaster. That was a marvelous and highly constrained sculpture!
- Is there one or more particular LEGO websites (not official LEGO websites) that you visit often and/or are inspired by?
Mostly just Bricklink
ABOUT YOUR PROJECT
- Where did your interest in this particular model come from?
Who doesn’t love the world’s most powerful space telescope? Observations are happening *right now* that will change our understanding of our place in the universe. We are all part of this process of exploration, in one way or another, and I wanted to create a model that celebrated that.
I also wanted to create a model that embraced the complexity of JWST. Builders can learn how the telescope unfolds, about the different instruments, how light travels through the system from the large primary mirror to the detectors, and how all of JWST’s complex systems work together to take the beautiful pictures we all know and love.
- How long did the process of making the project take and what did you have to research? What kind of prep, research and design phases did you go through to produce your creation?
The first iteration took roughly two years to build because my design process basically just consisted of hands-on tinkering. I would prototype some things with my kids’ LEGO bricks, then order parts, wait two weeks for them to arrive, assemble them and realize there’s a problem, rinse, repeat…. This was mostly during the pandemic, so mail delivery was slow, but the weekly anticipation was a lot of fun and I love working with my hands. I also don’t think I would have been entirely successful had I built the first version digitally—there was so much to learn about balancing the build and its structural integrity. I made sure to start by designing the most challenging parts first. Once I convinced myself that those were buildable, I knew I could finish the set.
- What special challenges or frustrations did you face creating the model? What was the most difficult part to recreate?
The movable hexagonal mirror segments were the first thing I attempted to create. They were also the most frustrating! I originally wanted each segment to move with six degrees of freedom to be as close as possible to the real JWST design. After months of iteration, I settled for just tip/tilt and clocking due to the complexity. At one point I had a mirror segment that deployed from a stowed position using springs, but that turned out to be too ambitious!
- If you could talk to yourself before you started on this project, what would you tell him/her? What do you know now that you wish you knew then?
Two things:
“This is going to take much longer than you think.”
“Your wife will eventually ask about all of those Paypal purchases.”
- How long did it take to complete the model? Did you finish it fairly quickly, or did it take a long time? And how did the build time compare to the time you spent promoting your Product Idea to reach 10,000 supporters?
Good grief, I’ve been building this thing since 2019. I think it’s done now…maybe. This is the third iteration. The first iteration took a couple of years and then subsequent builds were relatively quick. After the first version was complete, most of my time was spent digitizing it, rendering a video, and promoting it on social media.
- How did it feel when you reached the magic 10,000 votes and how long did it take?
Thrilling! There are so many space enthusiasts out there that would love a LEGO model of JWST and a lot of people that feel a very strong connection to the mission. I was blown away by the support. This is the third time the project has reached 10K, and each time has taken between one and four months.
- Approximately how many LEGO bricks did you use to create your model?
2758, though that number could be greatly reduced if there were fabric pieces for the sunshield layers.
- What is your favourite building technique or part/section that you’ve incorporated into your Product Idea?
Definitely the solar array! This is a long, flat panel that folds up kind of like an accordian. Figuring out how to make that out of LEGO was a blast and I’m really happy with the end result. I had to interweave the panel’s support structures to get it to fold compactly.
- If you built your model digitally, what software did you use to build and render your model?
I initially built it as a physical model, then later built it digitally in Studio. All of the rendered photos were done in Studio. I used Blender to animate a video of the model deploying, which was a lot of fun.
- If you used custom stickers or prints for your design, how did you create them or where did you get them?
PowerPoint…isn’t that what professional designers use? LOL
ABOUT LEGO IDEAS
- Do you have any useful advice about creating a successful LEGO Ideas Product Idea?
Hmm…maybe think about what “success” means to you. This can be a long, competitive process and the odds of being selected are low. So make sure you are doing something you enjoy and focus on the fun of the process and the people you meet along the way!
There are a lot of great tips and resources out there by some well known LEGO designers. Check those out!
- What (if any) methods did you use to advertise and attract support to your Product Idea?
I was on most social media platforms. I posted on Reddit via the astronomy-related subreddits—it ended up on the front page of Reddit for a day, which was a lot of fun. Thanks, Reddit! I also built a large following on Twitter, in part because the deployment video legitimately went viral one day. I knew I had made it big when my nephew’s friends were talking about it at school.
- What is your favourite LEGO Ideas Product Idea (besides your own of course)? Are there any Product Ideas you think have been overlooked?
Mitsuru Nikaido’s ideas are all deserving of much more support than they garner. I like SleepyCow’s Working LEGO Bicycle—fingers crossed for that one. And I can’t believe This Is Fine by legotruman wasn’t approved!
- Do you have plans to submit any other Product Ideas in the future? If yes, can you give us a hint what that might be?
Not anytime soon. For now I’ll just focus on taking my builds around to astronomy conferences. Maybe I’ll see some of you there!
By
BrickSon