Maine Lobster

I rent workspace at a Business Innovation Center to house my ever-growing collection of Lego and to display my many Lego Modular series and Custom Modular buildings.  One of my work neighbors owns a lobster business and asked if I could make him a Lego lobster. Of course, impulsively, I blurted out, “Sure!” without any idea of how to go about it.  However, the more I thought about it, the more the different elements came to mind for various parts as well as some concepts about how to make it work.  Being from New England my entire life, I knew the model must have some features that were non-negotiable:

It needed at first glance, to look like a lobster. We couldn’t have anyone needing to guess.

It must have a pincer claw and a crusher claw, just like a real lobster.  No mirror images or symmetry.

It needed to work. i.e. claws would need to open and close.

It needed to be a reasonable size. I was used to buildings with thousands of bricks.  This needed to be hundreds or less.

So I started working on it. I did a little on LDD. I bought some red pieces and worked on the different parts. Within a couple of weeks, I had my finished prototype. A short time later I added the eyes and antennae.  Everyone who saw it was very excited and asked lots of questions with the most common one was, “Are these all regular Lego pieces?”

Because they were all readily available pieces and because the size and scope of the project was reasonable, I thought that this would be a great project to submit to Lego Ideas. After all, who would call you SHELLFISH if you wanted to have a lobster made of Lego for your very own?