LEGO is considering a new dog agility and herding course designed by a graphic designer who was inspired by his rescue Border Collie dog, Stencil.
Peter Szalay has designed an interactive playable LEGO set where the player starts from the grandstand and overcomes five obstacles to complete the course.
In order to finish, they must:
- Herd the sheep together
- Jump over the obstacles
- Get through the tunnel
- Slalom between the poles, and
- Run through the ramp
LEGO have accepted the design idea and now the public can literally vote it into production if enough people like it.
Peter, a design engineer by trade and artist, has loved LEGO since childhood and more recently discovered the joy of dogs after adopting Border Collie, Stencil.
And now the pair are inseparable. Black and white Border Collie, Stencil, goes everywhere with Peter, and when he is not working, their down time includes dog dancing while his artist girlfriend does obedience training with their pets.
One of the LEGO Ideas rules says submissions can only make use of already existing LEGO shapes, so Peter bought an example of every existing LEGO dog figure and tried to find out what breeds could fit their shapes and his girlfriend repainted the figures to match their agility and herding theme.
With so much emphasis on their love of dogs, art and design, the couple seemed a natural fit with a LEGO set.
And after about 200 hours work on the project, Peter submitted it to LEGO who accepted it for the public test.
Peter said: "This idea is the combination of two wonderful hobbies: LEGO and dogs. In order to complete the course, you need to start from the grandstand and overcome the following the obstacles.
"Herd the sheep together repelling the magnets underneath them will make this easier. Jump over the obstacles move the yellow handle and push it at the right moment. Get through the tunnel, so rotate the red handle to get through more quickly. Slalom between the poles moving the magenta handle then follow the curvature of the track. And finally run through the ramp using the blue handle to compress the spring, then releasing it."
LEGO have recently accepted Peter's design and it’s over to the public to help it become a reality and turn his his dog agility idea into an official LEGO® set, but he needs more votes.
You can check out his LEGO idea campaign and have your voice heard by the folks at LEGO by clicking here.
Peter said: "My goal was to create a LEGO set you can enjoy playing with. I hope you guys like it. Please leave a comment and tell me what breed you have, and what he/she does while you are playing with LEGO. And tell me what is your favourite breed of dog and why?"
Mind blowing Lego Facts
- In 2012, 45.7 billion LEGO bricks were produced - that's 5.2 million LEGO bricks per hour
- 18 out of every million LEGO pieces fail to meet the company standard
- If you laid all of the LEGO bricks sold in 2012 end-to-end, they would stretch around the world more than 18 times
- Seven LEGO sets are sold every second.
- You could reach the moon with a column of around 40 billion LEGO bricks - the column would be over 384,400 km tall.
- There are enough LEGO bricks to stack from the Earth to the moon 10 times
- Six eight-stud LEGO bricks can be combined in over 915 million different ways. Two bricks can be combined 24 different ways, and three bricks 1,060 ways.
