Lego Graduation Gifts

Farmer_John

My daughter will be graduating from college in the next couple of months and I wanted to give her something special to remind her of LEGO-filled youth and also tie in with her collegiate major. Although it wasn't a super difficult project, I've been working on this MOC periodically over the past 3+ years. I still need to get the frame completed, but at least the hard part is done. Yay!

Special thanks to @klsmith007 for the awesome job he did custom printing the periodic table of elements!

catwrangler

Oh wow, that's such an amazing and personal gift! :)

Farmer_John

Thank you @catwrangler! It was a labor of love. Ironically LEGO is made from ABS, which is one of the many materials she studied as an undergrad. Since she is continuing on to get a Phd in the fall, I expect someday she'll hang it on her office wall for her students to see.

SprinkleOtter

Pfft. Chemistry. Just the physics of an atom.


Sorry. Great job- I may have to make myself a diploma someday.

Rainstorm26

^Chemical engineering....not chemistry...  written by a fellow chemical engineer

But that display is awesome.  My son graduates from grade school this year and now I am thinking about doing something like this for him.

ecmo47

Very nice! It will cherished much more then any other gift, I'll bet. 

You definitely will need to get it framed. Unless you glued all the pieces down, it will need glass to keep it together over time. You may need to replace all those stud-jumpers with regular tiles to keep the surface flat. 

Farmer_John

^@ecmo47 - You actually answered one of my unresolved questions...

I wasn't sure whether or not it was a good idea, but I decided to add a border of 1x2 plates with the single knob to provide a standoff of the mosaic from the uv-coated glass/poly-carbonate. The reason was to minimize the chance of paint coming off the tiles and onto the glass (which probably won't happen anyway). But to your point, I was also worried whether the space would give room for pieces to eventually fall off inside the frame. If that's the case, then I will definitely replace the kobbed tiles with regular ones. Fortunately, I have regular dark purple 1x2 tiles coming out of my ears.

Another interesting issue I had was making the school abbreviation "TTU" using even numbered dark purple tiles (e.g., 1x2, 1x4, etc.) because Lego only produced even numbered dark purple tiles until almost the end of 2016. To my surprise and delight, Lego released the #70906 Joker Notorious Lowrider, which introduced two new odd numbered dark purple tiles...the 1x1 tile and the 1x3 tile. I was able to take a deformed "TTU" and provide much better scaling by including seven of the new 1x3 dark purple tiles. The Joker literally saved my butt...

Sds407

TTU - as in TN Tech? If so, that's where I went and where my daughter is headed in the fall. 

ecmo47

I recently framed this Lego mosaic. I think that a simply black frame just like mine would look very good on your creation. Don't forget that some of the edge will be covered up by the frame. On mine, the outside row of tiles is underneath. You cannot see the 1/4 inch glass in the photo but it is there. My local frame shop did this for about $110.00.

Farmer_John

Sds407 said:

TTU - as in TN Tech? If so, that's where I went and where my daughter is headed in the fall. 

Yep @Sds407...that's the place. I have a Visio file of the mosaic if you want a copy to use for your daughter someday. Here's a screencap of the file image. It made it much easier for me to plan out my BL orders. The parts list on the right-hand side excludes the custom printed pieces since they were special order; not BL'd.

bandit778

@Farmer_John
Very nice mosaic. I actually prefer tiles to plates when doing a mosaic as I think it doesn't look quite so busy when working on a single baseplate build.
Concerning the framing, when I had my mosaic finished, I had it fixed in place on a standard picture mounting board (so the baseplate couldn't flex) without the glass so it still had the texture of a built picture and I've had no issues with tiles falling off in the year or so it's been hanging up.

Farmer_John

@ecmo47 and @bandit778 - I went ahead and made the changes based on your recommendations (removed the knobbed tiles around the perimeter). I also added a yellow trim line to match the school colors surrounding the "TTU."

I'll likely go ahead and use glass with my frame just for the piece of mind of reducing the UV-exposure and to avoid losing any of the custom periodic table tiles I could never hope to replace. Here's the final result (less the frame and glass). Thanks again for your valuable input!

MAGNINOMINISUMBRA

^ That's slick! Nice work Dad!

Farmer_John

Thanks @MAGNINOMINISUMBRA! I would like to do something similar for my other kids when they finish college, but unfortunately I'm drawing a blank in the ideas department. And to complicate matters, I believe @klsmith007 is no longer making custom tiles.

catwrangler

Maybe you can crowdsource some ideas from the denizens of the forum! What are your other kids studying? 

Bricklover18

That looks amazing! 

Farmer_John

catwrangler said:

Maybe you can crowdsource some ideas from the denizens of the forum! What are your other kids studying? 

Definitely a great idea!! My next child is interested in electrical engineering. I was considering a bunch of custom printed electrical elements on 2x2 tiles with labels for each. For example, resistors, inductors, capacitors, transistors, op amps, logical gates (and, or, not, xand, xor, etc.), diodes, transformers, voltage source, current source, switch, and so forth. In fact, I might be able to break them into groups, sort of like the elements are on the periodic table. The key will be finding someone to do the printing...

I would be gladly interested in hearing other ideas though...these things are not my strongest suit. :-)

catwrangler

I wonder if it's possible to a circuit board three-dimensionally in a box frame...

Farmer_John

Update on the graduation present project:

An important part of this project is the frame. For some dumb reason, I assumed the large gray base-plate #628 was exactly 15"x15". In reality it's a one off size...15 1/16" x 15 1/16" (or roughly 38.5mm x 38.5mm). The standard 15"x15" frames are just too tight and I'm not interested in using matting with a LEGO mosaic, so I decided to make a custom frame.

I found four 2'x1.5"x0.75" lengths of oak at Lowes and cut a rabbet along their length to hold the LEGO mosaic, the glass, and the backing board. I then used a compound miter saw to cut the 45 degree corner angles. I found and purchased a cool frame tool that holds the corners tightly together while the glued corners dry. Brass corner brackets (shown in the bottom picture) from Lowes will be used to strengthen the corners. I put everything together and now have to sand and stain the frame. Hopefully I can find some non-reflective, anti-UV glass/poly-carbonate at Michaels and it should be close to done. Here is a shot of the frame in its current unfinished condition.

VorpalRyu

Love those element tiles, a great idea. If one of my boys should show an interest in chemistry would you mind if I borrow the idea?

Farmer_John

Hi @VorpalRyu - Feel free to ask question or use any and all ideas (including the frame) I've put on Brickset. I've been trying to pull this together for at least a couple years now and couldn't have done it without the help of @klsmith007. Anyway, I'm happy to pass on any help I can.

Farmer_John

Well...here's the final frame my son and I made for my daughter's graduation present...

The glass arrived from Dallas yesterday, so I was able to knock it out...and here's the completed project all framed up and ready to go. The project took much longer than I had originally anticipated due to the frame; however, I am very happy with the results and I think she will be too.