MOC - 2019 Advent Calendar: Gymnastics

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Last year I created a Harry Potter advent calendar for my wife, and it was a big hit with her. This year my 8-year-old gymnast daughter asked for a gymnastics one for herself, so I spent much of the year gradually assembling a bunch of stuff.

It was a big surprise when TLG released 41372 Stephanie's Gymnastics Show, but luckily that set didn't really negate anything I was working on, though I did decide to ditch my trampoline design since the official set included a rather fun one. We of course bought a copy and our daughter thought it was fantastic. However, that set isn't specific to artistic gymnastics, the discipline she is involved in, and the one we all know from television.

There's an amazing minifig-POV review of that set here - seriously, check it out!

I thought it was really commendable that TLG included rhythmic and trampoline gymnastics in the set, but for our purposes I figured I should hit all the usual gym equipment and artistic apparatus, and with as much authenticity as I could muster.

I'm a bit behind posting here as I had some login issues, but Huw has resolved that for me and now I can show you what I've been up to! (Ongoing Flickr album here)

Day 1: Base & Floor springs for floor exercise


Day 2: Floor exercise surface


Day 3: Parallette


Day 4: Folding practice beam


Day 5: Stall bar


Day 6: Lockers


Day 7: Accessories


Day 8: Vault Table


Day 9: Springboard


This will be a 20-day calendar due to a holiday trip, but it's chock-full of fun stuff. Hope you all enjoy it!

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Got a couple of days to catch up on today!

Day 10: Vault mat & runway


Day 11: Uneven bars


For the bars I was determined to make something pretty realistic. Once 41372 was released it became an even higher priority!

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Day 12: Balance beam

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Day 13: Judge's table
With the gym fully equipped, it's time to get set up for a meet. Today we have a judge's table, and the teammates run a mock meet at practice.


Day 14: The Judge
A gym meet needs a judge! Here's our honorable official, complete with scorepad, writing implement, and the all-important coffee. (A meet is a long day)

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Day 15: Scores
A gymnastics meet needs scoring, so today we have a swiveling score flasher. Before a routine the start value is shown.


And our team gymnast has done well! She's scored a 9.45. (Our daughter's top level 3 score from last year.) Hooray!

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Day 16: Medals Podium
A meet needs a fancy podium for awards, right? Right.

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Day 17: Ceremony Flags
The kiddo thought it was pretty funny that I made flag stickers for her own gymnastics club to go with national flags. Not shown: stickers for China, Japan, and Romania.

Brickfan50

This is all very sweet. I see that you even made printed instructions, cool!

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dutchlegofan50 said:

This is all very sweet. I see that you even made printed instructions, cool!

Thanks! Yes, that was definitely the goal. Our daughter has really enjoyed it and has been *playing* with it as the days have gone by. She doesn't always do that for very long with her sets, so it's been great to see the LEGO joy fully in effect. I expect it'll be great fun when she has her teammates over to hang out, too.

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Day 18: The New Teammate
We're nearing the end. What could today bring? How about a new teammate?


She's a highly experienced transfer from the UK.


It seemed essential to include this super figure in the calendar. After all, how many gymnast Minifigures has LEGO made? As far as I know, three. So now the kiddo has the full complement! She was really thrilled by this one today. Good job, TLG.

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Day 19: The Olympic Rings
Our new teammate has brought some gym decorations along with her! Time for some exciting tales.


And it turns out the rings can do double-duty for some agility drills!

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Day 20: Micro-Gym

Well, we've come to the end of our calendar this year. It's a few days short as we're packing up for a road trip. I thought it would be fun to go out with a self-contained build that our daughter could keep on her dresser or next to her gymnastics trophies. So in the spirit of microscale stadiums and skyscrapers, I've created a Micro-Gym!

It's got all the apparatus needed for a women's competition, plus a podium, and mostly mirrors the color scheme of the main gym we've spent almost three weeks putting together.

And with that our team salutes to close out the calendar. Thanks for reading along with us. It's been lots of fun and made for some really memorable mornings!