Library Lego competition names winners
In his excitement, Benjamin Hunt dropped one of his first place ribbons he won in the unusually loud Veterans Memorial Library at the LEGO brick-building contest.
“I love Scooby Doo, and Legos are awesome!” Hunt said.
The eight-year-old Mount Pleasant resident and his parents, Susan and Dell Hunt, constructed a detailed "Scooby Doo Mystery Inc.," scene, earning them first place for the group category and people’s choice award.
The award ceremony for the seventh annual Lego brick-building contest at the Veterans Memorial library was sponsored by the Central Michigan University College of Science and Technology. The event brought the Mount Pleasant community together on Thursday night, with more than 250 people in attendance. The annex room of the library was packed as residents came to see their Lego masterpieces, and to admire the craftsmanship of others as they voted for the people’s choice award before winners for each category were announced.
“Here at the library, we are more than just books,” said Barbara Sanford, Youth Collections and Programming Coordinator. “The Lego contest has grown steadily every single year. Legos are pretty universal, so there are a lot of different people and ages that participate.”
Because of the wide appeal of the building blocks, age groups for the competition ranged from kindergarten to adult in addition to the team category.
This was Larry Kole’s fifth time participating in the Lego competition. He took home another first place ribbon to add to his collection. Building with Legos is a good hobby for the Rosebush retiree, who makes original Lego models of things like bulldozers, cranes and trucks that have moving parts involved. The intricately custom-designed crane he made this year had about 1,700 individual pieces total.
“This keeps me motivated and thinking about engineering and trying to make stuff work when it looks just about impossible,” Kole said. “I do wish that more adults would participate in the competition.”
Eight-year-old Nathan Kepner of Mount Pleasant showed a part of his Lego creation where he had to improvise with his building plan.
“I made a building of a Subway restaurant,” Kepner said. “The wall was about to fall apart, so I just added a piece to support it.”
Kepner pointed to the Lego characters in his building. They were seated at long tables and posed holding what resembled submarine sandwiches.
“My favorite part about this is the stories and creative imagination that is behind these pieces,” said guest judge Rob Wang, CMU's coordinator of communications for the College of Science and Technology.
Mount Pleasant resident Suzanne Prewett, 11, skillfully maneuvered a robot through a minecraft obstacle course that was not part of the competition, but was on display at the event. Prewett and the six other members of the Mount Pleasant Lego Club helped build the display.
“I programmed it to run through this door, turn around and come back to me,” Prewitt said.
