One of the last places we visited on our big trip was the American Museum of Natural History. I will do a post on that soon. I was there about twenty years ago and there were a few new exhibits. I am not sure how big the gift shop was then, but the main one is huge and spread over three floors. There were some others too. I wanted some souvenir of the trip and decided on this little model. Okay, so there do not have a Space Shuttle in that museum, but it called to me. I well remember the Shuttle missions, including those that went tragically wrong. It was meant to make space travel cheaper, but will have cost a vast amount. Now we are seeing space become more of a commercial area with private companies doing launches.
This is a Lego clone in miniature. Like much of the stuff in the shop it is made in China, but it does say it was designed in the USA. There is some history of the Shuttle on the box. I played a lot with Lego as a kid and my kids had it too. I having being getting back into it recently and Adult Fans of Lego (AFOLs) is quite a big scene these days. We have been enjoying some of the Lego Masters shows that have been on TV here lately. We have had them from Australia and New Zealand so far. There was a UK one a few years back.
The parts really are small and a bit fiddly for adult fingers. I kept it all on a tray as it is easy to drop them and have them disappear. I did have the issue that the black parts were hard to see on the dark tray and I resorted to my phone torch to find some. You really need to keep them away from pets and small children.
I built it over several evenings. It is not too hard, but you have to look closely at the instructions to see where some parts go. Pushing some parts into place was difficult at times. They have got the proportions right.
The result is quite satisfying. That tower took a while as has so many parts and you can see I did not quite push some together. If I push too hard it can break apart, and it did a few times. It joins my other models on the shelf over my desk so I can remember those fun times.
There were quite a few parts left over and I know I did not miss any steps. I may see what I can make with those.
