The Big One is a Lego fanatic (see my earlier posts about making a Sensei Wu costume, creating Lego cupcakes and Lego minifig head storage pots). In fact this obsession has been going on since he was the tender age of 3 when we inherited a large box of the stuff from my husband's mother! She had carefully hoarded it since the early 1980s with future grandchildren in mind, and oh boy, are those grandchildren grateful! However, as the Big One approaches his 7th birthday I have noticed that other toy fads are coming onto his radar ... Beyblades in particular. The nice thing is that these battle tops overlap nicely with his collection of Lego Ninjago spinners (I'm guessing these were inspired by Beyblades in the first place?).
So with his birthday coming up, I've been looking at Beyblades and accessories to add to his collection. One thing I was particularly interested in was getting him a battle arena ... not because I have ambitions for him competing in a WBO championship (that's World Beyblade Organization, and nothing to do with boxing by the way!)... rather, I am sick and tired of tripping over spinners and beyblades littering the hard floors downstairs! However, the official Beyblade arenas from Japan are ludicrously expensive... $75+ I was gobsmacked to discover. And the Hasbro Beyblade ones, while available for only $10 in places like Target and Walmart, look very flimsily made out of thin plastic and unlikely to survive my 3 terrors for more than a few minutes! I was also a little disappointed by the quality of the Lego Ninjago Battle arenas which seemed very flimsy for the price. So I then tried to think of things we could use to create our own.
And that brought me full circle back to Lego. One of the best things about Lego as a toy in my opinion, is the way it fosters creative thinking. The Big One has been designing and making his own Beyblades out of Lego pieces for a while and this inspired me to apply the same principle to creating a Beyblade arena!
You will need...
- A large Lego baseboard
- A selection of Lego flat tiles
- A variety of other bricks to create walls, seating, winners podiums, ramps, storage areas and just about anything else your imagination can come up with!
- Some Lego Ninjago spinners or Beyblades
The great thing about this sort of project is that it's fun at all stages ... from coming up with the concept, through the building process and eventually to the actual game itself. Plus there is the sense of achievement in having come up with a unique and customisable design of your own! Much better than a ten dollar bit of flimsy plastic if you ask me!
