Nelson resident Piper Cochrane, 9, worked for weeks getting her display ready for the Top of the South Lego Show.
She was just one of a strong contingent of exhibitors at this year’s show hosted in Motueka over the weekend.
While she had a little help from her siblings, she built her impressive city, complete with working windmill, over six weeks, using all the spare time she had both after school and at weekends.
Around 2000 people came through the Motueka Community Hall doors over Saturday and Sunday to view, build or buy the generational toy.
Richmond resident Mark Nelson and his family built an interactive pinball machine to run alongside their huge winter wonderland display – the result of 13 years of collecting.
Mark, who recently moved to Richmond from Dunedin, has been involved in showing robots for years and recently incorporated that with Lego.
“One thing I always noticed at these kinds of shows is that there wasn’t anything that the kids could touch, so I wanted to make something interactive for the kids.”
The game was a hit, with a constant line of children waiting to try their hand at the game.
The pinball display incorporated three Lego Mindstorms – a type of hardware and software that speak to each other via bluetooth to allow for the game to run smoothly.
