Kent Survival Builds and Sleeps in a Large LEGO Shelter

Kent Survival arrives in a stretch of woodland in a truck with ten containers of giant plastic bricks, a real-life LEGO challenge, and units out to construct a livable shelter out of them. These bricks are basically the identical as their conventional LEGO counterparts, however scaled as much as a a lot bigger dimension: they arrive in 8-stud and 4-stud variations, totaling 1400 items. His concept was easy: construct the factor and see if it was doable to show a baby’s play into an actual shelter.

Earlier than he might start constructing his shelter, the uneven floor within the woodland returned to hang-out him, for the reason that terrain was so uneven that he needed to assemble a short lived platform out of planks of wooden. He reduce and organized them to stage the bottom, nevertheless it was a continuing battle to maintain it stable as a result of the items remained separate and required quite a lot of fussing to maintain them from slipping on the grime humps.

Constructing with these outsized blocks was totally different than working with the smaller variations, after all, as a result of the sq. block shapes don’t lend themselves to the interlocking stagger that makes smaller LEGO builds so robust, so he needed to be extraordinarily cautious about which blocks he positioned every time, checking for any weak factors within the construction.

He started by constructing his partitions with the bigger 8-stud blocks on the backside to supply added solidity, then blended in among the 4-stud items as he moved as much as preserve steadiness. Corners had been notably troublesome and required further care to make sure that every thing remained sq.. He finally managed to erect an 8-stud-wide doorway and three home windows; regardless of realizing the place they had been going all alongside, he left them open till the primary building was accomplished.

Then got here the roof, which was essentially the most troublesome half since he went with a easy pitched design, however the actual problem was having it sit completely. This part saved sagging and leaning to at least one aspect or the opposite, and he needed to make quite a few changes to get it precisely proper. It wanted 5 inner braces to stick with it, and even then, it bowed inward considerably. Now and again, a assist would transfer or topple, requiring him to do a quick patch to maintain your entire construction upright.

After three hours of assembling bricks and one other hour tinkering with particulars, the fundamental form of the shelter was full. Simply as he was finishing, the rain started to fall, the wind elevated, and the sunshine pale rapidly. He stuffed the holes within the partitions and roof with clear Gorilla tape earlier than stretching and taping down greenhouse materials to maintain the rain out. The tip product labored nicely for one evening, nevertheless it was not a long-term reply.

Getting contained in the confined room was a little bit of a squeeze, nevertheless it felt like being in somewhat camper, so he arrange a floor sheet on nearly all of the ground, hung a bivvie desk alongside the wall, and laid out his sleeping mat (albeit it was a little bit of a squeeze to suit). He additionally turned on a gasoline heater (he chosen gasoline over open flames as a result of he didn’t need to danger melting his worthwhile plastic) and arrange a meter to maintain monitor of the oxygen and gasoline ranges within the confined enclosure.

It survived the evening with out falling aside, albeit needing quite a lot of labor, common modifications, and somewhat luck towards the climate and the constraints of the supplies he was utilizing. Kent packed up the following morning, glad with the experiment; he mentioned it was quite a lot of enjoyable, nevertheless it additionally served as a lesson that even massive blocks can be utilized to make a short lived shelter if you happen to put within the work.