I’ve admitted on several occasions that I seem to have a LEGO problem. On the way to the movies I stopped at a Target because they often have discounts on LEGO and I’d seen a kit that might go well with a diner that I’m in the process of building. Of course I picked up two additional sets (under $25 each). Yeah, this might be a problem. 

In the “before time” I’d buy one expensive kit, like the Apollo Saturn V and because I was too busy working, it could be months if not longer before I’d open the kit and start building. My first really expensive kit was the MINDSTORMS EV3 robotics kit that I got when I started teaching robotics in 2016. You’d think I wouldn’t want to touch the stuff after chasing children and their wayward robots all week. But there was something mindlessly therapeutic about disassembling and then putting away the thousands of tiny pieces at the end of each day. And then when I found instructions on how to create a WALL*E type programmable robot I was hooked. At least hooked enough to buy my own personal set (even though there were eight kits at school). 

Since then I’ve bought at least one (or two) expensive kits a year1… plus dozens of less expensive kits, to the point where from getting my first kit in 2017 to now I have created a collection of 69 LEGO kits. And while robot or space-related kits have been of great interest to me, my latest obsession seems to be the desire to build little miniature buildings, what LEGO fans call city modular kits. In my case it began when I got a free kit, 40687 Alien Space Diner, which I got when I purchased the $260 NASA Artemis Space Launch System kit. 

The Alien Space Diner was a little 1950s diner diorama with a single red booth, a pair of Minifig astronauts and a green three-armed alien chef serving burgers. I built the kit during a summer lull between purchases and put it up on the shelf and didn’t think anything of it. Then after I’d exhausted all of my unbuilt LEGO collection (and rebuilt a couple robotics kits), I heard about fans taking these less expensive diorama type kits and making them into small modular buildings to be added to these huge LEGO cities, usually by getting a second copy of the same kit and additional bricks from ones personal collection and going from there. So, even though I was seriously jonesing for the $499 LEGO Lord of the Rings Rivendell set, I thought I’d start with the much smaller and hopefully much cheaper Alien Space Diner.

As for making this diorama into a small building, the original kit came with a single wall (plus the items mentioned before). With the second kit I could double the size of the diner to two red booths, add a second wall and change the small grill/check-out counter into a small grill/check-out and counter with stools for three. I used bricks from my own collection to build the other two walls and the much larger base-plate, but I would need to buy additional pieces to make the need windows, doors, roofing and paving for the parking area out front. The second Alien Space Diner kit cost $29 and the additional parts was another $50. It turned out pretty cool, but almost immediately I saw room for improvement, spying on something that I might be able to use to make this a two-story structure.

While waiting for my ordered parts to arrive, I saw a space-themed kit, that was on sale at Target that would make an excellent and very weird second floor to the diner:  60439 LEGO City Space Science Lab. That’s the kit that I stopped at Target to get. It’s another inexpensive Space themed model with a domed roof that can be opened and I thought it would be weird enough to make my Alien Space look more distinctive than a white and pink box with a black roof. 

Step one of any MOC (my own creation) is to build the model per LEGO instructions and then after the build figure out what needs to be tweaked to fit ones own vision. The original model was designed to be a white cube with a dome, but all four walls have hinges so that the building can be opened up so that you can see inside the building and to play with your Minifigs (the dome also opens up like the pedals of a flower).

The completed kit fit perfectly on the top of the diner but I needed to decide where the main door should go, and tweak the two portals so that they would work with the diner’s roof structure. Also there was the issue about how they were going to get to the second floor: was I going to add stairs or a ladder or what? One of the Minifigs of the original kit was using a wheelchair, so it seemed like I wasn’t going to be able to use either a ladder or normal stairs. Having very little space to work with, I did a little research and using parts from my Apollo Saturn V build I created an open platform elevator that seemed perfectly in keeping with the Space theme. 

I kind’a like it. I have the base plates for the addition to my city, but I’m also thinking about what other kinds of structures will work with this first build…. maybe I should make it a three-story structure… (The adventure continues!)

Sources:

Tags: LEGO Alien Space Diner 40687, LEGO City Space Science Lab 60439, LEGO MOC, LEGO Modulars, LEGO Therapy

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FOOTNOTES:
  1. I define expensive as over $100, with the two MINDSTORMS programmable robots I’ve purchased, the first an EV3 and the second, a Robot Inventor kit, both coming in at over $300[↩]