The Themed Entertainment Association and Lego Club student groups at Notre Dame recently collaborated on building a LEGO theme park. We’re big fans of theme parks and everything LEGO, so this event was right up our alley! Jake Plocher, whom we met at SITE OSU, filled us in on the details.
C101: Thanks for sharing this fun event with us. Where did the idea to build a LEGO theme park come from?
Jake: The idea began to rattle around in my head when we started the club a year ago. It wasn’t til a club trip to Cedar Point that it really took off in my mind. We were waiting in line for what was appropriately themed Boo Streak on a late October night, when a rides employee over heard me pitching this idea to my friends. We had a great conversation and he really helped me think about the idea as a true possibility. From there, I connected with our LEGO Club on campus here at Notre Dame and we began to coordinate how to actually make this thing happen.
C101: How was the event and how long did it take to build everything?
Jake: We had a blast building the park. I was there for 14 hours from start to finish 9am to 11pm.
C101: How many different LEGO sets did you use? Any idea on total number of pieces assembled?
Jake: We had 6 sets, lots of free build space, and over 25,000 pieces to put together. The LEGO Club already had a large stash of LEGOs and was willing to work with us on LEGO sets. We considered bringing in other types of construction toys like K’nex but thought it might throw off the park’s feel with an odd collection of different build styles. We have also wanted to put together the LEGO Coaster set for quite some time and figured this was the perfect opportunity to do that!
C101: Where can our readers go to learn more about Notre Dame’s student groups or to get involved?
Jake: To see more about the groups involved:
LEGO Club
TEA@ND
Instagram: @tea_nd
The TEA@ND Instagram has a ton of great content from the build already so that is a good one to check out for this event in particular but the website will be updated as well very soon.
Check out some of the highlights from our day building LEGO Kingdome:
Thanks again to Jake for taking the time to answer our questions. It’s awesome to see more and more student groups related to themed entertainment popping up and to hear about multiple groups working together on a common goal or project. I hope we hear more from Notre Dame’s TEA and LEGO Club soon!
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