Building a Backyard Brick Derby

At Bricks Cascade 2024, my kids discovered the joy of a LEGO Derby. As I wrote in a previous article, a Brick Derby is a Pinewood Derby but swapping pine for plastic. When we asked our soon-to-be 9-year-old what he wanted to do for his birthday this year, it wasn’t much of a surprise when he chose a Backyard Brick Derby. Obviously, we said yes, but we had to get to work to pull it off.

Ramps and Race Cars

To make a ramp, I’d need help in the woodworking department. After looking up layouts and blueprints to set up a Brick Derby, I found these plans and sent them to a friend and long tenured Home Depot employee who was able to construct it for me. It’s 32 inches long and breaks into four sections for transportation and storage.

I then purchased the 6x16 stud baseplates for the cars from BrickLink, and got the needed additional weights and LEGO compatible axles from Derby Magic. Now we needed some play brick for kids to build their cars.

via DerbyMagic.com

Bulking Up

There are a number of products available for containing large numbers of LEGO bricks and there are a few ways on bulking up. LEGO Classic sets come to mind or going thrifting for bricks. Or if yo uare like us you’ll already have more than enough pieces in your own or your kids’ collection to form a great car-making station.

While large buckets that hold LEGO certainly allow for fairly quick cleanup after play, there’s still usually a mess spread all over the place, at least at our house. While looking in the garage for options to help contain the eventual sprawling of parts on our lawn from a ravenous hoard of excited kids, I came across the kiddie pool and had an idea. After a nice scrub and rinse, I can safely say this is one of the greatest LEGO containment devices I’ve seen. In fact, the kiddie pool is still in my living room, containing all our LEGO bricks a few months later.

The pool is wide enough that all of the kids could have space to build around it, it’s deep enough that pieces don’t fly out, and crucially, it’s too rigid and heavy for any one kid to dump it out. Even better, after the party, we were able to rinse and dry the bricks in the same container. Assuming you have the room to store it, we found out that a kiddie pool is a LEGO family’s dream play solution!

Race to the Finish

Last but not least, we needed a finish line and a way to record the winner. A friend graciously 3D printed a finish sign in the LEGO font, and my son built the frame around it, including his favorite minifigs. We even hid a LEGO Boost brick and motion sensor to make the flags spin at the end of the race when the cars raced by.

For the photo finish, we settled for a brick built cell phone holder that positioned the camera right at the line. During the races I put an old phone in the holder. When starting a derby race, the kids would start a slow motion video, let the cars loose, and then use the video to decide any close races. I was worried there would be arguments about who won, but this system worked like a charm.

It does take some time to set up and review each video but this only builds anticipation in the kids as the derby gets going and more competitive. It is also nice to have an impartial judge as well, every time.

LEGO Brackets

To help the kids keep track (haha) of the heats, I whipped up the below tournament bracket and had the kids sign their names to get going. Each knew they had a chance to win the tournament! Some cars even got modifications between heats to improve performance.

Though even with the clear structure of the tournament, we found out pretty quickly that adding a competitive element took some of the fun out of it for a few of the kids.

So we also had “fun runs’” with different goals. Some of these goals included having a car that made it to the end of the track with the most axles attached while other goals included designing the tallest car, using the most or least pieces in a car, creating the longest car, etc.

Obstacle runs were also held where some of the kids would build obstacles and place them on the tracks for the other kids to try and race through (or destroy). We also had unstructured time where they could just build whatever they wanted, with or without rolling it down the track. With so many ideas and bricks to play with, we found a way for everyone to play the way they wanted.

Take Your Places!

After so much set up, it was finally time to enjoy the Derby. As far as kid’s birthday parties go, the amount of enjoyment we got was cheap compared to taking them to a trampoline park or Chuck E. Cheese. The track actually stayed up through the entire rest of the summer and became a hot commodity among the neighborhood kids.

One of the best parts of the Brick Derby track is its adaptability. You could add small ramps or even timed challenges to test both the speed and durability of each car. You can have building challenges of what to build on the bases from cars to houses to animals and more. This adaptability helped keep the racing experience fresh and exciting for the kids and held thier attentions for quite a while. It’s amazing how a few planks of wood and a pool full of LEGO transformed our backyard into a place of creativity, competition and camaraderie.

This track provided a one-of-a-kind birthday experience and hours of fun after. So if you have the resources, a LEGO Brick Derby track is a must-try project!

If you were going to set up a Brick Derby, how would you do it?

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