Tonight I watched the first episode of season 2 of LEGO Masters.

It looks like it will be an exciting competition as there are some really good builders.

More exciting is that the winning team tonight is from Stockton. The team consists of brothers and one of them went to high school just a few blocks from where I live.

Of course the competition had me thinking of one of my hobbies

Building with Ankerstein is one of my hobbies, and is something that I have done a lot of while staying home during the pandemic.

I discovered Ankerstein about 16 years ago during a trip to Jena, Germany. They had an exhibition at a shopping mall.The Ankerstein system is pretty cool. You start with a Basic Box and then add Extension Boxes to build progressively larger structures.

As you add additional sets the variety of stones increase and new stones are introduced. The complexity of the buildings increase with each box.

Here is a chapel built with just the first box. Set 6

You can see that it is pretty basic.

Here is a church building that I build with the eight boxes of stones that make up set #20 (6 + 6A + 8A + 10A + 12A + 14A + 16A + 18A).

The building is definitely more complex.

This structure is a church with an attached convent.

Here is a Town Gate.

Here is my latest build from set number 26. The title of the plan is Munich Beer Hall

The boxes come with layer plans for building different structures, but many builders come up with their own designs.

The stones can be used over and over again as they are simply stacked on top of each other. Sometimes it takes a really steady hand to place the blocks, and I have also had a few collapses when I have bumped the building or table.

There is no big Ankerstein Masters competition, but there is a worldwide club of Ankerstein builders. See: Mededelingenblad

Now I have something to watch on Tuesday nights since the Curse of Oak Island season is over.

Steven