how to cram a pic-a-brick cup and get the most brick for your buck.

This simple guide will show you how to cram up to twice as many pieces in one pic-a-brick cup.

Usually people come into the lego store, grab a cup and look at the wall and say, "ooh1 maybe some pretty flowers to throw into my lego bucket!" or something like that, and then they grab a couple bricks and throw them into the cup. they do the same with the wheels they grab enough for at least one car. 

In the end all they did was grab a bunch of pieces that they think are cool and go home and can't really build anything out of them. this is because they never grabbed the pieces that would support a full model. 

In order to really get something that will benefit you out of your pic-a-brick purchase, you need to be envisioning what you will be doing with these pieces when you get home: will they just become part of your little bucket of pieces you don't know what to build with? or will they build a cool model and impress their friends.

 In this post i will explain the most effective procedure to fill a pic-a-brick cup at the Lego store.

The other day I walked into the store and looked at the wall and said "OMG! They have bright purple 2x3 plates!" I walked home that day with about 30 of them in my cup!

To the left is a picture of what my cup looked like.
DO YOU see any purple plates? NOPE!
That's because they're crammed in the middle!












Here! I'll show you how to do it!
first, fill the bottom rim inside the cup with some small pieces. That way you can sort of level the floor out.

Next, begin stacking all of the square element you want (plates and bricks).

Make each stack tall enough to just fit inside the cup.

If you have any sloping elements you can make them take less space by putting them together in the cup like this:

Put all your stacks around the edges of the cup.

If you want to put any large baseplates in stack them loosely on to each other

and put them in the middle of the cup. 

Sometimes there will be a space between the large plates and the wall of the cup. This is a good space to put awkward pieces. In this example i laid fences together in the space.

As you can see, there's still lots of space left in this cup. 

This is where you are left with a choice. you can fill the rest f the space with small or awkward shaped pieces or (i recommend that) you use the "fill it in halves" technique  (that's just a name i came up with).

This technique allows you to fill the cup in sections. 

so far the bottom section has been filled. 

Now, you can make even more stacks to fill the top section! 

Once you have finished all the stacks, you are ready for the last step! 

You're almost done!

choose any of the small elements on the pic-a-brick wall and stuff them in all the cracks and crevices of 

in the cup. you can even shake the cup gently to allow the contents to settle and create even more room! 

It even helps to push down on all the bricks to force them to fit in the cup!
now the last step is to create a little hump where there is
space in the knob of the cap:

 Now, the miracle of heaven in this process is that the store employees will tape the cap onto the cup for you, so that the lid stays on (in case the lid were to fall of if the cup was crammed to overflowing).
so, the rule is, as long as the lid is touching the cup, it will be okay!





One other tip that is very helpful is to have an idea of what you are going to use the pieces for when you get home, that way you don't ever get pieces and never use them for something nice. :)

AND THAT'S HOW I CRAM MY CUP!!!


You see, the image below shows that the pieces in this pile, PLUS all the pieces that are filling the cup. can fit inside the cup if you fill it using my methods! NO JOKE!
IT REALLY WORKS!!!!

So, maybe now you can get twice as many bricks in one cup yourself!

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THE BRICK WORM!!!