The story of LEGO Ideas 21358 Minifigure Vending Machine's new piece

LEGO Ideas 21358 Minifigure Vending Machine has a new capsule piece, and the story behind it highlights a necessary change to the fan design.

When LEGO Ideas 21358 Minifigure Vending Machine launches on June 1 for LEGO Insiders at £149.99 / $179.99 / €169.99. As part of the 1,343 pieces, a brand new capsule part in various colours is being released, shaped as a near-perfect hemisphere with Technic axle connection points that will be ideal for everything from domes to potential Poké Balls next year.

With such potential for future sets, there's an interesting story behind this element that stretches back to the early days of development for 21358 Minifigure Vending Machine. As part of a recent roundtable interview with the team behind the set, Brick Fanatics and other LEGO fan media learnt all about this story.

"Rob's model was a really good concept, and it's clear that Rob had thought through the function, and I built it and tested it with the same elements that Rob had used," shared designer Chris McVeigh. "We had conversations with Rob, and one of the things that we knew out of the gate was that he had used the four-by-four dome and then the two-by-two meteor bottom.

"Those had trouble going through the mechanism and were too small to hold a full minifigure. Right from the start, we knew that we had to upsize the capsule."

By increasing the size of the capsules, the LEGO Ideas team were also able to fit more minifigure parts inside, opening the door for accessories alongside the minifigures, such as Rob's fan designer minifigure with his mini vending machine.

"With all the panels in Rob's model, Rob, there are pieces between the wall elements," continued Chris. "We found in our testing that the capsules could get caught on the side of those, and that would lead to essentially gridlock in the chamber. It wasn't very long before we realised that we needed to have a different wall element that minimised the divisions between different sections, so we could prevent that gridlock."

Selecting a different piece for the walls of the base of 21358 Vending Machine wouldn't be enough to stop the jams though, something had to be done about the capsules.

"We took the starting point with the Technic piece that was used for the Earth, and we planned to use that, but it has these little notches because of the Technic axle slots, and those were jamming," explained LEGO Ideas design lead Jordan David Scott. "Even though it's only two millimetres, it was constantly jamming in the mechanism. So we had to make one that was a perfect sphere, which is incredibly difficult to do, and make it work and be able to take apart."

The new capsule part seems to be entirely compatible with the existing element in 42179 Planet Earth and Moon in Orbit, as well as the upcoming 76451 Privet Drive: Aunt Marge’s Visit. Official images for 76451 Privet Drive: Aunt Marge’s Visit demonstrate that both sides of Aunt Marge's inflated body are the older dome pieces with the Technic axle slots, meaning the hemispherical piece with no axle slot remains exclusive to 21358 Minifigure Vending Machine for now.

LEGO Ideas 21358 Minifigure Vending Machine will be available in just over a week, a few days early to LEGO Insiders, for £149.99 / $179.99 / €169.99.

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