Interview with TheBrickWall, LEGO geniuses

You may have probably stumbled upon one of their videos depicting some incredibly ingenious concepts of Lego builds. From Zambonis to hay-balers, their YouTube channel has gathered over 13 million views in less than 3 years. Their latest invention, a LEGO brick picker called "Rumba", caught our eye and so we went ahead and interviewed this creative duo.

Hi TheBrickWall! Thanks for joining us! Can you introduce yourself for our readers who might not know you?

There are two creators behind The Brick Wall channel. Michael and Iouri. We live in Canada, Michael is 13.5 years old and I am his father and a bit older. I work for one of the Canadian telecom company in the area close to computers and IT architecture.

You're known for your channel "The Brick Wall" where you share inspiring and awesome videos about your Lego builds. How did this all start?

My son Michael had been playing with LEGO bricks since he was 3 years old. Later he moved to Lego Technic world and then it has become growing hobby. As long as I remember Michael was a little destroyer as all sets he got did not last long and always end up in a new shape or form. Two years ago Michael asked to create a Youtube channel to share his Lego creations and ideas. I am a fan of Pink Floyd and suggested the name for the new channel, Michael added the word Brick to it. I observed his first videos and decided to join his adventure. Step by step I was working with my son on a few projects. I am so happy I can spend time with my son.

Did you expect to gather millions of views when you started your channel?

Love this question. To be honest we had started the channel with three goals: get to know how to use video editing software, get to know how to create the YouTube channel and share some of the modifications that Michael did already. We have agreed from day one that we will do YouTube for 1 year no matter what.

Your constructions are pretty awesome - are they all original creations or do you use LEGO or online plans?

We started with modification of existing Lego sets. In the beginning, we simply did not have enough parts and money to build our own creations. Over time, we had a good collection of parts and moved to design and build of our creation. We did not use online plans. What is interesting, we did not realize when we moved to a custom project, it was natural.

How are you coming up with the designs?

Often ideas come from what we see outside or in the hobby stores and our Youtube channel subscribers are also a great source of inspiration. We have family time when all speak out what we called "crazy" ideas and then we write them down on the paper and put it on our brick wall. From time to time, we check the list and pick up an idea that we feel like ready to work on. One of the best in our opinion idea was the Hay Baler project. It was triggered by the trip to the countryside. When we saw a working Hay Baler, the decision was made to build one.

Has Michael any plans to pursue education and/or career in robotics/engineering (as he seems predisposed to)?

Do you think LEGO is a good platform to learn about engineering and robotics?

What is your favorite LEGO kit?

This is a tough question as we do not have too many kits. I think LEGO Xerion 5000 (42054) gave us a few opportunities.

What is the next project you are working on?

There are about 10 good ideas on our brick wall right now. The next project will be Lego breakfast machine. Let us keep the details for now as it is in a middle of the design stage.