TMA-1, the iPhone dock!

Behold!  Marvel at my skills!
Building this iPhone dock was a real treat.  'A labour of love', to coin a phrase.

I have a long standing nostalgic passion for Space Lego from the 1970's and early 1980's.  There were a few epic Christmas gifts back then made for some of my  favourite memories from childhood.  As an adult, 2001: A Space Odyssey is among my favourite movies.  The rest is all 'chocolate, meet peanut butter' as they say.

See the full album here - http://imgur.com/gallery/izHZv

We came into about 50lbs of Lego from a relative, and I pulled a few pieces from that hoard, but I also had to order several of the pieces custom, from the amazing retail experience at Lego's Pick A Brick.  Sadly, the shipment was lost en route, and I had to wait a few extra weeks for the remaining parts.  A few Ebay auctions later, and I had my 5 red vintage Space Lego guys.  (They *had* to be red.)

Original inspiration from Wired.com - The primate scene on Earth.

The initial inspiration for the piece was a post at Wired, via Boing Boing (I think).  Somebody had made an iPhone dock based on the primate scene from earlier in the film.  I recalled the old grey moonscape platforms from Space Lego and thought to myself how easy it would be to construct the TMA-1 scene on the moon as a base for my own phone.  I sat on the idea for a few years until we came into the Lego I mentioned, and I was fiddling with the pile while playing with my sons (2 and 4).  

Of course, the film itself provides the inspiration for the setting.  Here's the original scene from the film.  I've chosen to capture the moment the monolith starts to resonate for my dock.

I suppose the original, way back inspiration was a short internet video from the early 2000's (even late 90's?) I've just looked up again and embedded here.  


I thought it was damn clever for the time, and ended up using a minifig Dave Bowman in the monolith as my Gmail/chat avatar.  I guess you could say I have a long relationship with Space Lego and 2001.  This makes me a huge geek I suppose.  So be it.  Let the geek flag fly!