This week at Brickies we will be delivering our Thursday Home Education session on ‘Life in Space’ and we decided to link in the topic to the NASA Artemis Mission. Which meant we had the perfect opportunity to build and play with the LEGO City 60348 Lunar Roving Vehicle which is based on the Artemis Rover Vehicle concepts. The RRP of the set is £29.99 but we managed to pick it up a bit cheaper from Amazon. Check out the latest price here.
When unboxing this LEGO City set you are greeted with three bags of building joy. Bag one dives straight in with the Minifigures and in my opinion the best element of the set, the crystallised boulder. I have seen many of a LEGO boulder but this one is special with its blue crystal fragments inside and speckled glimpses of the crystal from the outside too. This will be a much desired piece at Brickies especially as the blue translucent crystals are always a favourite, so combined with a boulder it will likely cause quite a reaction!
I personally think the LEGO Minifigures that come with this Lunar Roving Vehicle set are great. My favourite element is the torso of what appears to be the driver of the Lunar Vehicle. I really like the detailing to the jacket. The astronaut suits also look great as they replicate the Artemis Mission colours. I must say I am not so sure on the hair design of the Male Astronaut, maybe they have tried to create a ‘helmet hair’ look for this piece?! The set also comes with a Female Astronaut with blonde hair that is covered up in the photo above so you can see the helmet and backpack design too.
“With Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. We will collaborate with commercial and international partners and establish the first long-term presence on the Moon. Then, we will use what we learn on and around the Moon to take the next giant leap: sending the first astronauts to Mars.”
The NASA website has a great section on the Artemis Mission which is an interesting read for anyone that loves the idea of space exploration. It is quite hard to imagine humans on Mars but it seems soon it will be a reality, if all goes well.
The Lunar Roving Vehicle build is fun and has some surprisingly interesting building techniques too. I particularly liked how the front windscreens were connected together. There are a few details to enjoy inside and has a couple of nice play features with the side doors opening up to see inside the vehicle. There are a lot of wheels to connect but once connected you enjoy the nice smooth swivel they offer with the way they are connected to the base of the vehicle.
There are a few stickers to apply to this set mainly for the side of the vehicle. The white circular doors that lift up do look a bit plain and it would have been nice to have a nice space logo printed on these parts. The vehicle has two posable arms that come out the front with two tool attachments that interact great with the rock piece.
Overall I think the set is an enjoyable build and connects well with the other LEGO City Space products that were released at the same time. If you want to pick one up you may see them on a discounted sale at your local supermarket, if you are lucky or a bit cheaper on Amazon – LEGO City 60348 Lunar Roving Vehicle Set
At Brickies we are big on story telling and this set lends itself well to creating your own Space Exploration story. I used a 16 x 16 baseplates and various grey elements to create a story of the two astronauts discovering the crystallised boulder. We would love to hear what you think about this set.
