Well after many lovely Prisma LEGO models being enjoyed around Europe (and even Canada and the US!), the production of the model has come to an end. LEGO has announced that on January 16th, 2012, it will no longer be offering the Design By Me service, which the Prisma model was sourced from. The LEGO Digital Designer will still be available for use, but the ability to order custom sets in a nice box is no longer.

I have managed to squeeze out one other model of the Odin spacecraft and order a few "limited edition" sets, but these have already been sold and accounted for! Photos to come soon. Otherwise, thanks for the fun and I hope everyone enjoyed building (and perhaps flying?!) their own little Prismas!

In celebration of a successful launch, commissioning and first experiments of Prisma, I thought it fitting to release the Prisma LEGO model... Reconstructed using LEGO Digital Designer and Hans Hellman's fine Prisma layout document, this is a roughly 1:10 scale externally representative model.

The model is digitally created, ordered online, then all the pieces are hand selected and collected in a custom designed box of surprisingly high quality! Building instructions are also included. Included then in the set are all the pieces (assembly required!), a building manual, decals for the solar panels (printed from photos taken of the actual solar panels during the solar simulation testing in Toulouse, 2008), a Prisma mission logo sticker, and a copy of Hans Hellman's Spacecraft Layout Document identifying all of the panels and components.

Sets can be ordered via myself at any time! Ordering details are below:
--> 725 SEK, plus shipping*
--> Email your mailing address to: nils.ca (at) gmail (dot) com**
--> I will answer your email with payment details.

* 175 SEK shipping per order; an "order" can be anything from 1 to 25 sets.
** Be sure to include the word "lego" in the subject to avoid being filtered as spam!

The news on the building instructions is very good!! The problem, up until now, has been simply that if we were to give these out to people, the auto generated instructions were not good enough to allow people to build the set themselves, they would have to consult with me or I would have to make a custom set of instructions (large effort). In early July I chased around with emails and phone calls to Lego headquaters about getting some support for this (ie, could they help me make a custom set of instructions), and the initial reply was "no" since they would have to do the same for everyone...

... then they called back after a few days and said "well, maybe yes"! Since it was an interesting model (swedish, french, german, danish space mission), and a rather small model, they have decided to use the Prisma model as a test case for their new instructions software which should be able to solve the problem of clarity and build sequence. So the design team at Lego headquaters promised to work on it and provide me with a new set of instructions in September (after the holidays).