Father-Son Master Builders Attend Lego KidFest At Convention Center

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- From Batman to Indiana Jones, the David L. Lawrence Convention Center is filled with figures made of plastic bricks. "Lego KidsFest" has returned to Pittsburgh for a weekend show.

Kids can also get some hands-on building tips from Master Builder Chris Steininger.

"When we build we use the interlocking technique," he says, "which makes our models nice and strong. So kids can do the same thing."

He says he was a kid himself when he started building with Lego bricks.

"I started playing when I was young," said Steininger. "I was probably about 6- or 7-years-old. And I enjoyed it so much and my father saw how much I was enjoying it, he actually got involved in it, too. So, he started building with Legos."

Dan Steininger will join his son at the KidsFest. The father-son duo is among only seven Lego Master Builders nationwide.

Chris says the sculptures are not what they appear to be.

"All of our models are hollow. They're not solid at all. Some of them have a little bit of steel," said Chris. "You see Captain Jack Sparrow, he has his arm out like this, and there's some steel up in there to make sure he's nice and solid, stable, but he's mostly hollow."

The Incredible Hulk gets his muscular bulk from 100,000 pieces of plastic.

But even the big green guy can't compare with Lightning McQueen, the race car from the movie "Cars." It's 360,000 interlocking pieces. We're talking one ton of bricks.

Want to make your own fantasy figure? A plastic brick pile containing about a million pieces should be enough to get you started.

Lego KidsFest continues through Sunday.

Visitors are recommended to order tickets in advance at: www.LEGOKidsFest.com

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