See the first five Lego sets designed in a competition anyone can enter

Yes, there have been opportunities to get your idea in front of The Lego Group before — like the Lego Ideas program. But Lego Ideas sometimes just uses your idea as inspiration rather than producing your exact design. The company has also produced a number of rejected Lego Ideas sets through its BrickLink Designer Program — but those crowdfunding efforts were limited to existing designers with a pretty daunting pedigree.

But in January 2023, the company overhauled that BrickLink Designer Program so that anyone could compete for the chance to see up to 20,000 of their design sold online, potentially making anywhere from $15,000 to $500,000 in royalties. The first designs were due by February 2023, but Lego plans to keep this competition going. In fact, you’ve got another opportunity to submit a set coming right up, between May 15th and June 2nd. You can find instructions here.

If you miss that deadline, there’ll be another opportunity in September 2023 and another in January 2024.

The sets don’t come in normal Lego boxes, and they don’t necessarily have paper instructions, but they’re manufactured, boxed, and shipped by The Lego Group itself. Here’s what the one I purchased looks like:

I wish I had an idea for a set!

Update, 6:38PM ET: Clarified that the window to submit an entry for next wave of sets is May 15th through June 2nd.