This Annual Event Recruits Kids to Build Ships

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Judges examine an entry during the Brick-by-Brick Lego Shipbuilding Competition at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum. (Defense Department)
Judges examine an entry during the Brick-by-Brick Lego Shipbuilding Competition at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum. (Defense Department)

OK, OK ... so no one at this event is building actual ships. But they are built at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum in Virginia, and they are built by kids.

The Lego shipbuilding competition, which has annually every year since 2012, this year drew 3,000 people to the museum.

"What do Legos have to do with Naval history? In the big scheme of things, nothing. But there are people here today who ... are seeing things that they normally would never have seen," said one museum official. "It's an outreach to get one more chance to put the message out and show them that the Navy's cool."

    The museum features what one attendee called "every Mom's living room nightmare" -- a giant 'mosh pit' of legos, or what we like to think of as "instruments of extreme foot pain."

    Top shipbuilders, such as they are, receive prizes at the end of the event. Check out this video for more!

    Judges examine an entry during the Brick-by-Brick Lego Shipbuilding Competition at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum.

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