A couple of weeks ago I took the morning off from work to go to the mall—the first time in over a year—to visit the Lego store and pick up two new sets: Everyone is Awesome and the Lego World Map. While I completed the Everyone is Awesome set during my lunch break the next day, the World Map is taking quite a bit longer, especially because I added the Excel version of the map to my routine.
My process building the Everyone is Awesome Lego set.
In case you haven’t seen it, the Lego World Map consists of 11,695 pieces, laid out in a 80 x 128 grid that you can hang on your wall. The Lego designers were incredibly creative with this project—while the white and dark blue pieces have specific designations for land masses, the user can shape and form the ocean areas as they see fit. There are default directions, of course, but you can ignore them (as we have mostly done at home) and create whatever you like. (Lego world map creator Fiorella Lee Groves also placed an easter egg in the map, which was fun to find–I won’t tell you what it is here in case you haven’t found it!)
Our process (that is, me and my kids) building the Lego World Map set. We built the great garbage patch in the lower-left corner, the Bermuda Triangle in pink, the Grace Hopper cable from NYC to the UK, and the compass rose on the far left. We also put a whale over by Japan, but it kind of looks like a submarine. More work to do there.
Because the map is laid out in a grid, it’s primed to be built in Excel. And voila, I present to you the Excel version of the Lego World Map! I built a grid in a big Excel spreadsheet with each number then placed in the appropriate spot according to the instructions. Each number is then assigned a color using Excel’s Conditional Formatting menu (it’s kind of like a heatmap, which you can learn more about in this video).
I also created a version with a black background, so you can create a draft of your Lego creation by just typing the number of the piece that corresponds to the color you want to use. It’s quite a bit easier than removing the actual Lego pieces from the map though, depending your finger dexterity, perhaps not as fun.
Naturally, having put all the numbers in the file, I had to do a little data-drive investigation of the pieces. Unsurprisingly, of the 10,229 colored pieces (there are additional pieces for the base and the frame), 3,052 (29.8%) are white pieces for the continents while the two blue colors account for another 34.1% of the total.
You can also see how these different colors separately show up on the map.
You can download this Excel file for your own use below. The file has 5 separate tabs:
- Colors tab with the RGB and Hex codes I pulled from the Lego instruction booklet.
- SetUp tab that has each of the 40 panels delineated separately, just the way they are in the instruction booklet.
- WithNumbers tab that has the full map with numbers included in the cells and borders around each cell.
- WithoutNumbers tab that has the full map without the numbers in the cells and borders around each cell.
- BlackOceans tab has the full map with continents on a black background.
This was a fun, hobby project and I hope you will enjoy it and be able to use it. Enjoy your Legos!!
This is brilliant! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Hi! I just got the World Map for as a Christmas Gift. Can you please share how you created your compass rose and what it looks like finished please!
Hi Maura,
You can get a glimpse of the compass rose in the big picture above. It’s over to the left of the image with the blue dots.
Thanks,
Jon
Do you think it is possible to enlarge it into a 200×150 size?
It’s certainly possible, but something I’d want to do by hand again!