wawadoo Archives | I 💛 PGH

Who doesn’t love Legos? Possibly one of the greatest toys ever made – and I have been thinking about them recently – Swiss-Miss, a design blog based in NYC, recently posted this photo of Lego walls.

And I want to share this photo with you, because it is awesome and brings together Legos and Bon Jovi. This was in the window of S.W. Randals on Forbes Ave in Sq. Hill.

Blake, Age 7 – chose to enter the Lego contest with a Lego creation of a “Bon Jovi Rock Concert” – if that doesn’t speak to the power of Pittsburgh I don’t know what does – happy to see kids appreciate the music of Bon Jovi.

But the Legos are coming to Pittsburgh – The Lego Kidsfest is a giant interactive Lego exhibit that will be in Pittsburgh June 17-19, 2011 at the David Lawrence Convention Center.

What else happens at The Lego Kidsfest:

LEGO Model Gallery: 40 life-sized models made entirely from LEGO bricks
LEGO Master Builders: building tips, tricks and live demonstrations from the crew who get paid to play
Creation Nation: build your own creation to add to a custom map of the U.S.
Mystery Mural: build a piece of a giant mural to help reveal the image
Race Ramp: build your own custom car, then race it down the ramp against friends and family
LEGO Games Arena: roll the dice to play LEGO board games
Construction Zone: creative free build, play and display area
LEGO DUPLO® Jams: toddlers explore building and imagination while rocking out to fun playroom tunes
And much more, covering 125,000 square feet of space

WIN TICKETS with Wawadoo!

We are teaming up with our friends Tim and Chris who are the founders of Wawadoo – a new start up company based here in Pittsburgh. Tim and Chris moved to the burgh to participate in AlphaLab this past spring. Wawadoo is a new events website that helps your find things to do. Wawadoo is short for “what would you like to do” – think of it as the Pandora of events. We will be giving away

Win tickets (4 tickets) to the LEGO Kidsfest Saturday morning session (Sat. June 18, 2011 9am-2pm)! To be entered into the drawing, all you needto do is follow 3 simple steps before Wednesday at 5pm EST:

Visit www.wawadoo.com/legokidsfest

Become a Wawadoo user with the invite code “IHeartPGH”

That’s it! You’ll get an email indicating that you’ve entered the contest and another email when you’re the grand prize winner.

More ways to win tickets – the blog Play Unplugged, which is a blog about games that get you away from the computer, is also giving away a 4 pack of tickets. Click here for the Play Unplugged Lego ticket giveaway.

A few weeks ago I was sitting at my desk putting together a list of things to do – or trying to put together a list of things to do in Pittsburgh for the weekend. It was right after Christmas and there was no Steelers game that weekend so it was a little challenging. There is always something to do in Pittsburgh but we try our hardest to write about NEW things to do in town and that can occasionally be a challenge. Just as I was about to pack up the lap top for the night (geek speak for throwing in the towel) I received an email from a friendly fellow… one of the founders of Wawadoo.

Wawadoo, as they explained, is a recommendation engine for events. Think Pandora radio but art gallery openings, drink specials, and music shows. That’s Wawadoo. They explain the system

Image by cynthiacloskey via Flickr

like this: Just login and you’ll see a list of events. Then, each time you vote “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” on an event the system will recommend things to do that match your interests and tastes.

After meeting with the founders I am excited to share their story because it is good news for Pittsburgh too and I think Wawadoo could be pretty cool too. I had incorrectly assumed that one of the founders was here in Pittsburgh to attend CMU or Pitt. But nope these 2 guys packed up their lives and moved to town to bring Wawadoo to the Alphalab incubator (the photo to the right is of the Alpha lab office space on Carson St.). Yep – they left texas behind to come north to Pittsburgh to start their new business.

I hope that you will help them test out the new site as a beta user – just sign up here. The beta version of the site will be launching soon and you can be one of the first to check out this new event recommendation engine and always have an answer to the question – what would you like to do.

Just enter your email and they’ll send you an invitation as soon as their little fingers can hurriedly create the site.

Click here to sign up for Wawadoo.

And if you want to be really help you can take their beta survey here.