LEGO enthusiast, 17, cannot believe his luck landing ‘dream role’ being paid £11 an hour to play with LEGO all day
A 17-year-old who has always been “obsessed with LEGO” has landed his “dream role” on £11 an hour as a professional LEGO builder at LEGOLAND, spending his days building masterpieces, and hopes to one day design sets for the plastic brick company, saying it helps him “explore (his) creativity”.
Oscar Goodhand-Wyatt, an assistant master model builder at LEGOLAND Discovery Centre Birmingham and a games design and digital media student at Worcester College in Bromsgrove, from Alcester, Warwickshire, has been playing with LEGO “all of his life”.
His first memory is playing with the bricks at age four for five hours at his grandmother’s house.
The LEGO enthusiast also recalls watching the LEGO movie at age seven, and has played with LEGO “every day since”, building around 150 constructions to date.
His favourite build has been the 7500-piece Star Wars Millennium Falcon, which took him 23 days, and he even makes up his own designs, such as dragons and robots.
His bedroom is “covered in LEGO builds” and he was overjoyed to discover LEGOLAND Birmingham was looking for a professional LEGO builder earlier this year.
Oscar’s mum sent him the advertisement, and when he got the role he was “over the moon” and his mum “freaked out”.
Looking to the future, he hopes to create LEGO sets full-time, with the help of his games design college course.
Oscar told PA Real Life: “For me it’s not about the money.
“I’m so obsessed with LEGO – I couldn’t believe my luck when I got the job.
Oscar has loved playing with LEGO for as long as he can remember.
He said: “I’ve been playing with it all of my life, and I’ve always been obsessed with LEGO.
“But, my first proper memory of it is at my nan’s house – we had a giant yellow box of it and I used to spend like five hours playing with it.
“I’ve even been to LEGOLAND 10 times – I’ve been for every birthday in the last seven years, and another three times just for fun.”
On why he loves LEGO so much, he said: “I think (it) always helped me explore my creativity if that makes sense – I follow the instructions but I also make my own creations.”
Oscar explained his unique builds, saying: “LEGO lets me make all sorts of sci-fi things – I build giant spaceships, robots and dragons popping out of my bedroom wall.
“My room is covered in LEGO builds, and I find it quite therapeutic.”
On the Millennium Falcon, which he built on his sixteenth birthday, he said: “It took me 23 days, and I was so happy to finish it and have it on display on my shelf.”
He said: “My mum saw a post about it on Facebook whilst I was packing for holiday, and she sent me the link to it.
“I was like, ‘I’m applying’ straight away as it was honestly my dream role.”
He explained: “In the interview, they asked me things like how will the job help me, why do I want to work for LEGO, and I just said a lot about the creative aspect of it.
“In the competition, I built a spaceship and an axolotl on the spot.
“The spaceship took me about half an hour because I added little spinning features, pointy bits and 2D cannons – it was very cool to build.”
When Oscar got the job, he was “over the moon”, and his loved ones were very happy for him.
“When I got home, my family started jumping up and down screaming for me.
“My friends’ reactions were a bit mixed – they didn’t quite understand it at first, but when I explained it to them, they said it was very cool.”
Day-to-day, Oscar maintains and creates new showpieces, organises LEGO, and teaches children how to build.
He explained: “I get to work at around half eight in the morning, and I head up to the main area where you build stuff, and I sort the bricks so they’re in the correct areas.
“We give them a step by step road map of how to build it, and that’s really fun – my younger brother took part recently and I loved seeing the look on his face when he finished the build.”
He said: “I would love it so much – my job has really helped me with my college work too.”