Meet the LEGO MASTERS Australia Season 2 contestants: Summer and Iona

Brick Fanatics is speaking to the LEGO MASTERS Australia Season 2 contestants to find out more about them and their passion for the hobby. Best friends Summer and Iona are bringing their competitive spirit with them

LEGO MASTERS Australia is about to return with Season 2, with eight teams ready to compete to see who will be crowned brick-building champions and win the $100,000 prize. Each episode will see the LEGO builders taking on new challenges to show off their creativity.

Summer and Iona discuss their LEGO experience and creative sides in this exclusive interview with Brick Fanatics.

What is your LEGO background?

Summer: My LEGO background is mainly with Mindstorms and LEGO robotics. I never really had a dark age as by the time I was growing out of toys, my little sisters began to play with LEGO so I got to build with them.

Iona: I started off as most people do, playing with DUPLO as a young kid, building random shapes. Probably when I was around seven or eight my parents gave my brothers and me a Lego City aeroplane which was my first set. In middle school I competed in the First LEGO League competitions, which is basically building and programming a Mindstorms robot to complete an obstacle course. My team did pretty well, making it to the nationals twice and the internationals once in our final year.

What are your favourite types of models to build? Where do you do your building?

Iona: I think my favourite thing is building sets, I find it calming just mindlessly following the instructions and watching something come to life before my eyes. I usually build in my living room.

Summer: I really love building LEGO Mindstorms robots. Most of my building is just done in my bedroom on my desk.

Do you collect LEGO sets and/or bricks?

Summer: I’ve been collecting larger bulk vintage sets of bricks, but I only really buy sets as I want them.

Iona: I am not actually a huge collector of Lego unlike some of the other contestants (ask Stani!), I have a couple of sets and a small amount of bricks that I make things from and then pull them apart again.

Do you have any other creative hobbies?

Iona: I am studying to become a filmmaker, but I also love to sew and crochet and do a bunch of crafty things. I am also pretty involved in my local arts community, regularly volunteering at the art gallery to organise events for teens, give tours and run workshops.

Summer: I love making short videos and 3D printing/modelling.

Were you confident going into the LEGO MASTERS auditions?

Iona: Absolutely not, in fact we were almost certain that we wouldn’t even get a response to our first application, and every stage of the process we thought would be our last. I feel like that’s normal though, I don’t think many people apply expecting to get on.

Summer: It was a nerve wracking process, but I was mainly excited to get the chance to work with my best friend and show how much fun we have building with LEGO.

How did you prepare for the show?

Summer: Iona and I watched all of Brickman’s behind the scenes tips and practiced some different types of builds together.

Iona: We just built stuff out of the LEGO we had, which turned out to be a very different experience than building on the show. We also tried to finish up as many uni assignments as possible so that we could really focus on LEGO while filming.

What was it like stepping into the build room for the first time?

Iona: Pretty cool! It was so strange to find myself in a place that I had only ever seen on TV and had never expected to visit.

Summer: Nothing can prepare you for seeing millions of bricks in one place! It was so satisfying to see them all so organised and very overwhelming.

The next episode of LEGO MASTERS Season 2 will air on Nine in Australia on Tuesday, April 21 at 7.30pm.

To continue to support the work of Brick Fanatics, please buy your LEGO sets from LEGO.com and Amazon using our affiliate links.

More LEGO MASTERS Australia Season 2 coverage
Interview with host Hamish Blake
Interview with judge Ryan McNaught

Episode reviews
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4

Exit interviews
Episode 3
Episode 4

Meet the contestants
Summer and Iona
Jackson and Alex
Trent and Josh
Jay and Stani
Jennifer and Jodie
Tim and Danii
Andrew and Damian
Annie and Runa