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Pick-A-Brick Vol. 1

 

It has long been a debate over which LEGO® Store Pick-A-Brick cup gets you more bang for your buck. I decided to take things to a relatively scientific level and really find out which is a better deal. In the United States, a small pick a brick cup runs at $7.99 and a large pick a brick cup goes for $14.99. Just by glancing, it may be hard to see an actual difference. To conduct my experiment, I will use the most useful substance, water. Studies have been done with 1x1 flat, round bricks, but water is much more reliable. Since the cups are made of plastic, water will not damage the interior. To start, I filled the small cup with water. Then, I dumped the water into a measuring cup and recorded the volume. I repeated the process for the large cup. I rounded the volume to the nearest readable ounce mark. After that, I divided by the price of each cup. Therefore, my formula becomes: opd = V/I

opd = the number of ounces per USD.
V = the volume of the cup in ounces.
I = the initial price.

To find the price per ounce, I divided 1 by the ounces per dollar.  $ = 1/opd

My findings are shown below:

Cup	Price	Volume (ounces)	Ounces Per Dollar	Dollars Per Ounce
Small	$7.99	17	2.1276595	$0.47
Large	$14.99	34	2.2681787	$0.4408823

And the winner is…

The large cup! You save about three cents per ounce.

But Wait! We did not include the size of the lids. Most LEGO stores allow a Pick-A-Brick cup to be bought if at least one side of the lid is touching the cup. Therefore, we can basically just set the lid on the cup and our volumes will change. The lids are the same for each cup, an important attribute, and the each have a volume of 5 1/3 ounces. When this is factored in, our results change:

Cup	Price	Volume (ounces)	Ounces Per Dollar	Dollars Per Ounce
Small	$7.99	22 1/3	2.7951605	$0.3577612
Large	$14.99	39 1/3	2.6239715	$0.3811017

The odds are now in the small cups favor! There is another way to maximize your savings. Most stores offer a 25 cent discount with a reused small cup and a 50 cent discount with a reused large cup. It is, however, a better deal to get new cups every time you visit. They make great storage containers and look great in your collection. So, the verdict is... The Small Cup! Unless you need 1x16 beams, the small cup is the way to go. So take this advice, always buy the small cup and you will end up saving mucho dinero!