After months of grueling work, filming, building, and competition, Christopher Lee ’18 stands with his partner Robert Zhang, clutching the side of his plain black-and-white suit and tie. The judge is about to announce the winner of “LEGO Masters,” the competition-style television show about building with the plastic bricks that has featured in countless childhoods. The anxiety and tension builds up second by second, but “Christopher and Robert!” is all he hears, and rainbow confetti is all he sees as fountains of sparks erupt around him, pronouncing him and his teammate the new LEGO Masters.

But years before he was a LEGO Master, before he gained over 100,000 subscribers on his LEGO YouTube channel DuckBricks, before he became a program manager at Microsoft and head of several startups, Christopher was just another sleep-deprived Lakeside student. In his history classes, he’d swap out essays for LEGO dioramas. Starting in middle school and continuing into his high school career, Christopher traveled yearly to Nairobi, Kenya to teach LEGO and technology classes. He developed his first experimental product, a Bluetooth water-testing app, and was encouraged to bring it to a convention for feedback by his computer science teacher, Dr. Bricker (no LEGO pun intended).

Of course, Christopher wouldn’t have been able to accomplish any of it without the support of the Lakeside community, despite it being known for its intense and competitive work culture. “Yes, everyone’s driven, but everyone is also supportive of each other,” he points out. “I feel like that mentality of everybody working hard to build each other up was what really stuck with me.”

It’s part of what led him to television’s first and only brick-building competition show: “LEGO Masters” on FOX. In 12 teams of two, competitors race to construct unique and creative builds to fit the theme of each episode. Teams have to participate in unique challenges like creating remote-controlled cars to battle in a dirt bike course, making working LEGO boats that reflected the cultural and personal identities of their contestants, and building chairs that can support a person’s body weight, all while fighting to avoid elimination.

Though producers had initially reached out to invite him to compete in season three in 2022, Christopher chose to prioritize his senior year of college and wait a year to participate. For season four, he and his teammate Robert Zhang, a friend from college and co-founder of one of his startups, decided it was finally their time to shine. Even so, they had no experience with the type of large-scale, completely custom LEGO builds the show required, and Robert had little experience with LEGO at all. “The only way I was able to swing it with Microsoft was that I told them I definitely would be out after week one or two,” Christopher adds.

After some training and preparation, they were flown out to Atlanta for filming. Each day for two grueling months, they’d wake up as early as 3:30 a.m. for hair and makeup, start filming at 7 a.m., and continue for the next 12 hours. Episodes were typically filmed across two or three days, with interviews interspersed throughout. 

But despite the tense atmosphere of the show when filming, the countless hours the competitors spent together was bound to develop otherwise-unlikely friendships. Christopher feels that he “walked away with some really lifelong friends in the LEGO community.” In particular, he became fast friends with a member from an opposing team, Sam Malmberg. Although on camera they were fierce competitors vying for the grand title, behind the scenes they would relax and share tips and techniques on brick-building. 

For Christopher, his most cherished token of the show wasn’t the $100,000 prize, the honor of being named one of the best LEGO builders in the world, or the free flight to Europe. Instead, it was the fact that his winning build, a jetliner christened the World Wonderliner, would be displayed at the flagship LEGO store in downtown New York and eventually turned into an official LEGO set. “This is probably the most momentous thing that’s happened to me in my life so far,” he describes. “It’s not the title, it’s not the money, but it’s the set … That is unbelievable.”

Christopher ultimately credits his success largely to a few notable teachers, but insists his most meaningful experience that time was the incredible community Lakeside provided him with. Many of his start-up buddies were from Lakeside. One of his closest friends since seventh grade, Jake Kurlander ’18, has constantly supported him through his journey in Lego, and the two visit each others’ talks and programs often. “I’m just building bricks and he’s out there finding asteroids … I’m very, very impressed,” Christopher adds.

Today, you can find Christopher Lee on his channel, DuckBricks, where he reviews LEGO sets and minifigures and showcases his extraordinary LEGO collection. Having been created in the midst of the pandemic, his channel has amassed more than 137,000 subscribers, a substantial increase from its measly 3,000 subscribers in 2021. When he began his channel, it was simply a “creative outlet to express [his] passions” and to share LEGO with the world, not to make money or gain subscribers. Even now, Christopher shares that it’s continuing to pursue what he loves that has kept him going. “It is the only thing that keeps me sane,” he jokes, although admitting there is some truth to it.

Armed with the title of “LEGO Master,” Christopher is already utilizing his victory to share his love for LEGO with other people. He plans to build his lifelong dream — a museum for LEGO — creating “a place for kids to learn, play, and build,” as well as showing the incredible progress the LEGO company has made in its life.