One of the ways that shows up? LEGO.

Read on to learn more about a special LEGO team-building activity at our Chicago office earlier this year, and how it reflects a culture that values fun, creativity, and collaboration just as much as technical excellence.

A Tradition Built Brick by Brick

LEGO-building isn’t just a one-off event at DMC, it’s a long-standing tradition. From team-wide builds where everyone tackles the same kit, to more technical LEGO exercises alongside NASA-related battery testing, LEGO-building activities have taken on many shapes over the years, blending creativity, collaboration, and technical curiosity in a way that feels uniquely “DMC.”

It has also been a way for DMC to engage with the broader community. Our offices have hosted FIRST LEGO League teams in the past, giving students a glimpse into engineering principles while giving DMC engineers the opportunity to mentor students interested in STEM careers.

Across all of these experiences, one thing is clear: LEGO is a big deal at DMC. So, when we welcomed Luke Horwath to the team this past winter, an engineering student who once competed on the show LEGO Masters, it felt like the perfect opportunity to make our 2026 LEGO activity something truly special.

2026 LEGO Activity

LEGO activities have become a favorite at DMC. Last year, the Chicago team built individual kits side by side, from classic art and Star Wars sets to Vespa models and botanical builds. Everyone chose a kit that matched their interests.

For 2026, DMC’s Recruiting Lead, Carly Bessinger, set out to try something new and teamed up with new hire and LEGO enthusiast Luke Horwath. His idea: a collaborative LEGO mosaic, where each person builds a section that comes together into one larger piece. “The inspiration came from my experiences at LEGO conventions,” Luke said.

The LEGO Master

Before appearing on LEGO Masters, Luke was already well known in the LEGO community. He showcased original builds at conventions, including 7-foot-tall roller coasters, a life-size working pinball machine and claw machine, and full LEGO cities. One of those events led to his casting on Season 5 of LEGO Masters, where he and his mother, Anne, became finalists and earned the Golden Brick along the way.

Creating the LEGO Mosaic Design

Cut to 2026, Luke got to work with Owen Johnson creating the mosaic concept, landing on the Chicago skyline as the inspiration for the design. Owen drafted a rendering, selecting colors to bring the skyline image to life. Then, Luke used Bricklink to match the colors in Owen’s design to available LEGO brick colors while sourcing the bricks.

“Owen spent so many hours coming up with an incredible design that leaned DMC and Chicago-centric. He came up with the final concept of the DMC logo integrated into the night skyline, which I thought was fantastic!”

Each dot in the rendering above represents a 1-by-1 LEGO piece. To accomplish the depth of color of the Chicago skyline at night, Owen leaned on a design “technique” you’ve probably seen before: dithering. From there, Owen’s engineering mindset really kicked in. We’ll just let him explain:

“The tiles we used on the mural are basically like pixels, just low color ‘bit depth’. I used standard image manipulation techniques: scaling (no interpolation mixed with cubic and linear for a balance of punchiness and smoothness), plus basic color and contrast adjustments. Each pixel was quantized to a single LEGO color using error-diffusion dithering, specifically Floyd–Steinberg. I used the web tool DitherIt with a custom palette of available LEGO colors. Luke also helped select colors that weren’t too expensive or hard to distinguish.”

He explored several different concepts before landing on the final design: the Chicago skyline at night featuring the DMC logo. Below are some early design ideas, including a galaxy mosaic and another skyline concept with DMC Easter eggs.

The Assembly

Once Owen and Luke completed the design and the logistics of the build, it was time to assemble the team. The LEGO activity had approximately 50 participants, and the 50-inch-square mosaic ended up including 26,000 LEGO bricks. For comparison, a 6-foot LEGO rollercoaster takes about 4,000 to 5,000 bricks.

Everyone who participated in the event was responsible for assembling one 5-inch-by-5-inch square. Each square had accompanying LEGO pieces that formed part of the mosaic. As Luke explained, “When you’re building your section, it doesn’t really look like anything up close—that probably means you’re doing it right if it just looks like a scattered mess!”

That made the final result even more satisfying.

50 Participants, 100 Hands, and 26,000 Bricks

When all 100 individual 5-inch by 5-inch sections finally clicked together at the end of the night, the team stepped back to see their work come to life. The result was an expertly designed LEGO picture of the Chicago skyline with the DMC logo floating above the buildings in the night sky. A striking visual built one small piece at a time.

While the mosaic itself was an impressive feat of creativity and engineering problem-solving, the true takeaway from the night went beyond the final product. The project required coordination, patience, and trust in a shared vision where no single piece made sense on its own.

That’s what made the outcome so meaningful.

Each participant contributed a small part, knowing it would only come together when combined with the work of others. In the end, the completed picture showcased what happens every day at DMC when team members collaborate, bring their unique strengths to the table, and build something bigger than themselves. At DMC, whether it’s a 26,000-brick mosaic or a complex engineering project, the same principle holds true. Great results come from teamwork, thoughtful problem-solving, and a shared commitment to getting it right.

The post 26,000 Pieces Later: A Very Special LEGO Activity appeared first on DMC, Inc..

This feedback was important for us to receive because it highlighted a key difference between how DMC is viewed from within and from outside the organization. When someone hears that DMC has offices across the country, it is reasonable to assume these are sales offices. Many companies start up this way: a central office where the technical work takes place, with satellite sales offices for relationship building and sales generation.

More Than Pins on a Map

As DMC expands to open and grow offices in new geographic regions, it isn’t because they want another dot on the map or a statement of presence in those locales. Rather, the intention is to establish engineering presence in the area – offices that provide a location to do actual engineering work to solve problems, develop systems, serve customers, and help deliver projects.

This distinction makes all the difference. Offices of DMC aren’t just a place where you meet someone and talk about business or make introductions. They are places of active technical development. In DMC regional offices, engineers are actively designing automation systems, writing software, setting up test equipment, creating manufacturing processes, integrating hardware, addressing customer needs, and more.

Chicago

Austin

Boston

Cincinnati

Dallas

Denver

Detroit

Houston

New York

Raleigh

San Diego

Seattle

St. Louis

Tampa

Washington, D.C.

Local Presence Still Matters

Even in an age where virtual collaboration is commonplace, there are times when physical presence cannot be overlooked. Seeing a piece of equipment, touring the manufacturing floor, observing the testing apparatus, reviewing the assembly of a control panel, or sitting down with a customer’s team to troubleshoot an issue may present challenges that cannot be fully understood from a diagram, specification, or teleconference call.

That is where the regional presence provided by DMC becomes useful. For many of our clients, our engineers are just a few hours away from their facilities. We can respond to their needs more quickly, build stronger personal connections, and provide the human touch that is so essential to creating a successful technical solution.

It is particularly important for projects involving actual machinery, equipment, limitations, and operating environments. Often, the most effective solution may not be reached from afar but will require the presence of someone with a direct and personal understanding of what the challenge entails.

That said, the regional nature of DMC’s operations does not preclude clients from choosing engineers from any office outside the nearest one. That is where DMC’s approach truly shines.

OneDMC: Local Connection, National Depth

DMC’s office locations are our engineering teams, but they are not necessarily isolated from one another. We have very much embraced the OneDMC approach, meaning that our regional presence is backed by the complete technical expertise of DMC on a national level.

While a customer might work directly with the engineering teams in a local office, there will always be many more layers of technical knowledge backing that local team. Whether a customer’s project requires test automation knowledge, control systems expertise, LabVIEW programming, embedded development, manufacturing automation, cloud, data systems, or even just complicated multi-disciplinary engineering, DMC can bring in the appropriate experts.

And that is what makes our office model quite different from a standard sales office location approach. It combines the benefits of proximity with access to all the knowledge necessary. Customers don’t need to settle for proximity or specialization; with us, they can have both.

That is one of the reasons why we chose to establish offices rather than just sales offices in certain locations. While other companies may only put sales representatives in convenient locations, our office approach allows us to build engineering teams to serve our clients locally while remaining part of a national organization capable of tackling any problems.

Telling the Story More Clearly

The feedback from our partner was a helpful reminder that how we tell our story matters. We know what DMC’s offices are because we live it every day, but we cannot assume others see it the same way. If someone hears “national footprint” and thinks “sales coverage,” then we have an opportunity to better explain what makes our footprint different.

DMC’s growth has been intentional. We have invested in engineering offices because we believe technical work benefits from both local relationships and national collaboration. We want to be close enough to our customers to show up when it matters, while still being connected enough internally to bring the right expertise to every challenge.

So when we say DMC has offices across the country, we are not just saying we have places to meet. We are saying we have engineers across the country. Engineers who are working on real projects, solving real problems, and building real relationships with customers every day.

That is the reality behind DMC’s national footprint—and it is a story worth telling more clearly.

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