In srvanderplas/LegoR: Package to scrape data from shop.lego.com and brickset

knitr::opts_chunk$set(
  collapse = TRUE,
  comment = "#>",
  include = T,
  dpi = 300
)
if (file.exists("../.Rprofile")) source("../.Rprofile")

library(LegoR)
library(dplyr)
library(tidyr)
library(ggplot2)

https://brickset.com/ contains data on historical lego sets as well as current sets. Unlike Lego.com, we can access Brickset data using an API (application programming interface). This does require registering for a brickset account and requesting an API key. All functions for the brickset.com data start with the brickset_ prefix.

brickset_setup() # guides you through the account setup process

Once you have your credentials, you can save them to your Rprofile using brickset_save_credentials(). This will also save the credentials as global variables.

brickset_save_credentials("your_username", "your_password", "your_api_key")

Then, you can access brickset's data by authenticating. You may have to periodically reauthenticate depending on your internet configuration, but most functions should refresh the authentication automatically.

brickset_auth()

As with the Lego store, sets on brickset are organized by theme.

themes <- brickset_get_themes()

We can see what themes existed at the beginning...

# Oldest themes
arrange(themes, yearfrom)

Or the themes that have been around the longest...

# Longest running themes
arrange(themes, desc(yearto - yearfrom)) %>%
  head(10)

Most of the functions described in the API documentation have been wrapped; the exception is functions which concern a user's personal collection.

Some themes have sub-themes:

# Themes with sub-themes
filter(themes, subthemecount > 0) %>%
  arrange(desc(subthemecount))

(brickset_get_subthemes("Duplo"))

Not all themes are available in all years:

(brickset_get_years("Pirates"))

We can get sets as well, searching using the set search api: https://brickset.com/api/v2.asmx?op=getSets

brickset_auth() # At this point I had to reauthenticate
sets_2015 <- brickset_get_sets(year = 2015)
sets_2015

Note that the setNumber parameter is not equivalent to the lego set number, it is an internal Brickset number.

(brickset_get_sets(setNumber = 71040))
(disney_castle <- brickset_get_sets(query = 71040))

We can also get reviews and instructions for a set:

disney_castle_instructions <- brickset_get_instructions(disney_castle$setid)

The first link is here and shows the full instruction set for building a disney castle.

disney_castle_reviews <- brickset_get_reviews(disney_castle$setid)

disney_castle_reviews %>% 
  gather(key = "ratingType", value = "ratingValue", overallrating:valueformoney) %>%
  mutate(ratingValue = factor(ratingValue)) %>%
  ggplot(aes(x = ratingType, fill = ratingValue)) + 
  geom_bar(position = "stack") + 
  scale_fill_brewer(palette = "BuGn")