Were you the type of kid who meticulously built LEGO models from the blueprints or did you veer off the beaten path and dream up your own unique creations?  Either way, LEGO now has an opportunity for fans young and old to see their designs come alive on the big screen.  Phil Lord and Chris Miller, of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs fame, need your help designing some wacky vehicles cobbled together from your assorted LEGO collection.  Winning designs will appear in LEGO: The Piece of Resistance, the 3D animated movie that features the voices of Chris Pratt, Channing Tatum, Will Arnett, Elizabeth Banks and Morgan Freeman.  The film opens February 7th, 2014 in the U.S. and February 28th, 2014 in the U.K.  Hit the jump for details on the design competitions in both countries.

Thanks to HeyYouGuys for the heads up on the LEGO competitions, we can now bring you the particulars.  The American competition has been going strong since this summer and offers the winners their design featured in the movie as well as a $1,000 prize.  There is one competition for kids and one for teens/adults.  The U.K. is now on board with a competition of their own, but this one's only for kids 5-13 (Sorry, Creepy Uncle Jack).  U.K. winners will also have their designs featured, but will bring home 1 of 5 family passes to Legoland instead of cold, hard cash.  Here are Lord and Miller to give you some more particulars:

Here's the synopsis for LEGO: The Piece of Resistance:

“Emmet, an ordinary, rules-following, perfectly average LEGO minifigure who is mistakenly identified as the most extraordinary person and the key to saving the world. He is drafted into a fellowship of strangers on an epic quest to stop an evil tyrant, a journey for which Emmet is hopelessly and hilariously underprepared.”