LEGO Brick 50th Anniversary

An anonymous reader writes "'The LEGO brick turns 50 at exactly 1:58pm today. This cool timeline shows these fifty years of building frenzy by happy kids and kids-at-heart, all the milestones from the Legoland themed sets to Technic and Mindstorms NXT, as well as all kind of weird curiosities about the most famous stud-and-tube couple system in the world.'" Of course, it all peaked in 1979 with the space set. These kids these days with their bionacle. bah.

Re:too many custom parts.

[CheeseTroll]

Having watched my two boys assemble half a dozen new Lego sets since Christmas (Mars Mission & Aqua Raiders sets, IIRC), my first instinct was to agree with you. But after a few weeks, they're finding ways to build some very interesting custom space ships, towers - you name it. I'm sure that as they get older and no longer care about how much work it took to create the original designs, they'll have even fewer qualms about tearing them apart completely to build more new stuff.

Re:The space set was awesome!

[cvd6262]

I probably still have it (or at least my parents probably do) in a box in their storage unit.

I was at my parents' house for the holidays and my son (6) got some new Lego sets for Christmas. As he was putting them together he commented, "Dad, I'm better at building Legos than you are."

Now, I've heard some pretty insulting things in my time, but this one cut straight to the bone.

So, I walked (as calmly as I could) down to my parents' basement, found the two HUGE bins labeled "Lego," and dragged them up the stairs. I put down a blanket (so they'd be easy to spread out and clean up) and DUMPED out 15 years of disassembled creativity.

My son just stood there gawking for a few seconds. Yes, words can fail even a six-year-old. "I... I... I don't even know where to start!"

Legos Passed on to the Next Generation

[gabebillings]

Did you know the company actually doesn't want you to call them Legos? I think they prefer something like 'Lego bricks'. They get all uppity when it comes to trademark names. Anyway, I had a pretty good stash of Legos when I was younger. Currently my sister and I are both in our mid-thirties with two kids each, and our Legos were sitting alone in some boxes in our parent's basement. One day my dad decided that those Legos should be in the hands of his grandchildren, so he set to work. He could have just roughly split them in halves and sent them to us, but he's far too anal retentive for that. No, first he organized all the bricks by color. Now this wasn't a ridiculously large collection like some people probably have, but it's still maybe 4-5 cubic feet of Legos. Then once he had that done, the real fun began. He pulled out all the instruction sheets we'd saved and started pulling out the blocks for them. I'm not sure what he sent to my sister, but I got one big set and three smaller ones, all nicely segregated in their own little Ziploc bag. Of course that was along with the other six bags of bricks, neatly organized by color. Whether it was luck, or maybe him remembering that it was my favorite, I ended up with the Galaxy Explorer. Just a few weeks ago my 3 1/2 year old was bored, and I told him about this cool rocket ship we could build, so I pulled it out and started putting it together. The instruction booklet has all these cute little check marks next to all the pieces; my dad marking off what he'd found. Occasionally there's an 'X'; something that was missing that I needed to go find a substitute for. As it was, my finished Galaxy Explorer had some odd white plates underneath and a few other out of place bricks, but it was good enough. My son played with it every night after our youngest went to bed. (Didn't want him eating any carelessly dropped bricks.) It didn't take him long before he'd progressed to a new favorite method of play: pulling the heads off of all the minifigs and making neat little stacks of them, along with little rows of legs and torsos. I'd think there was something wrong with him, but I distinctly remember making little stacks of minifig heads myself. Much to the chagrin of my wife, I've used this as an opportunity to start buying more Lego sets, which is great, because he can't really follow directions yet, so I get to put them all together.

Custom parts expand creativity

[lag00natic]

With every new Lego set my son gets we first build the kit as per the directions. However, a few weeks later he's ripped it apart and built some completely original piece. The important thing as a parent is to encourage your child to experiment and mix-match pieces. I know some people that build the kits and then put them on a shelf - what a waste - where's the fun in that? Some of the stuff my son builds is some abstract I don't even know what it is, but so long as he's having fun and being challenged and creative - that's all that matters.

Well, Crap

[gabebillings]

I've been reading Slashdot for years, but I don't think I've posted less than half a dozen times, and think all of those were probably a single line.

Not only did I do something that pisses me off royally when I see other people do it (giant blocks of text with no whitespace), I compounded the idiocy by not using the 'Preview' button.

I'm really annoyed at myself, mainly because this was the first thing I'd read on Slashdot that I actually felt I had something which I could contribute, and then I went and screwed up the posting. I'm guessing a lot of people are like me, and when faced with a giant chunk of text, just skip it and go on to the next post.

Luckily I saved a copy in case the form conked out in mid-post, as has happened numerous times before. So if you skipped the first one, now you can save your retinas and read this properly formatted one.

------------------

Did you know the company actually doesn't want you to call them Legos? I think they prefer something like 'Lego bricks'. They get all uppity when it comes to trademark names.

Anyway, I had a pretty good stash of Legos when I was younger. Currently my sister and I are both in our mid-thirties with two kids each, and our Legos were sitting alone in some boxes in our parent's basement. One day my dad decided that those Legos should be in the hands of his grandchildren, so he set to work.

He could have just roughly split them in halves and sent them to us, but he's far too anal retentive for that. No, first he organized all the bricks by color. Now this wasn't a ridiculously large collection like some people probably have, but it's still maybe 4-5 cubic feet of Legos.

Then once he had that done, the real fun began. He pulled out all the instruction sheets we'd saved and started pulling out the blocks for them. I'm not sure what he sent to my sister, but I got one big set and three smaller ones, all nicely segregated in their own little Ziploc bag. Of course that was along with the other six bags of bricks, neatly organized by color.

Whether it was luck, or maybe him remembering that it was my favorite, I ended up with the Galaxy Explorer. Just a few weeks ago my 3 1/2 year old was bored, and I told him about this cool rocket ship we could build, so I pulled it out and started putting it together. The instruction booklet has all these cute little check marks next to all the pieces; my dad marking off what he'd found. Occasionally there's an 'X'; something that was missing that I needed to go find a substitute for. As it was, my finished Galaxy Explorer had some odd white plates underneath and a few other out of place bricks, but it was good enough.

My son played with it every night after our youngest went to bed. (Didn't want him eating any carelessly dropped bricks.) It didn't take him long before he'd progressed to a new favorite method of play: pulling the heads off of all the minifigs and making neat little stacks of them, along with little rows of legs and torsos. I'd think there was something wrong with him, but I distinctly remember making little stacks of minifig heads myself.

Much to the chagrin of my wife, I've used this as an opportunity to start buying more Lego sets, which is great, because he can't really follow directions yet, so I get to put them all together.

Re:too many custom parts.

[mlush]

Having watched my two boys assemble half a dozen new Lego sets since Christmas (Mars Mission & Aqua Raiders sets, IIRC), my first instinct was to agree with you. But after a few weeks, they're finding ways to build some very interesting custom space ships, towers - you name it. I'm sure that as they get older and no longer care about how much work it took to create the original designs, they'll have even fewer qualms about tearing them apart completely to build more new stuff.

I can't help but feel that people who claim 'Specialist parts have destroyed LEGO' have not watched any children actually playing with them. When my son is choosing a new set one of the key points he looks at are specialized parts as they allow him to build with far greater detail and/or on a far smaller scale then before (He has a very fine collection of minifig scale robots, aliens and monsters)

Re:Lego is for kids.

[xaxa]

I remember when my dad brought back all the Fischertechnik models his school owned and asked me to assemble them all to check they were complete (beats loading the dishwasher!) -- I think we realised the Fischertechnik was worth more than the car he'd brought it back in...

You could make an optical drive from Fischertechnik using a light sensor and a piece of paper with black and white squares on it and a suitable turntable and motor arrangement, including a disc head that moved in and out. Great stuff!

Re:too many custom parts.

[Chelloveck]

Lego now has far too many custom parts, it's a bit more like building some flat pack furniture that a chance to be creative.

You know, I had the same thought... My son, now 10yo, has been into Bionicle from pretty much the time they were introduced. Yeah, he essentially went from Duplo straight to Bionicle. In his mind, Bionicle is what LEGO is all about, though he does sometimes break out some of the other sets. And he has my whole collection of bricks from the '70s too, so it's not like he has a lack of standard bricks to play with. He prefers the Bionicle parts.

But you know, it's amazing what he comes up with with those "limited" custom parts. When he gets a new Bionicle set he first builds it according to the directions, and plays with it for half an hour or so. Then he rips it apart, adds it to the rest of the parts, and starts building new things. I don't think all the custom parts are hampering his creativity in any way. No, it's not the same as when we were kids, but it's still LEGO and it's still fun for kids to build new things.

(BTW, I was entering high school when the Space series was released, and I disdained it even then because it had way too many custom parts compared with the regular sets. So, all you young punks who think the Space series was the pinnacle of LEGO... Get off my lawn!)

Re:innovation? assembly?

[Smidge204]

I don't agree with that. Especially with the more advanced kits which have more unique parts.

When I got LEGO sets, I usually spent time building the models from the included instructions... which not only was awesome because the models were great, but it also helped me understand how any new parts worked.

For example, one of the most advanced sets I ever got was a moderately large rescue helicopter model (alternate was a hovercraft/swamp boat thing... not quite as cool). New parts for me in this set included (as I fondly remember) a ball joint, universal joints, and flexible cables with ball and socket joints.

Here's a pic I found of it... http://www.chem.sunysb.edu/msl/LEGO/8856a.jpg [sunysb.edu]

The joystick in the cockpit actually tilted the main rotor while it spun, the winch on the side worked, and the landing gear retracted. It was awesome.

The point is, this kind of model easily demonstrated how these various parts are used, and building them provides a lot of useful practice for when you inevitably disassemble them and make something of your own imagination. Just about the only parts from that model I never really used anywhere else were the seats.
=Smidge=

Technic mastery

[British]

I remember being around 10 years old, and, out of sheer boredom, built a guitar, with the neck being mostly made out of technic holed beams. I used rubber bands for strings. Later revisions came with whammy bars(that only worked on one string). I took earplug(like earbud on an ipod), and taped it to the body-ends of the strings. Instant pickups. Sounded like crap, but was fun for a kid.

Then moved onto hardcore Technic projects. Helicopter innards, airplanes with working controls(one even had pitch trim using worm gears). Then I moved onto car transmissions, which would occupy me for years.

My holy grail of projects was to make a 4-speed with reverse transmission. I had it drafted on (graph)paper, but ran into some snags finally building it. Many years later I would rebuild the transmission+overdrive on a '79 Triumph Spitfire, and it was like playing with Lego again.

Ah to be a kid again and have tons of free time to complete it and build a working CVT.

I knew my free time was up when I bought a 1.5 Mindstorms set, and it sat untouched for years(still have it).

Re:Technic's!

[sk8king]

The local toy store carries several sets worth > $100 from the 2007 lineup...all Technic. Heck, I purchased the big yellow mobile crane myself. I do not believe Technic is discontinued.

Specialized Pieces not the Problem

[Ohio Calvinist]

I've read a lot of posts by other /.ers say that highly specialized pieces limit the creativity of Legos. While it has been a while since I played with it, I was always excited to get a "new" kind of piece that let me do something that was hard, inefficent or ghetto rigged before. (Kind of like this, I can do it in assembly, but you get a little stoked when you get a really nice, efficient, fast new API) What comes to mind was the piece that allowed you to make 45deg. roofs. It origninally came in a castle set, but I found myself re-using it in space applications.

I feel like the problem with Legos today is all the commercial tie ins, like StarWars and Spiderman. One of the greatest strengths, I feel, of the older Legos were that they were a set genre, but the unverse' story was largely untold. It was up to me, and my imagination to decide "why" the diffrent castle factions were at war. I got to experience the Galaxy exploders discover a medival civilization. I built a tyranical dragon lord who was defeated by the black knight using a futuristic laser gun found from the wreckage of a lost spacecraft.

I feel like the commercial ties "lock-in" a number of kids into highly-commercialized, pre-digested stories, where they are tempted to simply play out what they saw on TV rather than write new ones for themselves.

My wife is a teacher (first grade) and is disturbed (as am I) at how many students can't write or tell a story that doesn't include cartoon characters, and that it takes significant work to do something that we both feel came so naturally to both of us. How she does it, is that kids are not allowed to write about-or read books that feature TV or video game characters, or books made from TV/movies, in class.

I believe it is the creative play as a child that has done more for my career and personal development than anything else in my life.

Re:too many custom parts.

[Zagadka]

This reminds me of a study I'd read about a few years ago that found that children fell into two different groups based on their behavior when playing with building blocks:

1. build something and then preserve it
2. build something, wait a while, destroy it, and repeat

I suspect that your experience has nothing to do with how specialized the pieces were, but rather the fact that your boyfriend's 8-year-old falls into the first camp: once something is built it is preserved. An interesting experiment would be to get her some building blocks or some basic (unspecialized) Lego bricks and see what she does with them. Does she build one thing and then try to preserve it, or does she tear it down after a little while to build something new?

Re:too many custom parts.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just wonder is that behavior doesn't have more to do with the kid's personality than the specialization of the parts. For instance me and my brother had completely different playing styles using the same parts - a mix of generic bricks and specialized sets. Whenever I got a new set I would immediately build it according to the directions - I remember suffering greatly once because I had lost a few parts behind the couch and could not *complete* the structure. I would also go on to invent the complex social systems. I would eventually cannibalize the buildings for custom building, but even then I would often take a picture of myself with the finished set before I destroyed it.

My brother, on the other-hand, almost never built according to directions, and was completely obsessed with the physical structures rather than the potential for creating an story for his set. And he seemed to enjoy destroying his creations at least as much as he enjoyed making them, whereas I regarded it as a grim sacrifice for the greater good of future customized building.

Re:too many custom parts.

[mlush]

I can't help but feel that people who claim 'Specialist parts have destroyed LEGO' have not watched any children actually playing with them.

I'll step up to that...

My boyfriend's 8-year-old got the Mars Mission set this xmas, and the three of us built it together. I would start rearranging things and goofing off and she would get very upset and tell me I was "playing with it wrong" - her goal was to get everything precisely assembled, and then give the astronauts names and complex social hierarchies (this guy is the grandfather of that guy and they're fighting over some family thing having to do with capturing the aliens, etc.). Basically it's not so much a Lego set to her as it is a small-scale all-male Barbie set in space. *ducks*

OK were on Slashdot... but What is not creative about storytelling and creating complex social hierarchies? She is not minoring in 3D design:-)

Seriously though, she has also built other sets with her dad (including the Millennium Falcon - drooooool) and enjoys the rules and the right-ness of putting things where they go. I had the old Lego sets at her age and I built all kinds of weird stuff - because the parts were basic and had no specific purpose...she does not (in her mind) have this opportunity with these sets, though I'm sure the ability is there. I have seen this same child turn a plastic drinking straw and 3 empty spools of thread into a family of woodchucks.

Ahem. Yes, woodchucks.

I'll hazard a guess that she can't be bothered dealing with the constrained 'pixilated' options LEGO provides when and is treating it like an 'Airfix' kit, but when given the chance of dealing with an analog set of three spoons and straw sees many more options.

Perhaps I should criticize LEGO for forcing them Kids work within the system... Ducks