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Cool toys (even for grownups) Techie and futurism magazine Wired has a delightful article about how the toy company Lego is harnessing the best minds of the computer software industry to make its toys even cooler and intricate than before. I used to love playing with the stuff back when I was a small boy and generations of kids have had fun playing the brightly coloured building blocks, fashioning them in to planes, cars and houses, rather as an earlier generation used to play with Meccano kits. In its way, it helped probably fire enthusiasm for a whole generation of engineers and builders.
And the kicker is that Lego is Danish. If you have children or friends with youngsters, perform a nice gesture and buy them a pack.
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Lego ain’t as cool as it used to be. Its all premoulded parts which only have one purpose, these parts severly limit the way in which lego can be assembled. I also don’t like the licensing agreements that they seem to have with Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc. Give me plain old lego blocks (or technic peices) over the limiting and limited leg you get nowadays.
Not really wanting to sound like an old fuddy-duddy but;
They don’t make it like they used to.
Cool, yes. I love it, yes.
However, I see it quite the opposite. I think that the rise of Lego (and the corresponding demise of Meccano) has mirrored the the destruction of our manufacturing/engineering base.
Why? Lego is a click-pieces-together idea, whereas Meccano was bolts and nuts and building of that kind. Hands-on engineering, as opposed to interchangable blocks.
I wonder if there is a corollary between the fortunes of the two companies, up to the demise of (say) Rover?
I love both. My children love both. Mindstorms rocks. Hacking it rocks. Firing imaginations of engineers? No. (Builders, perhaps. Architechts, perhaps.)
Alas, have to go with mandrill. The Lego of my youth was way cool (though probably not as cool as Meccano, which we didn’t have). When I went to get Lego for my daughter, I found that the sets were severely dumbed-down.
When I was growing up I had Erector Sets. My favorite toys for many years, and I think a great benefit to the development of my mind. (Now I’m a programmer.) I’ve been giving my grandson Legos hoping for the same effect. You can be very creative with the simple block kits, and discover how complex and intricate things can be made from a few simple elements. But as he grows I discover that the trend is toward what Mandrill mentions above, that you have a kid for constructing one or a very few kinds of things out of dedicated parts.
Fortunately there are kits available to teach simple machines, gears and motors and such. Unfortunately, at least in the US, they are available only through the educational distributor at high prices. (You can charge the schools anything, because the government pays, right?) I wish you could get this stuff in the toystores at toy prices.
Love the mindstorms, but the grandson is only eight, so I have to play with it myself for a while.
Lynwood
Mindstorms is like robot-crack. Once you start fiddling with it you can’t stop.
Mandrill,
All is not lost. My chaps have got through loads of the “franchised” Lego kits – but after a while they’re cannibalised for other creations or their components added to the general pool, nay, ocean of Lego parts – out of which they conjure forth wholly original artifacts that owe nothing to Messrs Potter or Vader.
Anyway, it’s from plucky little Denmark!
Currently working on an advertising campaign which features one of Denmark’s top models. I was amused to read in her biog that her mother is one of the nation’s leading architects and, as such, was asked to contribute to LegoLand by designing 2 of the structures there.
Lego blocks are tough little things. I had a big box of bricks that my parents had acquired secondhand from various sources. Buying a new set and just building exactly what it says in the instructions is no more fun than building pre-pack furniture. It was probably a bad business idea to make them almost everlasting – there must be a good market for them on eBay.
I disagree with the “lego is not what it used to be” sentiment. I thought the same thing until I saw what my kids do with it.
Lego to my kids is what building models was for me – learning how to follow detailed instructions to make something, but without that awful cement that got everywhere. That’s a useful and rewarding skill.
What’s more, I find is that very few of these models remain in their original state, and all bit by bit morph into something else entirely, and making a car out of something that used to be an X-Wing Fighter is every bit as engaging as using the generic blocks of our youth.
Nice to see that my good old homeland in the west is getting some good publicity for once 🙂
i like toys of the old gen, we found these balance boards at http://www.bambambalancers.com click on my name to go there. its not my site, but its a cool idea for kids and getting them to exercise. thing with toys these days is they dont leave much to the imagination. in my class i notice the kids play more with old fashion blocks over transformers or legos. the more the can use their imagination, the more they like it. my 2 cents worth…
Check these guys out. They’ve got a store front in the local mall here.
The indestructible nature of Legos is a credit to the manufacturer. Instead of cracking, chipping, or otherwise becoming unusable in hard use, kids of one generation pass them on to their own kids.
Many companies around the world have tried to equal or exceed the high quality of Legos, to no avail.
A barefooted parent who steps on a Lego piece in the dark knows that the foot will always come out second-best!
Ah the memories you all conjure up!
If I had a kid of the right age I’d buy them some lego like a shot, however not so good as it used to be, it currently is.
I had Meccano too, but lets face it folks, it was fiddly, what with nuts and bolts and spanners ‘nall.
I also had a thing called Bayko (spelling?) that all you could do with was design a suburban 1920’s semi on a green base , like a cribbage board, it had holes all over it and you slotted rods into the holes then slid prefab bits of walls and windows into it and then whacked on a roof .Boring!
Ah but what ever happened to Airfix kits, and especially the soldiers! Those inch high guys, that were supposed to be in scale with Hornby OO? I had legions of them, British, German, American, Japanese, paratrooper ones, hell even Ist ww ones of both sides.
Ah the memories you all conjure up!
If I had a kid of the right age I’d buy them some lego like a shot, however not so good as it used to be, it currently is.
I had Meccano too, but lets face it folks, it was fiddly, what with nuts and bolts and spanners ‘nall.
I also had a thing called Bayko (spelling?) that all you could do with was design a suburban 1920’s semi on a green base , like a cribbage board, it had holes all over it and you slotted rods into the holes then slid prefab bits of walls and windows into it and then whacked on a roof .Boring!
Ah but what ever happened to Airfix kits, and especially the soldiers! Those inch high guys, that were supposed to be in scale with Hornby OO? I had legions of them, British, German, American, Japanese, paratrooper ones, hell even Ist ww ones of both sides.
Yeah Airfix kits were cool too! But you always had to put down newspaper for the glue, and once they were built that was that. Lego was far superior.
Lego is seriously cool, and I do not think that I am going to be able to resist the new Mindstorms set when it comes out in autumn. By then I might even be able to afford it. Finally Mac support becomes official!
This row over the cartoons has a strong message – it will make all the apologists writhe and squirm, unable to escape the reality of the Islamofascists who they have welcomed and indulged. It is shining light on truth.
To paraphrase – “When a religious foot treads on a brick of democracy, it is always the foot that comes off worst!”
p.s I have always been a Lego fan. I even built a model of one of my patents using it, which involved pneumatic rams to move parts around.
Mindstorms? If only I had the time – I would be an addict and lost to society if I bought it!
Had a Gilbert Erector Set when I was MUCH younger – lost over time however I managed to get another about 3 years ago ( never unpacked 8 1/2 set !!! – don’t even THINK of asking what I paid for it !! ) It’s really more of an investment now more than anything else.
The MindStorms set are wonnnnerful / adictive and do teach ‘logical thought processes’ through programming.
Don’t really want one of the ‘you can only build this item’ Lego sets though.
Guess it’s time to get another MindStorms set (amazing what you can build with multiple sets. Neighbors are still a bit worried when the garage door goes up !!! 😉