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LEGO Brick 50th Anniversary

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the can't-wait-for-them-not-to-be-a-choking-hazard dept.

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.

7 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. too many custom parts. by oliverthered · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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    thank God the internet isn't a human right.
    1. Re:too many custom parts. by Viceroy+Potatohead · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A couple of years ago, I was playing with a friend's kid and wanted to change the directional plane of what I was building, so I took a "plate" type piece (the 1/3 thickness ones, or skinny ones or whatever) and stuck it edgewise on the face of what I had already built. (I'm not sure that I've explained very well, but I'm sure most people used to do this). The kid was pretty excited to use this new trick, and started to incorporate it into what he was doing.

      The kid never needed to figure out how to change the building plane because of all the L-brackets, hinges etc that exist in modern Lego. There is still plenty of creativity and problem-solving possible, for sure, but it's now rarer for a kid to have to figure out fundamental solutions with limited materials. IMO, that's what earlier Lego taught kids: fundamental problem solving. Mix that 'teaching' with a kid's creativity, and interesting creations are bound to happen. It's an important skill to be able to create something with the wrong tools, or no tools at all.

      It reminds me of a bit in Zen In the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The main character wants to fix a loose throttle with a shim made from an aluminum can, and his friend wants to use factory shims, which would be basically the same thing, but not currently available and costly. There's no basic understanding of the problem, and the solution is to buy some product to correct it. IMO, too many 'ideal' Lego pieces promote the same mindset.

    2. Re:too many custom parts. by The+Queen · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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*

      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.

      --

      The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
  2. Technic's! by afidel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The height was Technics, just enough customization to build useful real world stuff without being so specific that it hamstringed you into just one thing.

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    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  3. News for Nerds! I say NOT today by way2trivial · · Score: 2, Insightful

    1:58 PM- in what time zone? sheesh.. how can I have a momment of silence, if I don't know when!

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    every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
  4. Re:Before the idiotic "legos" starts appearing... by mattgoldey · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't give a rat's ass what the official stance is. They're Legos. They have always been Legos. They will always be Legos.

  5. Re:Before the idiotic "legos" starts appearing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Idiotic?

    To quote your link: "This is all a matter of protecting the trademark of 'LEGO' for the company (using it otherwise degenerates the strength of the trademark)."

    I have absolutely no interest in using a clumsy, unintuitive wording just because the company in question would like so. Do you seriously write all your Microsoft-related text like this? I don't think so. Admittedly I have more respect for the Lego Group than Microsoft. Nevertheless, there's a limit where convenience overrides their wishes of trademark protection. It was their choice not to give a proper name for the actual product line. If they don't offer a usable one, people will make it up. Tough.

    In my very humble opinion people who use "Legos" have more common sense than those who violently want to defend a form which doesn't fit into common language at all. Sacrificing fluent everyday speech to protect some random company's trademark is more idiotic to me. I most certainly know what they want. I simply don't care. It's their job to protect their trademarks, not mine.