Inside the Lego Factory

An anonymous reader writes "Gizmodo has a fascinating report and video tour inside the Lego factory, which is full of robots and controlled by a mainframe. 'This video shows something that very few people have had the opportunity to witness: the inside of the Lego factory, with no barriers or secrets. I filmed every step in the creation of the brick. From the raw granulate stored in massive silos to the molding machines to the gigantic storage cathedrals to the decoration and packaging warehouses, you will be able to see absolutely everything, including the most guarded secret of the company: the brick molds themselves.'"

Comments

Old

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not even naked.

Re:Old

[PawNtheSandman]

Wasn't this a story about a month ago? Rehashing old stories so soon?

Re:Old

[PawNtheSandman]

Guess not. Guess this is inside the factory, not the vault like the previous article.

Re:Old

[Anonymous Coward]

It may not be "old", but it's definately not an exclusive. I remember watching an episode of "How it's made" (Discovery channel) which peered into the making of legos

Re:Old

[Yvan256]

What you remember is probably about MEGA Bloks, the Montreal company.

Re:Old

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember watching an episode of "How it's made" (Discovery channel) which peered into the making of legos

Pet peeve of mine, but from their FAQ:

Please be sure to spell the brand name "LEGO" in capital letters and use it as an adjective and not a noun. For example you should write "Models built of LEGO bricks" and not "Models built of Lego". "Legos" is right out.

Okay, that last sentence was mine. :)
 

Beginning of the End

[Nerdposeur]

The big secret: Lego Mindstorm robots are running the factory.

I, for one, welcome our new bumpy-headed overlords.

Re:Beginning of the End

[VoyagerRadio]

Please, please get original. Now, my turn: It's rumored that Skynet recently acquired Lego. I, for one, welcome our new (and colorful overlords).

Re:Beginning of the End

[n1ckml007]

Where can I purchase the "Lego Factory" Lego set?

Re:Beginning of the End

[Anonymous Coward]

Originality sucks. I want a car analogy!

Re:Beginning of the End

[SantorCet]

This was the Beginning of the End for LEGOlas. Saruman slowly took him apart...

Re:Beginning of the End

[fm6]

No, TFA said that the factory is controlled by "mainframes". That's probably just nongeekspeak for "really fancy computer", but even so...

Re:Beginning of the End

[smittyoneeach]

A/C:Bad analogies are a motor in Soviet Russia: it drives you! .
Grammar nazi:That's not an analogy, it's a synecdoche.

Re:Beginning of the End

[Hyppy]

I don't know. Wouldn't a massive virtualization platform qualify as a "mainframe"? Or, they could just be running System z10. *shrug*

Re:Beginning of the End

[Anonymous Coward]

You buy that in the lego factory factory.

Police police police police...

Re:Beginning of the End

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I always assumed it was done inside a large switch() statement.

Re:Beginning of the End

[dugjohnson]

You forgot
Nazi...uh....Chuck Norris!

Re:Beginning of the End

[Enderandrew]

I wish I had mod points right now.

Re:Beginning of the End

[Anonymous Coward]

Where can I purchase the "Lego Factory" Lego set?

Don't worry the factory is self replicating and it's expanding at a geometric rate. The factory should reach where you are in about six months. It's expected to convert the entire world GNP to Lego manufacture in about 18 months. I hope you like Legos....a lot.

Re:Beginning of the End

[ClarisseMcClellan]

Imagine the video with that (or the Millenium Falcon) on the assembly line...

Re:Beginning of the End

[awrowe]

...just like zorro

Never send a micro to do a mainframes job.

[Anonymous Coward]

Never send a micro to do a mainframes job.

Expensive

[JCSoRocks]

But this still doesn't answer the "Why is Lego so expensive?" question that I've always had ever since I was a kid. The materials can't cost that much (Obviously petroleum byproducts cost more now than they did 15 years ago, but still...). Also, those looked like injection molds - which AFAIK are one of the cheapest ways to manufacture something. Don't get me wrong - I love, love, love lego. I was just always sad as a kid that I didn't have money to buy more.

Re:Expensive

[pimpimpim]

I am not in the toy making business, but I find their production process pretty high tech. And they probably have a very high production quality control. They probably invest a lot to keep their product as perfect as possible. Do they have production facilities in low-wage countries?

Anyway, thanks to Gizmodo for making this amazing piece of fabrication history visible for us!!

Re:Expensive

[zsazsa]

They're expensive because they're made in Denmark, not China like almost any other plastic thing made even 15 years ago.

Re:Expensive

[AndGodSed]

Exactly! Right now we are not buying our kids lego because it is so darned expensive. We get better toys cheaper.

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

My understanding is that it's largely due to QA. LEGO bricks have some of the highest tolerances in the manufacturing industry. Think about it: when was the last time you had two bricks that didn't fit together perfectly?

Re:Expensive

[Yetihehe]

It's like asking why macs cost so much. Part of the price is better quality, but largest part is trademark.

Re:Expensive

[jameskojiro]

Hah,

Have you ever used MegaBlocks? They totally suck, the plastic stretches and doesn't bounce back. The only good LEGO clone was the Tyco Blocks and even they have their issues, but their quality of the plastic was a bit better.

The reason LEGO are good is because the formula they use for their plastic, granted they could be less expensive.

Re:Expensive

[Mastadex]

They say that the entire plant (and robots) are controlled by computers, but that's actually a lie. Each one of those robots has a midget inside of it, controlling the vehicle. Its very expensive to hire and feed those midgets and also to supply a steady stream of hookers to keep them from uprising. Hookers aren't cheap and that's why lego cost so much.

Re:Expensive

[johnlcallaway]

There is only one supplier, a significant demand, and they charge whatever the market is willing to pay. Don't like it, don't buy them. If enough people stop buying them, the prices may drop or the company may start producing less and cutting back costs and charge the same. Or charge more to make up for the revenue loss if the ones left will pay the higher prices. And so it goes....

Re:Expensive

[sherriw]

They charge what people are willing to pay. Period. Of course they cost way less to manufacture, but how many companies do you honestly think will lower their prices 'just to be nice'? Please, Lego are popular and fly off the shelves even at their inflated price. More power to 'em. That's how the market economy works.

Re:Expensive

[UltraAyla]

The big deal (according to someone at the company in an NPR interview, I believe) is repeat customers. Since their product is so durable, customers tend to buy until they have enough then use them for a couple generations (I know my legos will be used by my kids someday). When a product is so durable, you need to charge a little more for it in order to ensure your company's survival.

Re:Expensive

[JCSoRocks]

Ahh, true that. I've never had a piece that didn't fit! Or a piece missing from a set either for that matter... I can't say the same for some furniture I've bought (and that cost a whole lot more than a lego set).

Re:Expensive

[Ethanol-fueled]

That's why the little plastic lego men are modelled after their masters. What, you thought they were made to look like this by accident? It takes the concept of the mini-me to a whole new level.

Re:Expensive

[bugs2squash]

you love love love lego because it is different from duplo. It's got lots of cool themes that capture imagination and the product is so high quality that it's damn near impossible to separate some of the pieces when they're snapped together..

I think the creative marketing and design justifies an elevated price, even if the physical product alone had not.

It must also help to have the dealership channels that Lego have.

Snap it all together and there are lots of reasons why Lego can get more for their product than others can.

Re:Expensive

[ConceptJunkie]

Indeed. There are Lego bricks in my kids' collection that are 40 years old from when I was but a tyke. The bricks that old seem to be a little more brittle than they are now, but otherwise are perfectly durable and compatible with the current Lego. It's cool to occasionally see the old logo on the studs.

Lego is very expensive, but it's worth it. They've been through many changes, including some that I thought moved away from the core of what Lego is all about, but they still make a great product, and I still buy plenty for my kids.

Re:Expensive

[ettlz]

Yes. Having "played" with LEGO for many, many years, I have yet to encounter a malformed piece or one with burrs or other moulding artifacts.

Re:Expensive

[Darinbob]

Legos do have much higher quality than similar "block" toys. They have higher durability and don't wear out as fast, and have more stringent quality control. They may cost more than a competitor like Mega Bloks, but they'll last longer.

Re:Expensive

[TorKlingberg]

So the real question is, why don't other toy companies make the lego copies, but cheaper? There would still be a profit margin for them. Any patents lego had on the original blocks must have run out by now.

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, but the savings from their tiny bodies (impacting how little they eat, amount of water for showering, environmental heating/cooling duty required, etc) offsets the hookers. still no excuse!

Re:Expensive

[VoyagerRadio]

Legos have been around a long time, but I've never seen a "generic" version of them -- in other words, another brand of identical building block toys. Is their trademark repeatedly renewed? I'm more familiar with copyright issues than trademarks, so I'm not even certain I'm asking a legitimate question. What I'm trying to get at is, why don't we see a Lego competitor in the market?

Re:Expensive

[AndGodSed]

I realize I came across flamey - what I meant to say was that there is better value for money out there. Not necessarily in the direct competition area (as with Mega Blocks) but with other types of toys.

Re:Expensive

[Tweenk]

Lego is very expensive

Rant: They charge Europeans more in Euro that they charge Americans in dollars. And no, there's no factory in the US. WTF? Where do they get their exchange rates from?

With the dollar just above 2 PLN, buying stuff in the US and having it shipped to Poland is starting to look practical (and profitable).

Re:Expensive

[Verdatum]

A major reason for their cost (beyond brand name familiarity and novelty) is that they use ABS plastic to cast their pieces. This is choosen for reasons of safety and strength. It is one of the more expensive plastics on the market.

Re:Expensive

[Verdatum]

Not true. They just won a lawsuit against Megablocks about this 3 years ago. http://www.allbusiness.com/legal/trial-procedure-suits-claims/4999649-1.html

Re:Expensive

[LWATCDR]

I can think of one reason.
People are willing to pay it.

The reasons why people are willing to pay it probably have a lot to do with the quality of the product which IMHO is very high and the name recognition.

In other words they are not cheap junk and people are willing to pay for quality, at least in this case.

Re:Expensive

[dctoastman]

Lego bricks currently clock in at an average of 10 cents a piece (i.e. an 800 piece set will run you around $80, a 5000 piece set will run you around $500 dollars.)

Re:Expensive

[Jason Earl]

I've had a set missing a piece. Heck, the last set I purchased for my kid didn't match what was on the cover. When we opened the box up our Lego Star Wars set actually contained Indiana Jones pieces. Even worse, the retards at Target almost didn't take the set back. It's no wonder that people shop at Wal-Mart.

I buy Lego sets because that's what my son wants, and my son wants Lego because Lego is way better at marketing than the competition.

As an example. My kids liked Star Wars, but they didn't become obsessive over Star Wars until they played the Lego Star Wars video games. Next thing I know even my girls want Legos, and my boy has gone completely crazy.

I don't mind. I happen to like both Star Wars and Lego. I just bough my kids the Lego Indiana Jones video game and I hope it has the same effect. I'm going to spend quality time with my kinds anyhow, but I would much rather play Indiana Jones or Star Wars than American Girl Doll or Power Rangers.

Re:Expensive

[LWATCDR]

What gives better value for your money than Lego?
I have yet to see a toy that will get as much play as a tub of Legos
Now I do think they have way to many special parts these days but that is just because I am old.

Re:Expensive

[saider]

They are out there. In fact, they generally occupy the part of the market that Lego does not touch, like military block sets, etc.

I have a big bin of Legos from when I was a kid (back ~25 years ago) and they work perfectly with the new Legos I get for my son. And I am confident that they will work with my grandkids' Legos in another 25 years or so.

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Legos have no quality control process, because there is no such fucking thing, you imbecile.

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

My best (unverified, speculative) guess, is that the shape of the Lego is trademarked.

Trademarks are more lasting than copyright/patents, and probably a sleazy way of maintaining a monopoly on a product ...

Re:Expensive

[hjf]

It's high tech not to have high quality, but to have less operators. You can either have low automatization in factories in low wage countries or high automatization in high wage countries, but the quality is the same (is plastic, god damn it. The product is only as good as the plastic it's made of).

Re:Expensive

[Hyppy]

My experience has been a bit different... I've never owned furniture that was less expensive than some Lego sets I've owned.

Re:Expensive

[Hyppy]

I've had a set missing a piece. Heck, the last set I purchased for my kid didn't match what was on the cover. When we opened the box up our Lego Star Wars set actually contained Indiana Jones pieces. Even worse, the retards at Target almost didn't take the set back. It's no wonder that people shop at Wal-Mart.

Chances are, it was switched by a customer or something else to that effect.

Re:Expensive

[Hognoxious]

I have - they're called Duplo, identical except they're twice as big (linearly). But seriously, Airfix, better known for plastic model kids produced something like "Bucket-O-Brix" that were advertised as being compatible with *cough* the leading manufacturer, or words to that effect. I'm pretty sure there were others.

Re:Expensive

[MightyYar]

That's not really true. Process engineers have a lot to do with the quality of plastic products. Those big injection molding machines are really finicky about temperature and pressure, and the molds have to be designed very well. Otherwise you'd get legos that shrink too much, or not enough, or worst of all - not consistently.

Legos have to strike a delicate balance between fitting too tightly and too loosely... it's actually amazing that all of the sets over the years are pretty darn compatible. It's the rare Lego that simply falls off.

Plastic quality is also important, but presumably they are just buying some standard high-quality type. (Maybe not?)

Re:Expensive

[MightyYar]

Tub of hookers?

Re:Expensive

[kesuki]

perhaps, maybe Lincoln logs, tinker toys. maybe knex, there was another toy that used nuts and bolts i cant' recall the name of... they might not make it any more, teaching kids how to build with wrenches and screwdrivers isn't as popular as it once was..

oh hey and Lincoln logs and tinker toys are made of renewable, biodegradable wood technology, it would be nice to know if anyone used cornstarch to build plastic like biodegradable interconnecting blocks.

i can find a google image, but not the name of the toy i was thinking of

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.toycon.com/quercetti/images/big_38024.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.toycon.com/quercetti/quercetti2.html&h=375&w=340&sz=45&hl=en&start=11&tbnid=iawHzVFVzlcQYM:&tbnh=122&tbnw=111&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dkids%2Btoy%2Bscrews%2Band%2Bbolts%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

Re:Expensive

[MightyYar]

What they charge is determined by the market, not by the cost of the product, exchange rates, or any other mechanism. They will charge whatever they can get from you while still producing Legos at their plant's most efficient rate.

Re:Expensive

[CopaceticOpus]

I also find it surprising that advanced manufacturing technology hasn't driven down the price of Legos. However, this article gives some insight into the business side of Lego and shows that the prices aren't simply inflated out of greed.

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

The Danish factory will probably close in the near future since LEGO moved a lot of their production to Eastern Europe for cheaper cost.

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

bzzzzt wrong. They're expensive because people will pay for them. Plastic injected parts are super cheap. Take a look at http://www.caplugs.com/ those are made in the USA and are super cheap. When you are doing high volume injection molded parts it makes little difference if they are made in the US, Denmark, China or anywhere else. It's all what the market will bear.

Re:Expensive

[LWATCDR]

Oh they are all good toys. Lincoln Logs are not as flexible as Legos and knex is just a bit to fiddly for young kids.
They are all great toys with what I consider good choices.
You are thinking of Erector Sets or I think they where also called Mecco.

Re:Expensive

[AndGodSed]

Isn't that mekano, or mechano?

Re:Expensive

[AttilaSz]

Duplo is actually a Lego product line - larger bricks targeting kids under age of 3 (so they can't swallow the little pieces, because they're, well, larger).

Re:Expensive

[hjf]

so what's your point? Factories move to china for low wages,but obviously here that's not a problem because the process is completely automatic. You only need a couple of operators to change the molds and some QC, that's about it.

Doing this in China could cost just a little less than doing it in Denmark, proving that legos are expensive "just because", and not because the manufacturing process is necessarily complex to require human intervention in every stage (like, say, clothes, that need to be sewn manually).

Re:Expensive

[DinDaddy]

Until very recently, every lego bought for me as a child, and for my child, has been labeled "Made in Denmark or Switzerland". No outsourcing to China here. That plus toy markup is rather obscene.

Re:Expensive

[VoyagerRadio]

Duplo are actually made by Lego; perhaps you already knew that. I can't find any Airfix Brix online yet, though they're are plenty of Airfix models...Anyway, thanks for the info.!

Re:Expensive

[DinDaddy]

The current generation of tinkertoys are crap, likely because they are now made from tree farm fast growth (==renewable) wood. They snap and crack upon every disassembly. Now when I was a kid, they were solid, good, old growth wood and lasted forever!

Re:Expensive

[kesuki]

true, for the very young, you might want to stick with non interconnecting alphabet/number covered blocks, and teach the child their numbers and letters by Playing With the child... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000067NXE

ah well. there are a ton of toys for kids, and edubuntu has a nice collection of FOSS tools for kids old enough to use a mouse on up!.

Re:Expensive

[Nightspirit]

Capsela and construx used to be like lego but better. I went into a toys r us recently looking for these as a present for my uncle and it seems they have been replaced by things that require no creativity or thought. It seems Capsela has been bought out and is now has quality control issues while Construx isn't made anymore.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsela
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construx

Re:Expensive

[gnick]

I've had a set missing a piece. Heck, the last set I purchased for my kid didn't match what was on the cover. When we opened the box up our Lego Star Wars set actually contained Indiana Jones pieces. Even worse, the retards at Target almost didn't take the set back. It's no wonder that people shop at Wal-Mart.

That's nothing. I opened up the case of my new improvised nuclear weapon and all I found was a bunch of pinball machine parts!

Re:Expensive

[DinDaddy]

Lego has very responsive customer service. They will send you missing parts, or even replacements if you break something, most of the time. Next time, email them. That's part of what the price buys you.

Re:Expensive

[DinDaddy]

Duplo are made by Lego.

Re:Expensive

[sdsucks]

Spoken like someone who knows nothing about plastic injection molding, but assumes it's simple. (In typical slashdot fashion.)

Re:Expensive

[frp001]

Duplo IS Lego.

Re:Expensive

[spymagician]

My understanding is that it's largely due to QA. LEGO bricks have some of the highest tolerances in the manufacturing industry. Think about it: when was the last time you had two bricks that didn't fit together perfectly?

That's part one and the other part, which I'm surprised nobody mentioned yet, is the designers.

Think about those simplistic $6/£3 Lego sets and the thought and engineering that went into each piece. Not to mention that every few months they introduce new pieces. I mean, just look at one of the bigger sets like the Millennium Falcon and all the unique parts it has. I also imagine the designers are urged to use as few bricks as possible as well; often being asked to remove here and there the pieces that might be merely cosmetic and non-critical.

Also, licensing costs are probably astronomical. I can only imagine the license fees for the Lucas and Spielberg properties.

Anyway, the video and article was very cool. I just wish the footage was longer.

Re:Expensive

[Reece400]

it's actually amazing that all of the sets over the years are pretty darn compatible. It's the rare Lego that simply falls off.

Very good point, I have some nearly 20 year old legos that fit with brand new ones like they were from the same batch. I suppose I took it for granted without really thinking how much work would go into this level of quality control.

Re:Expensive

[kesuki]

if they're cracking they're probably being made from cheap soft woods, like pine.

there are still hard woods, but hard woods grow slower, and the best hard woods are often the ones used for nut/fruit farming, since they are given a very long growth cycle, because as long as they have good yields the cost of replacing them is too high to cut them down quickly..

but yeah, slow growth wood is the best for wood products, they also make a plastic version of tinker toys...

managed forestry doesn't have to push cheap fast growth soft woods, but as long as greed is the motivation, then we won't have a choice in the matter.

Re:Expensive

[v(*_*)vvvv]

I find myself agreeing with this Coward.

Lego's are plastic. First I thought parent was joking...

Plastic! Is it a special patented formula? Who cares!! Most plastic is so durable we are having issues dealing with it.

I don't mean to take anything away from Lego, because there is more to it than manufacturing processes, but I wouldn't be so surprised if a factory in China could to an equal or better job for less if given the challenge.

I also wouldn't be surprised if the manufacturing costs are already dirt cheap.

Re:Expensive

[JCSoRocks]

I didn't realize Construx was discontinued so long ago... now I feel old. Those were one of my favorites. I played with those as much as I did legos. Plus, they had nifty glow in the dark "laser gun" pieces so... you know... once you built your awesome spaceship you could turn of the lights and run around and pretend you were space... until you ran into something and broke it / yourself. Good times.

Re:Expensive

[Reece400]

I think it's actually Meccano

Re:Expensive

[Von Helmet]

oh hey and Lincoln logs and tinker toys are made of renewable, biodegradable wood technology, it would be nice to know if anyone used cornstarch to build plastic like biodegradable interconnecting blocks.

Who cares if Lego isn't recyclable/renewable? I don't know the lifespan of Lego, but it's pretty long... decades, if not longer. If there were ever a deserving use for plastic, this is it, not billions of bloody carrier bags at the supermarket.

Re:Expensive

[JCSoRocks]

Whooosh. (Sadly I can't "whoosh" three replies at once.) FYI - The "But seriously" was your clue that he was joking.

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always wished they made real-brick sized legos. I would make furniture and build houses out of them.

Re:Expensive

[Arccot]

you love love love lego because it is different from duplo. It's got lots of cool themes that capture imagination and the product is so high quality that it's damn near impossible to separate some of the pieces when they're snapped together.. I think the creative marketing and design justifies an elevated price, even if the physical product alone had not.

I personally have always preferred just the blocks themselves. I didn't want specially shaped themed parts for a castle or pirate ship that I could only use for the castle or pirate ship. The raw blocks are the best thing about Lego.

Re:Expensive

[hardburn]

I'll bet that when the relative positions of the USD and the Euro were reversed, Lego was charging roughly the same number of USDs and Euros that it does now. (In fact, after taking a quick look, it looks like an $80-100 kit is about the same size and complexity as a similarly priced kit when I was a kid, which means they aren't even correcting for inflation).

In a traditional commodity market, this would indeed make it worth it to buy in the area with the weaker currency and ship it over. In time, the cost would end up rising in the weaker currency market to match. That's just market correction in action.

This made me think of a tangent case, though. DVDs and other media with region encoding makes it (sort of) impossible to have such a market correction. That could be used to form an argument that such measures are anti-capitalist.

Re:Expensive

[easyTree]

It's like asking why macs cost so much. Part of the price is better quality, but largest part is trademark.

Nuh-uh. It's because macs include the price of your lifetime mac-fanboy club membership ;)

Now now, no need to mod me troll.. Windows > 'MacOS'

Re:Expensive

[notgm]

they have excellent customer service when a missing piece is encountered, however. i've bought sets off of ebay with a few missing pieces, and lego hasn't hesitated to send me the correct pieces without issue, free of charge.

i even had a piece which i admitted to losing on my own accord, and they sent a replacement.

i'm sure that if one abuses the privilege, they'll stop sending pieces, but after two or three of these episodes, i've been thoroughly impressed.

Re:Expensive

[kesuki]

Because cornstarch is stronger than plastic, and is harmless if swallowed (it will break down, actually)

i know they make cornstarch cups and 'disposable' utensils, cornstarch is a byproduct of commercial corn syrup production, as well, making corn more valuable for use as a sweetener if the byproduct is used efficiently.

maybe kids blocks shouldn't be made with cornstarch, since then they might degrade too quickly. there is an advantage in that though, since you can price the blocks closer to margins, knowing they've got a limited shelf life in humid/hot environments...

Re:Expensive

[Mista2]

It keeps them rare, and highly valued. Just like macs. I wanted to buy a mac mini, second hand. The 2GHz Core2 duo has been on sale here in NZ for a year and are still NZ$1200 for the 2GB RAM model with the super drive. They sell second hand for NZ$800 to NZ$900. I can build a 2GHZ quadcore xpc shuttle for that money, but it still wont be as small as the mini 8(

Re:Expensive

[Von Helmet]

maybe kids blocks shouldn't be made with cornstarch, since then they might degrade too quickly. there is an advantage in that though, since you can price the blocks closer to margins, knowing they've got a limited shelf life in humid/hot environments...

Ugh. Only in Capitalist America would planned obsolescence be considered an advantage.

Re:Expensive

[A440Hz]

Injection molded, but with no flash (no Web 2.0 pun intended). This is super-high quality material and a super-high quality process.

Re:Expensive

[Trailer Trash]

And I would disagree. Legos last essentially forever (my first set is now 34 years old and just as good as new) and aren't "dated" anyway. My kids love playing with the same things I did. Plus they get to be creative and learn how to build and solve problems.

As far as I'm concerned, it's one of the best toy values out there.

Re:Expensive

[Yetihehe]

Yeah, according to my random sample of mac users consisting solely of one person, macs are even worse than cheap asian laptops.

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

I still buy plenty for my kids.

Who are you kidding? You know they're for YOU!!!

Re:Expensive

[Zordak]

That is trademark case, not a patent case (also, it was in the Netherlands, so that's the only place it would apply). In the U.S., patents currently last for 20 years from the filing date. Legos have been around much longer than that, so the basic design is in the public domain.

Also, the reasoning in the case you cited looks like it would be questionable at best under U.S. Trademark law. The interlocking mechanism is functional, so once the patent expires, your competitors are not required to select a different mechanism. If you want trademark protection, mark the packaging or the blocks themselves with a non-functional identifier. So in the U.S., you're probably good to make Lego knock-offs. It just comes down to an economic question.

In case you have .sigs turned off: This post is not legal advice. Don't rely on it for any reason.

Re:Expensive

[fishbowl]

>We get better toys cheaper.

There has never been a better toy than Lego and there never will be.

Re:Expensive

[GeckoAddict]

Really? Lego has them for just over 3.8 cents each. http://shop.lego.com/ByCategory/Product.aspx?p=6177&cn=227

Re:Expensive

[Intron]

But this still doesn't answer the "Why is Lego so expensive?"

Mostly the health insurance costs. You see, they all work with bare feet.

Re:Expensive

[dctoastman]

so you find the one item that doesn't follow. Not to mention you are looking at the basic bulk packages and not a playset. The playsets (99.9% of sales) are about 10 cents an element. Of course you get all sizes and minifigs and special molds.

Re:Expensive

[DamnStupidElf]

You pay VAT, the U.S. doesn't.

Re:Expensive

[Hognoxious]

Duplo IS Lego.

Congratulations, you have passed "reading two words out of a post and making the obvious response while thinking you're oh-so-smart 101" with top marks.

Now, to pass English comprehension, explain what the author means by the phrase "but seriously", giving appropriate weight to the implications for both the preceding and following statements.

Hint: look up.

Re:Expensive

[ross.w]

It is Meccano, and it still exists (at least in Australia). It is the reason Lego Technic was created, because you can do things with it that you can't do with Lego (and vise versa). Meccano is great for building replicas of real life machines that work like the original. I remember building many cranes, trucks, forklifts, excavators and even a working (poorly) 2 speed automatic transmission using only Meccano. Biggest hassle I had was that those "flexible" plates would only bend so many times before they cracked, and once you bent them it was almost impossible to get them straight again.

Re:Expensive

[ross.w]

Have you built a retaining wall lately? A lot of the products used for that interlock in a similar fashion to Lego, but they're made out of clay or concrete.

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you do a little research you'll find out that they also have an extremely low reject rate. It's purely because that's what people will pay.

Remove the packaging and that elaborate Death Star Lego set cost just a few dollars to make, yet it retails for $270 USD (onsale now for $199 USD)

Re:Expensive

[Tomfrh]

"Why is Lego so expensive?"

Because it's good.

Re:Expensive

[Jason Earl]

That's good to know. Target sorted things out for me in the end. That's probably more expensive for Lego, but I got the set that I wanted.

Before then I couldn't even imagine needing customer support on a Lego set.

Re:Expensive

[Oktober Sunset]

I don't think you realise exactly how horny these midgets are, they will wear out 3 hookers each in just an hour, and it cost extra to get the hookers to do the kinky things the midgets demand, being locked inside a robot making knobly bricks all day really fucks them up.

Re:Expensive

[hjf]

care to enlighten us? you obviously don't know either but it's easier to troll than to make a lego.

Re:Expensive

[hjf]

ok temperature? pressure? sensors anyone? come on, when you have a process like that, they know every aspect of it, every variable has been figured out and programmed into the machine. there's no magic involved, no "this is so secret we can't tell anyone". you just fucking program the machine to keep that shit at the right pressure and temperature and that's it.

I see no reason why these molds can't be made in whatever place they make them and shipped to china for manufacturing, and now for some reality check, so excuse the upper case:

THERE'S OVER ONE FUCKING BILLION CHINESE, ARE YOU GOING TO TELL ME THAT THEY CAN'T FIND ONE ENGINEER THAT CAN DO IT RIGHT? CHINA MAKES RAM CHIPS, MICROPROCESSORS, HARD FUCKING DRIVES, LCD PANELS, PLASMA SCREENS, AND THEY CAN'T MAKE A GOD DAMN LEGO?

Besides, "important" jobs are always handled by non-locals (if it's an american company, then the manager is american).

There's a misconception that chinese products are "bad". Chinese products are as good as you're willing to pay for. It's like an internet connection, you can get a regular DSL line, or get a T3 with an SLA.

But we got two things mixed in this discussion: quality and price. My point is that stuff manufactured in china doesn't have to be bad. It can be as good as stuff made in europe. The difference is how they cut down on personnel in europe, and I know this first hand. I work for a mattress factory and we buy big machines. But the salesman is always showing us two options: the full auto or the semi auto. Example: to sew the mattress top to the sides you sew all around, flip the mattress and sew the other side, then remove it and load another one. The full-auto machine has a huge mechanism (that takes up a lot of room too) that flips the mattress and tilts it off the table when it's done. The semi-auto doesn't have that. The salesman always suggest we buy the semi-auto, given that it has low mantainance costs, and it's not really cost-effective (example: full auto vs semi-auto is $50K vs $25K. That difference is the YEARLY salary of 4 or 5 employees in the factory I work (in Argentina). That's why you see such nice, tidy, clean european factories. They have to be clean so that delicate machines can work, tidy so that automated transport machines can roll, and nice to keep the few employees left happy.

If you ever try to manufacture something in China they're very happy to do it. They require all CAD drawings and stuff like that, and you have to specify every aspect of it. They will ask you what material, tolerances... and that's where you can be cheap, especially in tolerances. Need tighter tolerances? No problem, but the price is going to be much higher. Want to bring your own raw materials? No problem. Want them to develop a process to make your product? They even go as far as that. You supply them with an idea, they make it happen, you just have to be very specific about what you want.

Re:Expensive

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Yeah, those 100's of high-quality injection mold machines, the automated storage and packaging, all pretty cheap to setup and keep running.

Re:Expensive

[Rocketship Underpant]

That's why Lego has adapted by designing nicer models and nicer models each year, and always including a few must-have pieces in the big sets.

In addition, the high price of secondhand Lego keeps used product from cannibalizing new sales too much. You can sell a single older set on eBay and make enough to buy 2-3 new sets of similar size, making the hobby almost self-sustaining. (Some people even make money off it by buying sets at retail or on sale, keeping what they want, and selling the rest off as individual bricks.)

Re:Expensive

[Atario]

I don't know who the fascists are running your Target, but I routinely return things to the Target(s) near me with that reason, or even a simple "got the wrong one" or "it's the wrong color". Very rarely have I gotten anything resembling hassle from them.

You might want to go over the head of whoever's refusing.

Re:Expensive

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

That's nothing. I opened up the case of my new improvised nuclear weapon and all I found was a bunch of pinball machine parts!

You think you had it bad? I openend up the case of my new pinball machine and it containt a improvised nuclear weapon with a ticking timer, just when my neighbour borrowed my wire cutter.

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, running injection molding machines cost the same price (or roughly) in China or in Danemark.
You will save money on the labour intensive parts of the assembly process, and probably on the making of the toolings for injection.. but not much else.

By automating, Lego is actually protecting itself from having to move to China.

BTW, there are at least 2 full-fledged lego-compatible ripoff brands in China, but they haven't killed lego at all..

Re:Expensive

[morethanapapercert]

Well there is the "name brand" but still cheaper Mega Bloks, I remember when they first came out, the advertising at the time made a big deal about the fact that the basic bricks are allegedly completely compatible with LEGO. My parents bought me a set or two at the time and believe me, they were not nearly as good as the real LEGO already in a giant suitcase under my bed. Bad "grab", many pieces did not have perfectly flat and parallel sides so they wouldn't stick right even to other Mega Bloks, etc etc. Because of my bad experiences with them back then, I refuse to buy them today for my older son, who is as much a building block fanatic as I was, but wants the movie tie-in sets available only in Mega Bloks. I seem to vaguely recall seeing Loc Blocs out there as well, but Wikipedia says it is out of business.

Recently I spotted what appear to be generic un-branded LEGO knock offs at the local dollar store. On inspection they were nothing like LEGO or even Mega Bloks. These were made of a much softer plastic than the LEGO ABS and were perhaps 30% smaller. (Imagine an army men version of LEGO, crappy detail, sharp mold ridges and all) So there are other interlocking building block systems out there, but none I have seen manage to rival good ol' LEGO.

Re:Expensive

[andrewm_za]

That huge storage cathedral cannot be cheap to maintain, insure, keep track of, etc. I dare say Lego could save a lot of cash if they learnt a thing or two from the Japanese, and moved to a Just-In-Time manufacturing process. Bricks would be manufactured just in time to ship to the stores, reducing the need for inventory.

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

...And get off the lawn!

;)

Re:Expensive

[clone53421]

I've used "lego" blocks and I've used Lego blocks (yeah, other companies make them, and they're even sorta interchangeable with Legos... I wish I knew who made them, but I don't have the foggiest recollection). There's definitely a difference. The plastic is different, the other bricks don't fit as nicely as the real Legos do; overall I pretty much hated them. If somebody had offered to pick through the entire box of Legos and sort out the crap ones and replace them with real Lego pieces, that would have been my idea of bliss... hey, I was a kid; life was simple.

Re:Expensive

[clone53421]

What?! Here I thought you had to pay the high price every time you bought one of their products and now you're telling me it's supposedly a lifetime membership? Rip off... grumble mutter harumph!

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Since there have been numerous clones that were to varying degrees compatible with genuine Lego, my best speculative guess is that you're a tard.

Re:Expensive

[Hognoxious]

But the US has sales tax, which to an end customer is the same kind of thing. And in most European countries the VAT is already in the price you see, whereas in the US the sales tax is added on after.

Re:Expensive

[MightyYar]

ok temperature? pressure? sensors anyone? come on, when you have a process like that, they know every aspect of it, every variable has been figured out and programmed into the machine.

Well, at that point you've taken most of the labor out of the equation and your cost savings in China won't make the move worth it.

Besides, I think you are over-simplifying the injection molding process. The tolerances that Lego supposedly achieves are better than what most places get with machining metals. Very, very impressive.

so excuse the upper case

I won't. It's rude and you don't know what you are talking about.

THERE'S OVER ONE FUCKING BILLION CHINESE, ARE YOU GOING TO TELL ME THAT THEY CAN'T FIND ONE ENGINEER THAT CAN DO IT RIGHT?

It's actually very hard. First off, a tiny fraction of that 1 billion has actually attended school... it is NOT a first-world country. Second, many of their most talented people go to work overseas. Third, the employee culture over there is very, very different from most of the West. In the West, a resume with a bunch of short stints on it is death. Over there, it is the standard way to progress and make promotions. To stay at one place too long makes you look like you were "stuck" in a job. It is pure hell to keep trained engineers in place in China.

In any event, I find that we do get some pretty good engineers despite all of these things, but we still need to send over a fair number of ex-pats to keep the factories humming.

CHINA MAKES RAM CHIPS

Hey! My industry! China does make a bit of memory, and it is increasing - but I cannot over-emphasize the difference in factories between China and Japan. Japan and the US (yes, they make memory in Boise) have some of the cleanest and most impressive facilities. Singapore and Korea are pretty decent too. Even Taiwan is pretty good - though more of a mixed bag. Hell, even Malaysia isn't the end of the world. China is getting better, but some of the "cleanrooms" are so makeshift that they are more like tents. The equipment is run with the QC circuitry disabled because the products that they are pumping out (like LEDs) are so cheap that they don't want the machine to stop even if it cranks out junk for a while.

Chinese products are as good as you're willing to pay for.

Absolutely true! There's nothing inherent about the Chinese that would make products crappy. To imply so is a bit racist, IMHO. However, most companies who do business in China are doing it to save money - often moving existing lines. You can do things in China cheaply because the labor is so inexpensive, but that means compromising your quality. There are also problems with corruption and the culture is more accepting of low-quality goods, so you have to pay to fight those two problems. By the time you do all of this, you might as well have stayed put.

That's why you see such nice, tidy, clean european factories.

That, and the salaries are significantly higher in Europe. Even in the US, your semi-auto mattress flipping operator would cost you $40-50k (including benefits, taxes, insurance, etc). So yeah, in Argentina it doesn't make sense to automate, but it sure does in the US or much of Europe.

you just have to be very specific about what you want.

That's true, but even with good specs you get some really really bad suppliers. You pretty much have to go over there to vet suppliers, and when they start shipping in volume you have to constantly spot-check because they WILL try to get away with whatever they can. We had castings made (iron), and the samples looked good. We started production and they started rolling in all disfigured with wood (!!!) grain in places. We couldn't stop the assembly line and wait for a new vendor, so we had to make expensive modifications and offer customers discounts for aesthetic ble

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't explain the situation and ask for replacement bricks? I've heard many a story about great customer service over at LEGO, so it's worth it to at least try.

Re:Expensive

[chaim79]

Nope, even here it's considered a disadvantage by most, only an advantage by the corporate types.

I buy my stuff to last as long as possible, if I buy something and it breaks quickly I never go back to that product and distrust the brand from then on, only exceptions are when warranty replaces it and the replacement lasts for a long time (hard drive I bought died out of the package, the warranty replacement has lasted 8 years and still going)

And I have a 5 gallon tub of Lego's that I play with, many that are 20+ years old, sure the cornstarch-type stuff is "environmentally friendly" but since my Lego's will never see a landfill until they are totally deformed beyond usage I'm not too worried.

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't all Targets run by fascists? Their little dog mascot is an open taunt to the NRA. They don't sell any kind of weapons, they don't even sell toy weapons, and they have all sorts of raunchy movies that even WalMart is too decent to sell. You want a paintball gun? Forget it. You want the latest College Freshmen Gone Wild comedy movie, on the other hand, now that they will have...

Re:Expensive

[superflex]

I don't think the Lego company would have grown to this size/survived this long without employing some folks who can run a cost/benefit analysis on capital equipment purchases.

Just considering the basic rectangular bricks, given the number of combinations of brick width, length, and colour, which option do you think is cheaper:

(a) buy 100 injection molding machines for the "brick production" side of the operation, and have them sit idle 75% of the time, so they're available to produce brick X on-demand whenever required by the "set packaging" side of the operation

(b) buy 25 injection molding machines, run them 24/7, swapping out mold sets to produce several different bricks on each machine, and storing the produced bricks in an automated warehouse for on-demand retrieval for the packaging side

I can assure you that (b) is the more cost-efficient approach.

Re:Expensive

[Jason Earl]

It was sealed up just like the other set that I got at the same time. I suppose it's possible that a particularly malicious customer did that, but I have my doubts.

No matter how good your QA is, you will have some defects. Lego at least has a good reputation for making mistakes right after the fact. I did not know about their customer service policy before writing the post above. I'd never considered getting customer support on Legos.

I am very happy with Lego. I personally hope to buy a lot more of their merchandise.

Re:Expensive

[sdsucks]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injection_moulding Enjoy.

Re:Expensive

[laederkeps]

I think you might mean Mecano

Re:Expensive

[TheBig1]

I would use Construx with elastic bands to make little guns... you could use an axle as a guide to ensure that it would shoot straight. You would use the blue connecting hex pieces as ammo. I could hit my brother from across the room! 8-)

Re:Expensive

[ConceptJunkie]

The VAT is what 15-20% or something? I've never seen sales tax over 8%. You pay, multiple times, one way or another. The government taxes your money multiple times and does everything it can to hide the enormous cut it's taking, whether you're in Europe or the slightly less punative U.S.

Re:Expensive

[mvdwege]

You have absolutely no idea what is involved in process control. For one, this is a mechanical operation (even if highly automated) using temperature-sensitive materials. The slightest deviation can create huge differences in the final output. Basically, you're dealing with a chaotic system that must be kept in balance by careful operation.

I have done a stint as a process operator in a bottle factory. Do you know how much trouble we had to go to to keep the oven temperatures and the materials mixes constant? Do you know how much influence outside factors could have on a process that seemingly ran automatically? And that's for glass bottles, that surely require less tolerances than Lego building bricks.

Now, the state of the art in automation has progressed of course, but without well-trained operators and a Bastardly QA department, Lego would deliver bricks as good as the no-name competition. In other words: bricks with such lousy tolerances that, as someone already pointed out, they fall off the finished model.

Mart

Re:Expensive

[justthinkit]

There has never been a better toy than Lego and there never will be.

(1) soccer ball

(2) football

(3) baseball

etc...

Re:Expensive

[metalgrommet]

I know the Lego business pretty well and have been inside the Billund operation. Like many brand leaders, most of the cost of its business is in staying ahead of its competitors. They have a huge number of people involved in design and development - "other brick makers" dance as close to Lego's themes and designs as they dare. Your question should really be, why are Lego lookalikes so expensive?

Re:Expensive

[Hognoxious]

Explain to me how that proves the GP's point - that the US doesn't have it. Less != zero, fucktard.

Re:Expensive

[Hyppy]

Troll?

Re:Expensive

[ShadowsHawk]

Injection and blow are both very difficult when it comes to quality control. The machines are fairly complex and quality is effected by the slightest change. Small air leak, reduced pressure. Raw material contamination (water, dust, etc), holes in the product. Mattresses and plastics are two very different processes. You really should spend an hour in a plastics factory before going on a rant.

Re:Expensive

[hjf]

1. you think the foam mattresses are made of grows on trees? I know it doesn't. The engineer here in charge of QC discards complete batches of the stuff if there's an error in the mix or process.

2. seriously, I really think there must be some talented chinese that can do the job right. I'm also in the consumer electronics area, and most of the TV's we fix are made in Brazil or Argentina, and they're really really picky about finishings. Most new stuff now is shiny black and I bet that one isn't particularly easy to make. And I can tell you Philips products made in Argentina, Brazil and China have the same quality of finishing in the plastics as the ones made in the Netherlands. My point wasn't that you can just blow and make legos (we have a saying in my language "it's not just blowing and making bottles"), but that you can certainly do it right anywhere in the world. QC is the key, not country of origin (we can say that German-made BMWs are better than US-made ones, for that matter. Cause Germany is far more automated than the US *hint*illegal mexicans*hint*).

Re:Expensive

[hjf]

ok, ok, I get it. only europe and the US can do it right, the rest of the world can't. whatever.

Re:Expensive

[hjf]

By automating, Lego is actually protecting itself from having to move to China.

oh the nationalism.

BTW, there are at least 2 full-fledged lego-compatible ripoff brands in China, but they haven't killed lego at all..

duh, marketing. sheesh.

Re:Expensive

[mvdwege]

That's what you keep reading in it. I think that suggests more about your thought processes...

Mart

Re:Expensive

[hjf]

look at my other comments where I talk about other stuff I deal with.

Re:Expensive

[fishbowl]

Not seeing your point.

Re:Expensive

[AttilaSz]

Well, I'm then certainly denser than usual these days, because even re-reading it now I'd still assume he wasn't aware Duplo comes from Lego.

Whatever.

Completely unrelated: to this day I use four Duplo bricks I stole from my kids to elevate my laptop from the desk surface so it gets more airflow on the bottom :-) (it's attached to external keyboard and display, so no, I'm not ruining my wrists). Other creative household/office uses are also possible :-)

Re:Expensive

[justthinkit]

The point is that I think a football/soccer ball/baseball is a better "toy" to give a child than LEGO. Yes, with LEGO you can make things. You can also make things with a jack knife and a branch you find on the ground, with the latter option being more creative. Similarly, a football will lead to more (1) social interaction, (2) longer term use, (3) real world knowledge (of sportsmanship, friendship, team play, physics, etc.) than connecting some plastic blocks together will.

Similarly, a pencil and paper is better than LEGO. My father frequently used the back of an envelope to sketch out a piece of furniture he was going to make, or how an elevator worked, or some simple caricatured faces. I never had a single piece of LEGO when I grew up (but had a small number of plain red bricks that were similar, as well as tinkertoys and mechano -- the latter I would rank quite a bit higher than LEGO) yet I went on to become an engineer. I was raised by someone who made things, and grew up to do the same thing. My spouse's kids were raised by a bi-polar Philip K. Dick loving video gameaholic who bought them LEGO (and a boggling array of other toys), and today the oldest is just like his dad (and the LEGO have sat idle since he was 13).

LEGO is not the be all and end all of toys. Not even close. But it does have longevity (just as pencils have had and for the same reason -- simplicity and versatility). There is no point in getting all geeky and gushy about LEGO. Buy some for your kids, encourage them to use it and praise them when they do, while making sure the many other important aspects of their life are worked on and mastered as well.

By the way, I proposed to my wife using LEGO duplos...

Lego is too explensive for modern man

[Anonymous Coward]

And I say that earning 6 figures.

Re:Lego is too explensive for modern man

[eln]

FYI, you're not supposed to count the digits to the right of the decimal point when reporting your income in terms of "N figures".

Re:Lego is too explensive for modern man

[CorporateSuit]

Maybe he means action figures

Re:Lego is too explensive for modern man

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, shit, do you mean to say I can't keep telling the ladies I make six figures per month?

It's all a cunning plot...

[markana]

by an evil mainframe to enslave humans by hooking them on the irresistible construction toys, thus destroying productivity and creating an insatiable demand for new bricks.

So far, it's working pretty well....

Re:It's all a cunning plot...

[AndGodSed]

Until some geek figures out how to build a robot-defeating UBER legobot... that runs linux.

Hey... that makes me wonder - do the Lego Building Bots run Linux?

No, seriously!

Molding makes designing your house hard

[Amorymeltzer]

the most guarded secret of the company: the brick molds themselves

Really? ;)

No, seriously, I mean it - REALLY?! Maybe they designed it this way, but I'm pretty sure that the age at which Legos start being an acceptable toy is about the age you can figure out the mold.

Honestly guys, it ain't that hard.

Re:Molding makes designing your house hard

[istartedi]

Shhhhh! The enemy has clay. Clay, I tell you. They might even figure out how to use it, so keep your lips sealed.

Re:Molding makes designing your house hard

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, making molds is a pretty complex process. The simpler Lego designs shouldn't be too bad, but they are often 'deep' shapes which can have problems.

Designing a mold to cast properly, without visible mold lines, is a definite science.

Re:Molding makes designing your house hard

[Bazman]

The thing with Lego is that if the molds aren't just right then the blocks either fall apart or jam together. Getting that right is a big factor of the success of Lego - it just feels so good when it all clicks together.

HowStuffWorks says the mold tolerance is 0.002mm. That's 500 to the milimetre.

Re:Molding makes designing your house hard

[TigerNut]

Really... plastics shrink as they're cooled from the mold, and how much shrinkage you get also depends on how much plastic is there. Now notice that all your long Lego trusses are exactly dead straight. Even the ones that are 20, 30, or 40 years old. And the 40 year old pieces interlock perfectly with the brand new ones. That says a lot for the plastics composition too. Go check out the dash on a 40 year old Dodge and see how much it's changed dimensionally. It's all in the details.

Re:Molding makes designing your house hard

[Von Helmet]

Sure... Call me when your molds and method are good enough to produce parts with tolerances of 2 microns, with only 18 bricks in a million failing QC. Reference, see page 18.

Re:Molding makes designing your house hard

[Pollardito]

your 40 year old Dodge's dashboard has been sitting in the sun for 40 years. go and look at LEGO pieces that have been sitting on a window sill for a significant amount of time and the trusses will not be dead straight (sometimes they won't be even "almost straight").

Re:Molding makes designing your house hard

[Anonymous Coward]

Leave those legos on the dash for 40 years, and I bet you'll see some dimensional change there too.

I've seen some trippy VHS tapes that shrank 70% in only a week in an enclosed vehicle.

Legos?

[sexconker]

Is the factory itself made of legos?

If so, can it build more factories?

(Or run Linux in a Beowulf cluster while generating bad car analogies?)

Re:Legos?

[KlaymenDK]

Is the factory itself made of legos? If so, can it build more factories?

It can't -- and that's a good thing! Imagine Lego factories building themselves coast-to-coast (and then on to floating Lego pontoons?).

Not exactly a 'gray goo' doomsday, but no place left to put up Lego stores, or play rooms... :(

How it' s Made on Discovery

[Gates82]

I know because it is Lego it is a big deal, but on How it's Made, airing on Discovery Channel they have shown many injection molding processes including either Duplo or some other knock off Lego manufacturer. It is interesting (short), but not that "top secret"; nor super informative.

--
So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's Sister?

Re:How it' s Made on Discovery

[mongoose(!no)]

I don't know if you meant to make this mistake, but Duplo is a lego brand. It's their line of bricks for younger children. Really a gateway brick toy to some of their other products, such as the Town line of kits, or the most addicting of all, Lego Mindstorms.

Re:How it' s Made on Discovery

[Verdatum]

How it's made was one of the knock-offs, however, Discovery Channel did show the actual Lego factory in a segment of the show "How do they do that". It was mystifying to see that they are still hand-carving their new pieces, as opposed to CAD/CNC prototyping.

Re:How it' s Made on Discovery

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

either Duplo or some other knock off Lego manufacturer

Just FYI, Duplo is a Lego product. They are also compatible with Lego bricks.

Mindstorm?

[oahazmatt]

Show me a skynet-like control system constructed out of nothing but Lego mindstorm, or nothing at all!

(Still neat, though)

Speaking of Lego, Evil and cunning plots...

[MRe_nl]

http://www.youtube.com/v/egPgU5kAjKE&hl=en&fs=1
"to enslave humans by hooking them on the irresistible construction toys, thus destroying productivity and creating an insatiable demand for new Lego-movies."

WEEEE

[Gagek]

Legos will rule the world! MUH HAHAHAHAHAHHA

mainframe police state

[bugs2squash]

So do the same mainframes control the police chasing Wall-e and Eve ?

THE NOISE!

[ettlz]

And I thought the sound of a Lego factory was the jaunty music of plucked strings and xylophones. How my illusions have been shattered.

meh

[jollyreaper]

Waiting for the part about the spoiled rich girl falling down the bad block chute.

Used Legos

[sokoban]

Legos have always been expensive, but a lot of people don't realize that there are plenty of used legos for sale. Ebay and yard sales are often full of them. A great deal of the time, the instructions are included or are available elsewhere.

Re:Used Legos

[Von Helmet]

Interestingly, sets on ebay often go for an appreciable fraction of the price they originally sold for, or more than the original price for some of the really good ones. I can't think of many other toys that hold value or even appreciate in that way, insane Star Wars memorabilia, etc. notwithstanding.

Re:Used Legos

[Mista2]

You need instructions for lego?? I think I only made what was on the front of the box a couple of times 8)

Re:Used Legos

[CorporateSuit]

Did someone say instructions are available elsewhere?

http://www.hccamsterdam.nl/brickfactory/year/index.htm

This link is not work safe. It is worse than porn. It contains an insane amount of lego instruction manuals sorted by year. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I declare...

[Digestromath]

The LEGO factory, in all its glory, is still missing oompa loompas. Sure the whole thing is robotic which is neat... but can those robots sing songs and look frightening to five year olds?

Durable products

[Nerdposeur]

When a product is so durable, you need to charge a little more for it in order to ensure your company's survival.

Exactly. Which is why computers and software, which are obselete in less than 5 years, are so cheap.

Hey, wait a minute! :)

Seriously, though, you make a good point. If they wanted to be evil, I guess they could make them less durable, but I think in the end it's better that everyone knows them as the best.

Re:Durable products

[jimicus]

Seriously, though, you make a good point. If they wanted to be evil, I guess they could make them less durable, but I think in the end it's better that everyone knows them as the best.

There is also one thing to bear in mind - as soon as a company like Lego races for the bottom (in terms of price/quality), they're going to lose the customers who valued the quality and then be beaten to the customers who don't by other organisations who 10 or 20 years ago perfected the art of "juuuuusst enough quality that it won't fall apart within 15 minutes of the box opening. Probably."

Re:Durable products

[morethanapapercert]

Absolutely! As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've tried other interlocking brick systems. In my mind there just isn't any question about it. LEGO is without question the highest quality brick system ever. That's worth some extra bucks right there. Oh sure, there's never enough money to buy all the sets my son wants, I'd love to see them drop the price on that score alone, just so he and I can have that much bigger of a collection to play with. But not if that means cutting the quality in the slightest. The core of my son's collection was a big suitcase of LEGO from my childhood. Oh sure; there are a few broken ones and maybe a few that now fit loose from sheer wear, but between me and my younger brother, some of those bricks had almost 15 years worth of almost daily use before my son got his hands on them. Hell; I'd wager there aren't many consumer goods period that can boast a track record like that. (Well, the Zippo lighter comes to mind, something else my son will inherit, since I got mine from my father)

I can't think of any other toy, at any price that can maintain it's appeal to a child over an entire decade of play, be prized enough that it doesn't get cast aside with the rest of the trappings of childhood and be durable enough that when you have kids of your own to give them to, are as usable as the day they were made.

When all is said and done, LEGO bricks aren't just a toy, they are an investment.

The fact that EXACT COPIES of the basic brick ...

[Lanboy]

.. Can and have been sold, and no one buys anything else even though they cost half as much pretty much explains why they are so expensive. Thier quality control is legendary. How many misformed or bad bricks have you run into?

Still I wish they were free and I would make a house out of them.

Bulk Legos

[Nerdposeur]

I also remember reading a story once about a guy who makes giant works of art, using Legos like pixels. I believe they said that if you want to buy like 10,000 blue bricks, you can get bulk prices straight from Lego.

Re:Bulk Legos

[jimicus]

I also remember reading a story once about a guy who makes giant works of art, using Legos like pixels. I believe they said that if you want to buy like 10,000 blue bricks, you can get bulk prices straight from Lego.

If you want to buy 10,000 of most things you can get a bulk price straight from the manufacturer.

Re:Bulk Legos

[Jorophose]

There's a museum with works like that in Niagara Falls, but not to the extent of pixels; it's more like small (2m IIRC in the case of the CN Tower) versions of famous landmarks...

And yeah bulk bricks can be bought from LEGO, and aren't too pricey, at least not compared to buying buckets.

Plus LEGO bricks last a LONG time.

Re:Bulk Legos

[AeroIllini]

I also remember reading a story once about a guy who makes giant works of art, using Legos like pixels. I believe they said that if you want to buy like 10,000 blue bricks, you can get bulk prices straight from Lego.

Yes, there are several professional artists who make that type of art (called a mosaic) out of Lego bricks. They also usually make sculptures.

Two of my favorites are Nathan Sawaya and Sean Kenney, but there are others.

Brand

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

this still doesn't answer the "Why is Lego so expensive?" question

C'mon - seriously? Why does Starbucks coffee or Coke cost the consumer 25x the cost of the ingredients? Why do baseball cards cost 50x the cost of the paper and print?

It's all BRAND. You're not paying for the plastic - you're paying for the TV commericals, the packaging, the crappy Star Wars licensing fees and even the salary of the PR flunky who gets this crap posted on SlashDot.

Sales at the Lego Store

[SirWhoopass]

If you are fortunate enough to live near a Lego Store, watch for discounts on overstock.

I've been doing that since my son was born. Scored a bunch of Duplo train sets for more than 50% off the retail price.

Re:Sales at the Lego Store

[Thelasko]

For the most value for your money I prefer the box of blocks (no doors, windows, filler, etc.) from the LEGO website.

Another factory

[Anonymous Coward]

I write software for a large plastic machinery producer. I don't think they use our stuff, but from the article it sounds like your typical plastics factory.

I have been in about 12 of them since I started and they all are pretty much the same.

Also, they are like it is a big deal that all the plastic gets recycled, but that is how every factory is run. Plastic is the most expensive part of the product and is really easy to reuse.

Basically, you throw it into a machine with big spinning blades and it turns back into tiny pellets. I was at a Honda factory where they often recycle entire car bumpers that are defective this way. Quite loud...

Remember, when buying gifts...

[Thelasko]

a boy can never have too many LEGO bricks. Parents tend to feel otherwise.

Re:The fact that EXACT COPIES of the basic brick .

[Tweenk]

How many misformed or bad bricks have you run into?

I once hit a malformed (smashed?) 1x4 gray plate in the Adventurers zeppelin set. This was the only occurence though. This was probably because the smashed plate weighed exactly the same as a normal plate (their main QC devices are precision scales).

The horrible truth

[Hoi Polloi]

Lego people are made out of people! PEOPLE!

Shut up!

[jbeaupre]

Do be givin' away the secrets to Lego bliss! Won't be as much left for you and me!

LEGO - Now with Sharks with Lasers

[taliesinangelus]

http://shop.lego.com/ByTheme/Product.aspx?p=8633&cn=543&d=70

Maybe their operations were infiltrated by Slashdot memes...

Re:Haha, no one has anything to say about Legos...

[Anonymous Coward]

When you see failure of this magnitude, you'll shit bricks.

name

[kesuki]

ah it's so obvious now... erector.

Re:name

[morethanapapercert]

I was about to reply with Meccano actually. Maybe it's an USA vs Canada thing, but in my memories Meccano sets were both more plentiful in the toy stores and more desired by kids like me than the Erector brand sets. (I remember Meccano sets as having cooler, more complex sets but that was a long time ago.)

ABS

[bugs2squash]

they're made of ABS so that they hurt as much as possible when you step on them with bare feet.

Masochists everywhere would be up in arms if they moved to a softer plastic.

Not *THE* lego factory, *A* lego factory

[bigjoeb]

Like all other mass produced cheap item these days , legos are made in dozens if not hundred locations throughout the world. Transportation costs far out weigh the packaging and production cost on these. The factory next door to my work place is an "old school" plastics plant and they make lego branded products. No mainframe here unless they still have one from the 1900's. As for secrets all the doors are open to let out the massive amounts of heat this process produces, you cold walk in at lunch and wander around for half an hour before you saw anyone since they all flee the heat and smell at 12:00:01

Re:Haha, no one has anything to say about Legos...

[Yvan256]

So, the parent AC is Bender?

What happened to interchangable parts?

[DRue]

It seems lego has been moving more and more over my lifetime of 27 years from interchangable brick type pieces to specialized pieces of plastic that are really only useful with the original kit.

Granted I haven't purchased a pack in 15-odd years, but when i look at them at the store, many of the pieces are very specialized.

Am I wrong?

Re:What happened to interchangable parts?

[UNKN]

Most the sets still contain your basic building blocks, you just get more "fancy" parts now.

Re:What happened to interchangable parts?

[Eternauta3k]

Technic sets don't have many special parts, and that's all that should matter to a slashdotter.
You're not building houses, are you?

Re:What happened to interchangable parts?

[HungSoLow]

I hit my LEGO peak about 15 years ago, when Castles (Knights, Woodsmen, Dragons) were the rave. I recall getting a full castle set and integrating the pieces into larger, more substantial castles. The pieces were very specialized (i.e. parapet pieces, pre-built castle walls) but what this did is allowed me to construct more elaborate add-ons since I didnt have to exhaust my regular pieces on building spires, walls, etc.. So yes, I would say even 15 years ago the sets were certainly specialized, but you could really use it to your advantage. My nephews and nieces now play with my old stuff and I find their newest sets are even MORE specialized, but yet again, they use it in a similar manner when I was a kid. Speaking of which, I have a 1 month old so I have to make plans on getting my lego back for my little one!

Re:What happened to interchangable parts?

[Bat Country]

They still have the mixed bag packs, technics sets, etc. - it's just that most toy stores don't carry them. There's more money to be made in selling the smaller (less shelf real estate) movie-licensed themed sets (presumably better selling for younger children, the target market).

Amazon.com has a fabulous selection, and I'm sure with a little searching you could find an online retailer which had an even better selection with the same quality (or better) customer reviews.

I bought a Technics front-loader from them last Christmas when I needed some cheering up and was pleased that the quality was as high as ever, the instructions were just as graphic and cleanly presented, and the process was just as mystifying until it all came together.

It filled me with that same glee of discovery and revelation that I'm sure anybody who remembers Lego from their childhood knows.

Re:What happened to interchangable parts?

[thousandinone]

Only wrong in lack of imagination, no offense meant.

So long as the pieces still "click" onto other pieces, they're all interchangeable; there's always some way to use even the specialized pieces.

Re:What happened to interchangable parts?

[zoney_ie]

You're wrong. It's simply the possibilities that have increased. If you want the simplicity of fewer kinds of part, just get simple sets - Creator, etc. Otherwise, at the very least, pretty much all parts are reusable in custom builds of a similar theme to the original set (vehicle, building, robot/mecha/spaceship). You can be inventive in your use of the detailed parts, or you can look at the original sets for hints as to how to incorporate them into your builds.

Many of the recent parts are very useful across a large range of custom building.

Sets from the last 3-4 years or so have been good in distribution of parts - certainly Lego sets went through a phase in late 90s early 00s of having a skeletal design of specialised small parts and some large ones. New sets are the best of all worlds; most themes are sets with a great array of ordinary bricks, simple special bricks (e.g. slopes), detail bricks and useful large bricks (platforms, wall panels, vehicle chassis).

Large bricks are only annoying if you don't have large amounts of ordinary bricks. When you do, they are just very useful to help size up your creations and provide support for large structures/vehicle protrusions.

Check out Lego's Shop at Home website (shop.lego.com) and see the massive sets in Exclusives and Creator (brick-heavy for ordinary bricks as well as special ones).

Re:What happened to interchangable parts?

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who has been purchasing for the last 15 years (perhaps the years you missed) I must say you are wrong. A lot of 'familiar' parts have changed over time, specifically Technic, but I think a better synopsis is a greater range of interchangeable parts, rather than an increase in specialised parts.

Using Technic as an example, I was angry when they started moving away from the studded technic bricks, but when you learn to work with the new bricks and adapt your building style you find they are possibly even more interchangeable and adaptable than the original Technic bricks.

Additionally, on 'face value' a lot of kits appear to use specialised parts, but these parts are regularly used in many other kits in different ways. In saying this, I have always stayed away from 'franchised' lego NBA,NHL,Harry Potter, Star Wars, Inidiana Jones, Speed Racer etc. because I really think these kits spoil the Lego brand.

I have heard the same "Lego is changing from building kits to model kits" over the years, but if you're still involved as time progresses you will see it provides the same imagnitive outlet it always has with even more varied and interesting parts at your disposal.

Re:What happened to interchangable parts?

[Rocketship Underpant]

A number of years ago, this "juniorization" process was becoming apparent as Lego attempted to make its toys accessible to younger ages while reducing the cost of nice-looking models. At the time, the company was in financial trouble and this misguided strategy ended up only making things worse.

Things seem to have reversed since then, however. Sure, there are still *some* rather specific pieces (like boat hulls) that it would be costly or difficult for Lego to sell brick-wise, but most new pieces that get introduced now are quite adaptable for custom models.

At the same time, Lego has increased their sales and income by designing better and more playable models, targeting adult fans as well as children, and improving the efficiency of their manufacturing operations.

Re:What happened to interchangable parts?

[$random_var]

Specialized parts have a higher sale value, lower long term value, and a lower resale value. The original customer is willing to pay more for the X-Wing Lego box, because it's not just a pile of parts, it's a freaking X-Wing in potentia. Then the original customer is more likely to go back and purchase a new set (because he's tired of putting the x-wing together). Finally, the resale value is lower because now it's the year 2008 and all the kids want Transformers Lego sets (or whatever it is kids want these days...)

Hard to say if everybody wins here or not, but Lego definitely does.

Re:What happened to interchangable parts?

[STrinity]

People were complaining about specialty pieces when they started making spaceship canopies and castle wall pieces. I picked up a couple of the big Bionicle robot sets a couple years ago, and they do have a lot of new pieces. All of them are compatible with older bricks, but they wouldn't be terribly useful unless you're building a Bionicle style robot. The main difference is the sets are based more on axles, hinges, and ball joints than bricks.

Re:What happened to interchangable parts?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

I guess that just means you'll need to use more imagination to come up with new ideas for those specialised pieces.

Re:What happened to interchangable parts?

[Anonymous Coward]

You still get the classic house building sets or a large bucket of generic pieces. The large buckets though do not have a baseplate which needs to be purchased separate. If you need more pieces, go to a store and purchase them by the cup.

Re:What happened to interchangable parts?

[harry666t]

> that are really only useful with the original kit.

Unless you're creative enough (:

Re:What happened to interchangable parts?

[BigDogCH]

Try http://www.bricklink.com/ if you want to find some great sets of the past.

Sadly, Lego did recently discontinue some great product lines, like the 9v lego trains.

Re:What happened to interchangable parts?

[Hoi Polloi]

One reason, I'd guess, is that if they just sold boxes with more generic pieces people would start to think "All I'm really buying is the same old parts with different instructions" so by putting in lots of new pieces they create a feeling that you got your money's worth.

Brings back memories...

[vurg]

I remember those yellow 4x2s are a real pain when I was little. I mean it's like forcing a square peg out a round hole.

Re:Brings back memories...

[evil_aar0n]

First post in a long time that's caused me to laugh out loud. If I had mod points, this would be modded freakin' hilarious.

Quality

[Enderandrew]

Yes, when Apple purchases Seagate HDDs, and Intel processors, and ATI video cards, they ensure that they are of a far higher quality than the Seagate HDDs, Intel processors and ATI video cards that Dell purchases.

How it's made anyone?

[markass530]

not many people have seen? It was on a How it's made episode on Discovery, I'm pretty sure quite a few people have seen that episode. nothing new here, move along

Expensive?

[fm6]

(People know that loose != lose. They just can't remember which is which.)

Are Legos that expensive? I just looked online, and you can buy a set with 405 pieces, plus the bucket to hold them in, for $25. Compared to other toys, or injection-molded plastic products in general, that's actually pretty reasonable.

Maybe when you were a kid, that Lego set you couldn't afford was some overpriced Star Wars tie-in. There, you're not paying for the product, you're paying for George Lucas's new yacht.

Or maybe you went through the same thing that I went through when I was a kid. We weren't very well off, but I always had a lot of toys — lots of indulgent family members always ready to buy me stuff. But I always wanted more, because that's what all the crappy TV shows I watched programmed me to want. Face it, when you're a kid in this consumer culture of eyes, you always have a sense of privation, no matter how much stuff you've already got.

Several reasons...

[jpellino]

None of which alone explain it, but can add up.

They are very particular about the ABS they use - it has to be metals-free, historically not very easy - which used to be supplied only by Bayer (until around 1998, LEGO US was still shipping ABS pellets from Germany to Enfield CT - one worth-his-weight-in-bricks engineer got GE Pittsfield MA to spec the plastic, saving them some bucks).

The bricks IIRC are build to a tolerance of 3/1000ths of an inch. Look at bricks and try and find the gates (where the plastic in injected and detaches from the flashing) or the knock-outs (where a part of the molding machine pushed the brick out - typically these are obvious kludgy bits of a plastic toy, in LEGOs they are all but invisible) The LEGO engineers used to smile a lot as other companies' engineers searched, often in vain, for these tell-tale machine marks.

In Enfield they have a lego-brick knight statue commemorating their ISO 9001 certification. Not so sure how many toy factories hit that mark.

For a long time the place was rather labor-intensive. A 1990 tour had more people on the packing line and a series of lights to alert someone on the floor (who had to be in sight of the molding machines) to a malfunction. The same tour in 1996 this was replaced by a pager system. In all that automation, they prided themselves on never letting someone go from the factory when their role was replaced by a machine -they always had something new to be done based on a lot of R&D. Haven't been there since 2000, but I understand that pattern was pretty much unbroken.

At least in Enfield, the factory was nearly as as spotless as the HQ office buildings. I doubt every plastic-toy-cranking factory elsewhere in the world has that level of upkeep, and it's not cheap.

Making the rafts of tie-in toys means paying royalties to Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc. While base sets might cheaper at WalMart now than they were at a boutique toy shops a few years back, the brand name additions likely helped keep prices off the bottom.

Enfield CT likely isn't the cheapest labor market around, which explains why, sadly, a year ago the last nut and bolt of the factory were shipped off to Mexico. Blasted sad. A great bunch of people up there.

Re:Several reasons...

[SuperBanana]

In Enfield they have a lego-brick knight statue commemorating their ISO 9001 certification. Not so sure how many toy factories hit that mark.

ISO 9001 is bullshit- it's not a mark of quality. It's simply a process that verifies that you write down what you do, and you stick to it. You could turn out complete crap, and still be ISO-9001 certified.

Seriously, talk to someone who's done the whole process. It's virtually worthless for a toy company; it's only really important for suppliers to other companies making stuff, that need a consistent product from said supplier.

I'm sorry, I needed that Plutonium.

[attemptedgoalie]

Sincerely,

Dr. Emmett Brown

Interesting video...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but the editing is bad IMHO.

A couple of reasons...

[mbessey]

1. They're expensive because they are built to a much higher level of quality than is typical for injection-molded plastic toys.

Have you ever seen a defective Lego brick? Or heard of a set with a missing piece? A lot of work (and expense) goes into avoiding that. Hence all the automation - if they had humans doing all that work, Lego would be even more expensive.

The bricks themselves are little marvels of engineering - they use extremely heavy, multi-piece molds, and sophisticated molding machines to keep the dimensional tolerances to within (IIRC) .001 mm.

2. They're expensive because they're very durable.

Despite the relative cheapness of the plastic material itself, you can easily find Lego that's 30 years old, has been played with by dozens (or hundreds) of kids, snapped together and apart thousands of times, and still functions perfectly.

Given that they basically don't wear out, Lego bricks are priced higher than they would be if they were intended to be replaced from year to year.

3. They're expensive because people are willing to pay for them.

As a result of #1 and #2 above, Lego has a well-deserved reputation for quality. Despite plenty of lower-priced competition, Lego continues to sell well.

You can even buy bricks that are inter-operable with Lego for literally 1/10th the price, and they still don't out-sell the real thing. Why? Because they're simply not made as well - they don't stick together or come apart as well as Lego bricks, and they aren't nearly as sturdy.

Even as an 8-year-old, I noticed that the knock-off blocks were not worth building anything out of, and quickly separated them from my "real" Legos.

Re:A couple of reasons...

[Inda]

0.001mm? Rubbish.

Having built patterns for injection moulding dies I can say that the dies wear out pretty quickly with all the rapid heating and cooling. You cannot make them accurate and expect them to maintain their tolerance.

Look at Lego bricks, or anything injection moulded, you can see where the plastic has cooled quicker in places. The dips on flat surfaces are very hard to engineer out even with slow cooling and high pressure.

Hell, stick two bricks together and feel the difference between them with a fingernail.

Accurate to within 0.001mm they are not.

Try some of the competition some time

[mbessey]

If you buy the cheaper competition, you'll quickly see how much Lego's focus on Quality Assurance matters. It's not unusual for the cheaper knock-offs to have a few bricks in each set that simply don't connect at all to the others.

And those are all from the same batch - I doubt that year-to-year, or decade-to-decade, compatibility is even on the roadmap for those products.

Re:Try some of the competition some time

[gfxguy]

It's true... I was scanning for a post that mentioned this so I wouldn't repeat; the quality of Lego is REALLY fantastic.

Still, it's just injection molded plastic... if you look at average per-piece prices, it comes in at around 9 cents per piece... smaller sets are higher, larger sets are somewhat cheaper per piece. To me, that's outrageous for a mass produced piece of injection molded plastic.

Don't get me wrong... I'm still a sucker... I buy a lot of Lego for both me the boy; I've even bulk purchased on bricklink.com thousands of 1x2 and 1x1 to build just about whatever I want, and they ended up being sometimes less than 1 cent per piece. But it's not always easy to find what you want in quantities you want at decent prices...

If you think about large scale Lego creations, they can take tens of thousands of pieces. Even at 5 cents a piece, that gets very expensive very fast. I actually feel cheated when I see... well, for example, the model of New York that was made for the movie "Elf." I know they could have taken EVERY SINGLE package they had on the shelves in a typical department store and never even build one model of the Empire State building.

Dupe?

[sunami88]

Dupe?. If so, less than a month old...

Bionic men

[Nerdposeur]

My favorite part was that the people could come apart at the waist and their torsos snapped onto some wheeled contraption, ready to race across the bedroom with laser lance in hand. Now THAT's interchangability!

Re:Bionic men

[Hognoxious]

I had some of the earlier lego people - the ones about three inches tall which were all normal bricks except the head/shoulders/arms. For some reason I usually made them into centaurs.

Exclusive! Except for everywhere...

[nick_davison]

Check out more or less any Legoland. They have a walk through production process. Sure, it's old equipment that isn't legitimately functioning but they show you everything from the grains to the dies to the packing process.

Lego is recyclable

[DrYak]

The plastic can be melted and reused. Lego themselves are melting scraps left from the molds' channels and feeding it back to the machines.

And there are whole community dedicated at building funny stuff using molten plastic and open design cartesian robot.

The only problem is that most countries lack a proper public plan to recycle plastics (mostly only a couple of type of plastics used in some bottle, like PET and PEHD - but not ABS which is what legos are made from)

Re:Lego is recyclable

[Von Helmet]

The only problem is that most countries lack a proper public plan to recycle plastics (mostly only a couple of type of plastics used in some bottle, like PET and PEHD - but not ABS which is what legos are made from)

At risk of going off at a tangent, this is a bugbear of mine. I live in the UK, where the general public is under increasing pressure to recycle, while producers are under very little obligation to make that at all easy, say, by reducing packaging, using more easily recyclable materials, or collecting recyclable materials themselves. Similarly, councils are pushing for powers to punish people for not recycling enough while not providing the necessary facilities.

Most packaging in this country these days has little numbers to say what type of material it is, in a little recycle-y triangle logo. So, for plastics, PE is number 1, HDPE is 2, PP is 5, PS is 6, and so on. So far, so good. It goes awry when you find that a lot of the plastics can't be recycled - PE and HDPE are easy, but I'm thinking particular of PP, which is used for loads of food packaging, bottles, etc. but apparently can't be recycled anywhere.

The labels always have a little bit of text next to the recycle-y number/logo which says "Recycle where facilities available", and I'm like "Where the fuck is that then? Germany?". "Recycle where facilities available", like it's my job to hunt out some mystical place where I can recycle this stuff. Fucking idiots. Where facilities available my arse, build some fucking facilities and I'll recycle your plastic bottles.

Re:Lego is recyclable

[LWATCDR]

Funny but in the US we have plastic recycle bins for paper and plastic and one for aluminum cans.
All you have to do is fill them and put them out for the trash collector.
Also my local grocery store has a bin to recycle their bags.
They make it very easy here.

Rare bricks

[GottliebPins]

I had a couple friends who used to work for Borg Warner Chemicals (now Dupont) making plastic pellets for Legos. The guys from Lego would bring in molds and test the various colored plastics. They would run a batch of one color through the molds then switch to another color without cleaning out the lines and you would get all kind of neat color swirls in the Lego blocks. After each test the blocks were to be destroyed, but seldom were. The workers would take the blocks home to their children. I have one of those blocks. It's green with white swirls through it. It looks like marble with quartz running through it. I wish I had a whole set of those blocks. They are beautiful.

So Not My Genre, I suppose

[stewbacca]

I saw the trailer and it touted itself as the number one graphic novel of all time, yet I've never even heard of it. Guess I don't run in those circles, or am I really just that far removed from reality now days (getting old sucks)?

Re:So Not My Genre, I suppose

[Jesus_666]

I hate to tell it to you but the instruction booklets for Lego sets don't count as graphic novels.

(Might it be possible that you accidentally replied to the wrong story?)

Re:So Not My Genre, I suppose

[stewbacca]

Yeah...I wonder what happened here? I was reportedly replying to something about the trailer "The Watchmen" shown before the Batman movie. I didn't even click on the Lego story!

Yes and no

[CleverDan]

Maybe it's to add more building options and variety, or to better match a specific theme.

I'm sure having a few unexpired patents around for those specialized pieces doesn't hurt either.

a simple lego block costs 1 cent to make

[cinnamon colbert]

I'm not an expert on injection molding, but I don't think it is as hard as some other posters claim. the simple blocks are not tht deep,
(recall that there is a metal mold that the liquid plastic fits into, the shape of the metal is the outside of the block; the deeper the part, the harder it is to get it to come off of the metal, that is why things like nalgene water bottles are made by blow molding] so you don't need side action or deep drafts to get them off the mold, and lego has a lot of volume to amortize multicavity molds.
Molded plastic is BIG business; there are a lot of guys who know how to make molds and know how to hit 0.05 mm tolerance or better on a small part.when /. posters think that some special magic is need to make parts that fit, they just show that they don't know a lot. I odn't know how lego hides the knit lines
perhaps a real expert could speak up, but I really don't think it is that hard, and i bet the cost for a simple block is less then a penney - maybe a little more with the runup in plastic prices. I assume they are using some commodity resin like polycarb or polystyrene ( i dont think you can get the polyolefins like pp and pe hard enough )

Re:a simple lego block costs 1 cent to make

[clone53421]

there are a lot of guys who know how to make molds and know how to hit 0.05 mm tolerance
I assume they are using some commodity resin like polycarb or polystyrene

If you had actually read some of the posts, you would already know that legos are made from ABS and the tolerance is as small as 0.002 mm (.PDF).

Re:a simple lego block costs 1 cent to make

[Anonymous Coward]

allright so i'm a stupid /,er and missed something - but i'm still correct overall: 2microns aint that hard to hit, and abs aint that exspensive; the notion that small lego blocks cost more then a penney (us) is , imho, silly.
for instance, a standard industry web site lists abs as below a buck a pound in volume (http://www.ides.com/resinprice/resinpricingreport.asp) I don't know how much a part weighs - 1/100 of a pound would be ~ 1/6th of an ounce - i will look to see if my son still has some and report back, we have an accurate balance at work

Re:a simple lego block costs 1 cent to make

[clone53421]

2 microns isn't hard to hit? I'm not an expert, but the injection moulding wiki says tolerances equivalent to an IT Grade of about 9-14 are typical (the lower the IT grade, the more strict the tolerance).

I'll even save you the trouble of punching out the formula. It's based on the part size, so I'm going to use a size of 1 cm, which would be a fairly small LEGO block. (Small tolerances are harder to achieve on large pieces than they are on small ones.) For a part 1cm in width, IT grade 9 tolerance is about 39 microns. IT grade 14 tolerance is about 390 microns.

Re:a simple lego block costs 1 cent to make

[metalgrommet]

I am an expert on injection moulding. Making one Lego brick is easy. Making 200 million to exactly the same dimensions and colour and with no errors within a completely automated process is extremely difficult. Throw on top of that the requirement that those bricks you make today have to grip to ones made 30 years ago - tight enough not to come apart, not too tight that kids need a wrench - and it becomes a real mind boggling challenge. Just about anyone that knows anything about injection moulding recognise Lego as being up with the very best in the world at what they do.

Flextronics International actually allowed that?

[nohear_t]

I am more surprised that Flextronics International actually let someone walk through their facility and video tape everything that happens in there. Lucky he wasn't working for MegaBlocks!

I made the plastic for those bricks..

[cheros]

Almost 2 decades ago I worked in the color lab of one of the suppliers of the plastic granules that LEGO uses, and I can tell you that even then, LEGO had about the most tight color and quality control in place I've ever come across. That's probably why a new brick and a brick bought a decade ago are still so much alike.

I remember that most of that production was checked in double tact: twice as often during a run then any other plastic, and that included metamere checking (ensuring that the color also changes correctly when you switch from daylight to artificial light - not always a given as every pigment you use can act differently).

I've not been involved in developing the LEGO color recipes, but hats off to whoever did them from their samples - that must have taken at least a week. New stuff like matching the color of the leather going to be used in car seats was easier IMHO (although also challenging, precisely because of the metamere issues). But it was fun, albeit occasionally dangerous work, in those days some of the additives were highly toxic..

Obvious human displacement

[whereiswaldo]

There's nothing amazing about the factory itself. I couldn't help but think of how many human jobs were replaced by all the automation they have. Good on them to automate, but without people where is the pride?

Jeff Vader

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll have the Penne ala 'arrabiata

I was off by an order of magnitude...

[mbessey]

I found a reference at Lego.uk (I've since lost it) that claims that the dies are precise to 0.005 mm. It's reasonable to assume that plastic shrinkage at least doubles that. Still, it's *way* more precise than anything else in the toy aisle.

Boycott Target.

[ShadowsHawk]

Boycott Target. They recently adopted a very strict return policy. It essentially amounts to, "No". If you do manage to get them to take an item back, they try to charge a massive %15-30 restocking fee. I will do my shopping at Wally world until they pull their heads out of their collective ass.