LEGOS anyone?

[Bogey]

We enjoy LEGOS at our house, but have not taken it this far.

http://www.asylum.com/gallery/10-weirdest-lego-models/612398/

[MN Dave]

I was wondering who used all the yellow Legos.

[lukeottevanger]

Not claiming to have found this site myself - I think O Mensch linked to it once before (apologies it if was someone else) but it is pretty dedicated stuff:

http://www.thebricktestament.com/

I was a big Lego-er as a kid!! A bit of a 'HIP' purist - I don't go for all those specialist modern bricks desgined for only one particular construction. Creativity is better challenged by the simple bricks of yesteryear  Nowadays my only outlet for Lego is making impromptu machines for my nephews (My own children don't quite have the bug yet). Start with a couple of cogs and see where they lead. Last one, at Christmas, turned into a mixture of cogs, belts, hydraulics and pistons which eventually tilted a train track, gravity letting a truck fall onto one end of a seesaw and catapulting a lego man (with protective helmet) against a wall. Completely pointless, and great fun.

[karlhenning]

I was a big Lego-er as a kid!! A bit of a 'HIP' purist - I don't go for all those specialist modern bricks designed for only one particular construction. Creativity is better challenged by the simple bricks of yesteryear 

Testify! 

[Bogey]

I was a big Lego-er as a kid!! A bit of a 'HIP' purist - I don't go for all those specialist modern bricks desgined for only one particular construction. Creativity is better challenged by the simple bricks of yesteryear  .

Absolutely agree.  The nice thing about the sets that my kids have gotten over the years is that eventually they are absorbed into the "everything goes" bin.

[lukeottevanger]

As I said, HIP Lego...... 

[Symphonien]

Haha, I could even recognise the audio sample!

Amazing.

[Brian]

There are currently so many LEGOs in the world that, were they evenly distributed, each person on the planet would have 65.
By the end of 2008, there will be more LEGO people on Earth than real people.
The total quantity of LEGO blocks built in the last year would wrap around Earth five times.
The total quantity of LEGO blocks ever produced would create a taut rope from the earth to the moon.

So ... how will you prepare for the inevitable LEGO uprising?    They're ...... they're ...... ALIVE!!!!



(Those facts are all true, by the way.)

[Ephemerid]

LEGO blocks are C L -- they really got my imagination going as a kid-- if I wanted something, I built it!

Every kid should have them.  --and adults too. 

[VonStupp]

Our family has been working a very long time on the 7,541-piece Millennium Falcon (pictures attached). We finally finished it!

It certainly has forced us to figure out how to work together effectively. But now, where to put it...
VS

[71 dB]

Our family has been working a very long time on the 7,541-piece Millennium Falcon (pictures attached). We finally finished it!

It certainly has forced us to figure out how to work together effectively. But now, where to put it...
VS

Looks great! 

[BWV 1080]

Our family has been working a very long time on the 7,541-piece Millennium Falcon (pictures attached). We finally finished it!

It certainly has forced us to figure out how to work together effectively. But now, where to put it...
VS

This was my son's 2020 COVID summer entertainment, bought with the refund from his summer camp

[VonStupp]

This was my son's 2020 COVID summer entertainment, bought with the refund from his summer camp

That was a great idea!
VS

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Our family has been working a very long time on the 7,541-piece Millennium Falcon (pictures attached). We finally finished it!

It certainly has forced us to figure out how to work together effectively. But now, where to put it...
VS

Wow!  Impressive work!  And what patience!

Legos has certainly evolved over the years too.

PD

[71 dB]

Legos has certainly evolved over the years too.

PD

A little. What has changed more is the culture of playing with Legos. Back in the 90's I think Lego as a company started to struggle to stay "relevant" in the changing World with all kind of cool stuff available for children. So, they started changing the culture itself. Somehow with clever marketing they have managed to make Legos very cool, not only for children, but even for adults! Nowadays is it totally cool and socially accepted for adults to enjoy building things from Legos. There are even Lego building competions for adults on TV! I was a frantic Lego-builder in my childhood. My late mother kept telling me to go out to play football with other children, but I insisted building microwave ovens and what not from Legos. At high-school age I accepted I am too old to playing with Legos. Fast forward a few decades and building 7500+ piece Lego Millennium Falcons is totally cool. Legos have evolved, but the World has changed much more.

[Spotted Horses]

When I was a kid I had a big set of building bricks, which also included a big piece with a battery powered motor and others that had axles for gears. Later I was surprised to see that their product line is now dominated by kits for building a specific project.

[VonStupp]

When I was a kid I had a big set of building bricks, which also included a big piece with a battery powered motor and others that had axles for gears. Later I was surprised to see that their product line is now dominated by kits for building a specific project.

They still make buckets of randomly assorted pieces, but they are certainly not as heavily marketed as the specific builds.
VS

[DavidW]

When I was a kid I had a big set of building bricks, which also included a big piece with a battery powered motor and others that had axles for gears. Later I was surprised to see that their product line is now dominated by kits for building a specific project.

I had constructix when I was a kid which was all about free building instead of expensive lego kits.

[71 dB]

I have been vibing with LEGOs lately. I was quite a lot into Legos as a kid (from late '70s to mid '80s), but I kind of grew out of them and got interested of music instead. For three decades (1990-2020) or so wasn't into LEGOs at all. I have been collecting plastic in another form, physical media (CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays).

It is kind of ironic. 45 years ago the two coolest things in the World for me were Star Wars and LEGO. Then at some point (in 1999 when Episode I came out I suppose) LEGO started releasing Star Wars sets, but I didn't like that at all. I like LEGO sets to be completely their own thing and builders can then use their skills to build whatever Star Wars X-Wings they want. The snow speeder of The Impire Strikes Back was notoriously difficult to build well.

Everyone has their golden period of LEGO. For me this is about 1977-1984. I was very much into Technics and that started in 1977. Also, Legoland really started in 1978 with the mini-figure. The 12 volt trains of this period were also very cool.

Later LEGOs don't appeal to me that much. There started to be too many  parts. Instead of using existing parts for "approximating" detail, new parts were invented to have all that detail. That's kind of cheating and against the core idea of LEGO (use your imagination and creativity to use a limited selection of parts). Early LEGO had perhaps too limiting selection while LEGO today is a comical cornucopia of different kind of parts.The sweet spot is somewhere int he middle. For me that's around 1977-1984.

In the '90s LEGO started to add new colors to appeal more to girls. LEGO has totally lost its visual charm for me because of all the colors and different parts. Most of the LEGO sets of the last 35 years look ugly or stupid to me. LEGO is in the uncanny valley for me, too close to the real thing, but clearly not the real thing. Some of the Technics sets of the last 30 years look unbelievable bad! What the hell is that garbage? The best looking Technics set ever to my eyes is the Farm Tractor 851 (Europe)/952 (US) from 1977/78 (see the attached picture).

That rant out of the way, I have been vibing with LEGO. I can ignore most of modern LEGO. The only LEGO set I have intact from childhood is the promotional set 1851 Silja Line ferry from 1981 (see attachment). My family visited Stockholm in 1981 cruising on this ferry (Helsinki - Stockholm) and they sold this set on it. I had to have it. Since it is somewhat rare, this set seems to have some value, but I don't have even the original box anymore.

[Jo498]

I agree but that's probably also because this was the time I played with Lego myself. Basically the early moveable minifigures era, although the first big sets I remember were an oil platform and a waterplane that still had the stiff minifigured of the mid-late 1970s.

My brothers are still collecting some Lego as adults, both vintage and more recent models and my nephews and niece get huge amounts of the stuff as presents but I tend to find a lot of the newer stuff garish or gimmicky but I have not followed it closely.
On the other hand, that Silja line ship above looks more like 1971 than 1981, it seems deliberately "classic/retro" which is o.k., of course but I think I'd have found it a bit too stylized as a 9 year old.