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How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)

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Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)

#61

Post by dudul »

yreg wrote: post #53
dudul wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new sets are more complex and detailed, but god do I hate the franchised sets. Nothing kills kids creativity more than that. It's not a pirate ship, it is Jack Sparrow's pirate ship. It's not a spaceship, it's Luke Skywalker's spaceship! Additionally, the quality of parts has seriously decreased since the 80s and 90s.

> Nothing kills kids creativity more than that. It's not a pirate ship, it is Jack Sparrow's pirate ship. It's not a spaceship, it's Luke Skywalker's spaceship! Why do you think so? I had a Hogwarts Express set and most of the time I didn't pretend for it to be the Hogwarts Express when playing.

Good for you. That's a data set of 1.

I based that on empirical observation of my kids' friends. They don't make up stories, they just replay the star wars or Harry Potter movies. So I don't know, a dozen kids or so. I haven't done a nation wide study yet.

Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)

#62

Post by kazinator »

yreg wrote: post #58
kazinator wrote: post #49

Lego is not the Apple of toys. People who have Lego in their homes also have tons of other toys. People who have Apple computers or mobile devices in their homes do not have tons of other devices. There are Apple households in the way that there aren't Lego households. Oh yeah, and there are cheap, Lego-compatible blocks out there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_clone There used to be Apple clone computers in the…

Apple didn't wipe anything out. Hackintoshes exist. It is probably only a matter of time until macOS eventually drops Intel support, but we are far from there.

They don't exist in the sense that you can walk into a brick-and-mortar computer store and buy one, or see it advertised in mainstream media, like was the case with Apple clones once upon a time.

Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)

#63

Post by jacquesm »

kawogi wrote: post #26

I'm still mad that they discontinued Mindstorms. My school isn't able to replace their components if they break and I cannot get additional motors for my projects any more. Does anyone know how good their "LEGO® Education SPIKE™" stuff is? Is it as open as the NXT-bricks? Are these somewhat compatible? Linux IDE available? I wish someone would offer a replacement for those who have a 3D-printer, rp2040 and some solde…

Yes, they royally messed that up. But as to your query: there are nice alternatives, there is this board+library:

https://gitlab.com/jmattheij/rekabit

With a bit of fiddling and some 3D printed parts you're off to the races, controls two motors and four servos and has blinkenlights. You can use the board with the Micro:BIT but you can also use it with some fiddling with an arduino (renesas will probably work best) or a Raspberry Pi 2040. It also has a whole slew of 'Grove' connectors if you want to wire up more sensors and actuators and it exports the bus.

I've added links to the 3D printed parts and some links to the originals on thingiverse, it took some modifications to get it all to fit nicely but it really works well. And those boards are pretty cheap.

Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)

#64

Post by rvba »

dudul wrote: post #45
sbecker wrote: post #19

Just to provide some counterpoint to the echo chamber here - as a Dad of a six year old who played with legos as a kid and again now, I can affirm - Legos and the sets they put out now are way cooler now than when I was a kid! You might worry that the less general purpose, specialized pieces might stunt creativity, but guess what!? The 6 year old has no problem taking them completely apart and building something off…

The new sets are more complex and detailed, but god do I hate the franchised sets. Nothing kills kids creativity more than that. It's not a pirate ship, it is Jack Sparrow's pirate ship. It's not a spaceship, it's Luke Skywalker's spaceship! Additionally, the quality of parts has seriously decreased since the 80s and 90s.

The "ecological" parts are no longer bulletproof. What is not ecological, but I guess they want you to throw away bricks and buy new ones.

Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)

#65

Post by Dig1t »

hospitalJail wrote: post #40
Dig1t wrote: post #18

There are a few “Apple of X industry” companies out there, I think it’s pretty interesting that you can generalize the things that make them what they are. Disney is the Apple of movies. Nintendo is the Apple of video games. They are usually the types of companies that tightly control almost all of their product, are at a premium price point, and have an “elevated” sort of brand recognition. For example Nintendo is i…

Its interesting, you find quality with these brands. I'm certain these brands advertise they have quality, but I think they fall far short of the competition constantly. Nintendo? Disney? Apple? When I think of their actual quality compared to the best in the business you are talking B- quality. Sure you never get a C or a D like when I get a random Android phone for $100, but you are never going to get a Baulders Ga…

I don't agree that it's just marketing. I'm not saying their products are perfect, they certainly have flaws. But the maniacal focus on quality is palpable in their products.

Play a Nintendo game start to finish, you will be very hard pressed to find ANY bugs or glitches. Like you have to hunt really hard to try to find them, they are usually an extremely polished experience. The same cannot be said for most other developers. I LOVE BG3, but it's certainly not as bug-free as a Nintendo game. Same with their hardware + system software, it never crashes, and has a very controlled "walled garden" feel.

There's a reason people use the term "Disney-quality animation". Because it's extremely polished and looks miles better than the competition. Watch the Family Guy episode where the drew part of the episode in Disney style and you can see the difference in action.

Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)

#66

Post by default-kramer »

roomey wrote: post #12

Oh my god, do people commenting here not realise it is they who are getting older, less cool, less creative? Oh back in my day we had 10 Lego bricks and we were _greatful_ because of it!

Having fewer bricks could be considered a feature. There are definitely situations in which more constraints can increase creativity and happiness. For a long time, I preferred Dragon Quest Builders 1 (a Minecraft-style game) over its sequel for this reason. It's not unreasonable for people to be overwhelmed or put off by the tremendous variety of Lego available today.

Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)

#67

Post by pbhjpbhj »

sbecker wrote: post #19

Just to provide some counterpoint to the echo chamber here - as a Dad of a six year old who played with legos as a kid and again now, I can affirm - Legos and the sets they put out now are way cooler now than when I was a kid! You might worry that the less general purpose, specialized pieces might stunt creativity, but guess what!? The 6 year old has no problem taking them completely apart and building something off…

It's definitely variable, some children will not go off-script, others barely want to stay on script long enough to do the box-image build.

Certainly in our house I (as dad) am more relaxed about playing with the stuff than building "the" model; that's fun too but you might as well use the Kragle if you're not going to mod it or tear it down and build something else...

Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)

#68

Post by ygra »

kleiba wrote: post #8

Lego is still quite amazing but not quite as cool as it used to be. I suppose the various boxes were always meant to be such that you could build that one really cool building/vehicle/etc. with it. Sometimes with a predesigned variation, too. But today it seems that the purpose of most boxes is to do only that - and then, what, put the object into a display case? Or, more likely, play with it for a while and then for…

I've stumbled over Rebrickable recently where you can enter a LEGO set number and get alternative models (MOCs) and build instructions for them (among other usages). For my children there is lots of fun in taking apart the car again and building a plane from the same parts. This also has the benefit of keeping the sets together (for now), so the original instructions can still be used without having to hunt for two 1x1 tile rounded in dark blueish gray in one of the two big boxes of parts.

It varies by set/model. Some of them are built and then played with, some are built, razed, built differently, demolished again. Some are built and then put on display. The pieces, even the specialized ones, are rarely the problem in building something completely different from what I can observe. They are, however, a problem when you have to find them again if you want to build the original model.

Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)

#69

Post by pbhjpbhj »

jacquesm wrote: post #60
jansan wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having two teenage boys I cannot confirm this. They play with other stuff, but Lego is for building once and putting it on a shelf, where it will collect thick layers of dust. My sons never really played with Lego, which I found a bit disappointing.

You're free to take them apart and start making stuff with them. I'm pretty sure your kids would join in, mine certainly did. Sets should not be seen as holy and giving them a prominent display spot may be the wrong thing to do. For a week, sure, after that it's parts :)

Oh no my friend, this is not allowed - "Dad, don't touch it; why did you add that piece; you're ruining it" "but you're not using it, it was just sitting on the shelf...".

There's definitely a strong divergence. In part, for us I think it's driven by poverty, they want "the nice thing" to look at (all our own models are necessarily colour-mismatched). But I know others who have rooms full of prestige sets that are 'not to be touched'!

Many on HN will be tinkerers who will take anything apart, that probably makes a difference too.

Re: How Lego Became the Apple of Toys (2015)

#70

Post by unleaded »

berkes wrote: post #4
cptaj wrote: post #3

http://www.brick4.com/

Not sure if this is yours, but if so: Firefox (android) and Chrome (android) refuse to load the site. Probably due to missing SSL.

You have to use HTTP for some reason. It's a database of Chinese lego clones, I've seen it before. Chinese lego is awesome, it's often cheaper than real Lego and there's lots of original sets including things that lego won't make (like tanks and stuff, think I saw a strip club set once). But there are clones of real lego sets too, whether that bothers you is up to you. Check out r/lepin for more
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