Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lego's 0.002mm specification and its implications for manufacturing (2025)

thewave.engineer

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 343 posts

Re: Lego's 0.002mm specification and its implications for manufacturing (2025)

#171

Post by kjkjadksj »

maxglute wrote: post #155
utopiah wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nostalgia... Lego was amazing decades ago so we want it to remain so. It's not anymore though. The whole raison d'etre, namely infinitely recomposable bricks to be creative, was lost the moment they realized they were a LOT more money in custom sets. Sets become collectible, perishable, trends can form, secondary markets exists, etc. It's simply about the baseline, not the principle. Sorry.

You can also only get so creative with lego. At the end of the day roblox/minecraft and video games trains kids to build more "relevant" things. Apart from tactility, I don't see what technic/mindstorm offers over digital.

You use your imagination. I had a tub of random parts from a bunch of old 80s and 90s sets that were since put into the blender that is a family of small children. I would build space craft. Big freighters with internal bays to hold smaller ships. Huge bases and compounds for my other toys. Various other vehicles and structures. I was basically constantly building for 10 straight years of my life. No sets. No plans. No eye strain from screens. Just pure creativity and imagination.

Re: Lego's 0.002mm specification and its implications for manufacturing (2025)

#172

Post by bombcar »

alexjplant wrote: post #60
eru wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today, airplanes fuselages, wings, and car chassis are instead built up piece by piece. Well, people did complain about the whole 'special pieces' trend that you praise.

As a kid I loved the giant boat hull piece because it was sealed and actually floated . This in combination with some larger pylon-type pieces from the Star Wars set meant you could build floating cities and vehicles and such and mess with them in the kitchen sink. I wish I had hobbies as cheap as LEGO now...

They still make "boats that really float" today: https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/arctic-explorer-ship-6036...

Re: Lego's 0.002mm specification and its implications for manufacturing (2025)

#173

Post by kjkjadksj »

bluescrn wrote: post #139
Aurornis wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lego suffers from a fandom problem among adults: They have strong nostalgia for how it was when they were kids and they think everything since then is against the natural order of Lego. The best way to enjoy Lego is to give it to some kids and watch them get creative with it. Unlike all of the Internet complaints, kids have no problem having fun with Lego and being creative in their own ways.

> The best way to enjoy Lego is to give it to some kids and watch them get creative with it. But there's a very limited age range in which todays kids will appreciate physical toys, before they're introduced to screens...

I grew up with videogames. Still played lego pretty much till 7th grade.

Re: Lego's 0.002mm specification and its implications for manufacturing (2025)

#174

Post by bombcar »

detourdog wrote: post #165
scatbot wrote: post #12

Lego is one of those companies that is simultaneously amazing and kind of sucks. On one hand the core product is incredible. The tolerances on the bricks are micrometer-level precision and the fact that pieces from the 70s snap perfectly into ones made today is mind blowing. On the other hand, a lot what the company does today just sucks. Set prices are outrageous. Printed bricks get replaced with stickers and many s…

I got my first Lego set in the early 70’s through a Velveeta cheese mail in promotion. The company almost went out of business in the early 90’s before they discovered movie tie-ins. I believe the quality of play was lost in this transition because the sets became more literal and less open ended. My first big set was a fire station which certainly literal but somehow seems more open ended then the movie tie/in sets.

The fire stations et al still exist, its just that they don't sell nearly as well as the tie-ins do, at least based on shelf space allocations.

This year's isn't huge: https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/fire-station-with-fire-tr...

But the police station is pretty big: https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/police-station-60316

(To me this looks more fun, but I'm a pirate guy: https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/police-prison-island-6041... )

Re: Lego's 0.002mm specification and its implications for manufacturing (2025)

#175

Post by AdamN »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #161
potatototoo99 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they have kept up with inflation, and that is the problem. Manufactured goods like Lego bricks should fall in price through innovation in processes, scale, etc. What does raise higher than the average inflation should be be labor-intensive products/services. In other words, it feels much stranger today how expensive Legos are compared to 47 years ago.

Lego is branding, curation and quality bar, though. They're the Apple of bricks (weird sentence). There's tons of lego-knockoffs and of not even such lesser quality that the difference can be perceived by casual inspection. The set-to-set quality bar is really where it is, especially among their set lines not targeted at children or low-end of market. But none of those sets have any kind of staying power. There's Exp…

Yeah I don't know what this person is on about. Lego is obviously premium and ... charges premium prices because ... they're a business. People (consumers) who want premium products ... pay the premium.

I would be much more frustrated if they became cheaper and reduced the quality of the product.

Re: Lego's 0.002mm specification and its implications for manufacturing (2025)

#176

Post by tokai »

CapricornNoble wrote: post #126
esafak wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like what?

The value proposition of the Chinese knockoffs is off the charts IMO. For what I spent buying JUST ( https://www.brickeconomy.com/set/60229-1/lego-city-space-roc... ) last year for my daughter, I've since bought her a 3-floor hospital, a firehouse, a pink villa with pool, and about 2 dozen doctor and engineer minifigs for the same ~$120 outlay. Only disappointment is the legs on the Chinese minifigs, they are difficu…

You trust the Chinese knockoffs not to leach out poison?

Re: Lego's 0.002mm specification and its implications for manufacturing (2025)

#178

Post by tokai »

bombcar wrote: post #158
mmustapic wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lego sets aimed at children are still good! They work as standalone toys, and can also be reassembled, modified and combined. Very few toys are like this. Adults collect them, true, but there are whole lines dedicated to them.

Part of the problem is a solid 1/3 or more of Walmart's LEGO aisle is now various flowers - https://www.walmart.com/brand/lego/botanicals/10056123 These aren't being bought by kids and if the entire market becomes nostalgic adults, eventually they all die.

Its a kit for adults, ofc they are not being bought by kids.

Re: Lego's 0.002mm specification and its implications for manufacturing (2025)

#180

Post by bombcar »

rkangel wrote: post #67
scatbot wrote: post #12

Lego is one of those companies that is simultaneously amazing and kind of sucks. On one hand the core product is incredible. The tolerances on the bricks are micrometer-level precision and the fact that pieces from the 70s snap perfectly into ones made today is mind blowing. On the other hand, a lot what the company does today just sucks. Set prices are outrageous. Printed bricks get replaced with stickers and many s…

> the push towards smartphone-dependent toys feels weird I haven't seen this push? The new Lego Smart stuff is explicitly "screen free play". There is an app but it's just for firmware update and configuration and you can't even connect it unless the brick is on the charger.

Lego has been testing modern sets without instructions and instead tell you to download an app for your phone.

The ones I know of are the Mario ones, but they apparently need a phone anyway to setup the little characters.

Post reply on HN