It's Christmas time. Get the little ones a mountain of LEGO's!

Would you call GI Joe's, Barbies, Funko, LOL or any such ages set of toys "brilliant"? LEGO's truly are brilliant. So if you want brilliance in your house, being harnessed by your children, then what other 'anybodys toys' are the carte blanche go to?

LEGO's stoke the imagination. They foster creativity. They're the one toy that can be anything you put your mind to; can envision. Well at least within the boundaries of the parts you have. Well with one exception perhaps...

By the way, LEGO has this "Friends" sub-franchise going, with little girl appealing characters and style that still mesh with the legacy parts but still mesh with the modern little girl toys and characters that are trend.

In my little one days, some of the best groups of memories I have involved LEGO's. I didn't own the "real thing". I had a little bit. And those were always fun too. But I got to do the real thing as well. And my engineers brain wouldn't have wired up so well so deep so young if I hadn't.

This one friend in the early years, by my grandparents house, well his house had a play basement. And some of us we'd stay like all weekend over there. He inherited his older brothers stuff. And that stuff, the toys, that his own gifts ended up matching up with were, RC cars, and LEGO's. We also had a TV down there, board games and so on. But the only proper toys were LEGO's.

The main box of them was huge. Like 25 gallons, perhaps. And they had like 20 baseplate pieces. Mostly green. Mostly road pieces. But not like these new ones that the roads take up the whole plate, and are gray on edges. The 80's-90's road plates had more narrow roads, the wider edges were all the same green as the typical landplates. And we'd just build and build. And destroy. To build again.

Because the point of LEGO's is building. I am aware, I've had an eye for this forever, there's a lot of folks out there they get the cool thing set, and then its too cool to go 'okay did that now what' (then destroy it and get to work on 'whatever'). And today, it's so much about pushing cool franchises like MARVEL. Yet the greatest potentially true marvel in childhood, as far as toys and entertainment go is, LEGO's themselves. And good for the cool new sets, with ever more exotic pieces to push the boundaries of childhood scale imagination and possibility. LEGO's transcend every scope of limitations of say "models", except perhaps they cant fly like model rockets. Well perhaps not yet...

Anyways, today there are tons of LEGO options. There are even non-official parts that some of the ones I've been checking out give you so much and with details LEGO themselves don't offer as product. And according to ample reviews the parts match up and they're happy. Amazon "baseplates" is a good starting point. From there trillions of LEGO parts are already part of the landscapes. Decades of different parts. Which can be bought in bulk. Ebay, maybe some local apps. Then there's sellers with huge arrays of exotic single parts (from the bigger sets LEGO Corp tries to make you buy to get just the 'one' little thing that would stoke the theme you've been on or whatever.

But of course, start them off with the proper set. That has little character figures and all. A proper design goal. But just be mind that the next step is always going to be it just ends up all together. Or especially that it should be encouraged. And the best way to just implicitly, naturally, set the trend is get them the little LEGO chest assortment set. Just a bunch of pieces. The mind will get right to work on putting them to whatever task it can see as it goes.

Okay so now the next level, in LEGO's proper, is "Technic's". Which was already a major sub-franchise even back then. LEGO house friend has a bunch of those pieces in there too. In my recollection, we didn't too often end up with, or rather ever really intuitively take those parts with the normie parts and really make proper use of them. The other way around was fine, hey I need a 1x10 and here's one with a bunch of holes in the side of it.

With Technic's it's the same "problem" as what I argue, kids need tons of LEGO's. But more so with Technic's, with the same number of parts you have far less design options. Dimensions of specificity. Which I argue, no matter how many Technic's sets you could obtain, are still limited by the range of parts encompassed, itself.

So, to me, the ultimate level is, solid legacy type LEGO assortment array. And a good bit of Technic's parts. Hold on, especially when you get into Technic's grade, you the adult the parent should be involved. For them to reach their own maximum potential. We're already playing with gear ratios at this point. But now we're wholesale at the 'problem', the plateau of potential that is the unique parts angle. And LEGO only puts out parts in sets, specific design build sets, for all intensive purposes.

LEGO cant build every part ever that might work with their stuff. And why should they? Endless cool parts are already going into your garbage can every year. Think of all the appliances, the innovative solutions for modern living, in your home, that all end up breaking. The best ones perhaps, for this essay, are printers (and their forms above them). Okay, you could have some really crazy LEGO projects with microwave oven components. But you save all that until they're 10 at least. No for real, printers have DC motors, belt drives, switches, and more exotic components and various little exotic parts in them. Parts you've never find some typical local store.

And now, you're playing at reverse-engineering, all in the process of obtaining more parts in the aims of engineering. Meanwhile, you, and them, you're learning what it takes to open these things up. How they're built. With a little more effort you can learn what makes them tick as you go. VCR theory of operation. Printer components overview. Etc (video searches). Finally, repair. Tools become the path. And everyone can build or fix anything. All rooted in fond memories. That can be passed on. You know what, LEGO Corp should send me some LEGO's for this one. So I can gift them to some kids, and they have more LEGO's!

a reply to: godsovein

Are you aware that by the number produced, LEGO is the biggest tire manufacturer in the world?

Also I think I read somewhere that you could stack the 2x2 bricks in a column over three miles high before the bottom one would fail.

Aw, the Lego memories! My bare feet hurt just thinking about them!

We parallel a remarkable amount sometimes. I hold all the same sentiments towards Lego. Simply the best toy. Unlimited creation potential, well limited by one’s wallet. It teaches so many fundamentals early on things like structural integrity and as you said gear ratios, torque and the like, intro into robotics even.

I have several totes filled with my childhood Lego ready to pass on to my little ones. I picked up a few of the new starwars sets for decorations around my gaming desk. The hoth At-st and Luke’s x wing and slave 1. The quality of builds is great id say unlike some products Lego has improved in detail and design of its sets wonderfully.

It’s also worth noting that Lego now sells every part from every set in single form now. You pay a flat 5 dollar stocking fee on the whole order plus part cost on any part you want. Most parts cost a few cents up to a few dollars. So if you want to get a few more obscure parts that’s the way to do it. Pick a brick it’s called.
a reply to: godsovein

a reply to: nugget1

Phhhhst.

A nice 2x2 block to the heel, in the pitch black during Darkout Tag, that's better than going to the ice cream shop and then the arcade with a whole $14.

FINE. Some of the builds in basement LEGO city get wrecked by people blindly and desperately crashing into them while fleeing.

That's how you end every long LEGO night.

originally posted by: beyondknowledge
Also I think I read somewhere that you could stack the 2x2 bricks in a column over three miles high before the bottom one would fail.

What if you filled each cavity with helium?

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I used to make torture chambers with modelling clay men. Pencil sharpener blades and cocktail sticks go choppy choppy spikey spikey!

Bwahahaha!

Can't remember exactly what they were called, but long long ago, I loved my medieval times legos collection. Castles. Knights. Mostly gray and black blocks.



P.S. I never swallowed any of them.

originally posted by: BrokenCircles
P.S. I never swallowed any of them.

I did.

I pooped a car.

a reply to: godsovein

I sometimes get upset when the set is destroyed 2 days after completion because we are too lazy to search that piece in the big lego boxm
they last at best a month, a real master destroyer we have there.
But it's LEGO and this is the way...

They look so amazing compared to what my out of the box set looked like, back in my lego days.
it's a little revival to sit back down and let the phantasy run wild, coolest part is some pieces and lego persons are the same I played with. I'm looking forward to see my grandkids play with those lego too.

Now they are coming with the whole robotic stuff, it's an incredibli didactic toy, and a good use for plastic.

The erector set is better, they come with motors. 🖕 lego

Or this for responsible children Umm grandpa was right sometimes and imagination and death and stuff

originally posted by: godsovein
a reply to: nugget1

Phhhhst.

A nice 2x2 block to the heel, in the pitch black during Darkout Tag, that's better than going to the ice cream shop and then the arcade with a whole $14.

FINE. Some of the builds in basement LEGO city get wrecked by people blindly and desperately crashing into them while fleeing.

That's how you end every long LEGO night.

You and I forgot to mention the new puppy shatting out chewed up Legos....

Along with Hot Wheels, Legos were my favorite toy growing up. Even as I got a little older, I loved the Technics and Model sets. In fact, I still have all of my Lego sets in storage. My kids played with Legos as well, but none of them were into it like I was. Their generation has way too many other distractions.

originally posted by: Brotherman
The erector set is better, they come with motors. 🖕 lego

Or this for responsible children Umm grandpa was right sometimes and imagination and death and stuff

There have always been Lego sets available with motors as well.

a reply to: Brotherman

Girder and panel sets were cool, too.

Image here

Cheers

LEGO is so overpriced for what production cost is.

Still love playing with LEGO with my daughter, I have almost all my LEGO from childhood.

Currently it's very overpriced but since we have so many from my own box, it's only the little themed things she gets from LEGO like for Christmas or birthday, and that's okay price wise. Like 10€ or so.

We have a LEGO land here, where you can pick your own stones by weight or amount, too.

LEGOS are pretty great..My youngest amazes me with his skill..at 10 he's finished the big R2, x-wing, falcon, and the Boba Fett head..oh..and the Y-wing
When I was his age Lincoln logs were a part too..about that age is when I came up with an improvised rpg made from pieces parts and no dice..

Legos are good, my kids liked them when they were really little, but they liked K'Nex more. They even built the motorized rollercoaster, by themselves (my only gripe was the motor was noisy)

Even marble runs can be really complex. Sometimes stupidly complex, had a wooden one we gave up on assembling because the diagrams were about as clear as mud.

The builder toys are still always a fantastic option

originally posted by: jtrenthacker
Along with Hot Wheels, Legos were my favorite toy growing up. Even as I got a little older, I loved the Technics and Model sets. In fact, I still have all of my Lego sets in storage. My kids played with Legos as well, but none of them were into it like I was. Their generation has way too many other distractions.

You need to pull them out of storage, lead by example. Or gift them to a friends young one. Or a strangers? Throw a fresh set in there to help stoke it perhaps. We have to inspire. Kids have all these monster creature type people coming at them from 'all' institutional and societal levels at this point. It's up to the rest of us to be the bolwork that we can figure out anyways against it. And in natural healthy organic ways.

originally posted by: nugget1
Aw, the Lego memories! My bare feet hurt just thinking about them!

Lego's and hardwood floors, fun times.