Lego: a highly sophisticated inter-locking brick system

[RexWilson 1344]

I am an adult and I like Legos. I have two daughters (8,5) and they are in to them as well. My 8yo has become really independent on completing sets mostly by herself. She has finished all the new Harry Potter sets (excluding the large Hogwarts Castle) and couple of 600+ piece Lego Friends.

 

For me, I like the larger Star Wars sets such as Kessel Run Millennium Falcon, X-Wings, etc.

 

I just started the Vestas Turbine. It was a limited release about 10 years ago in Europe. Comes with a motor to power the turbine and lights. It is not a huge brick count, just under 900. Crazy part is the bags were not numbered and connecting pieces are not necessarily bagged together. I had to create my own sorting system.

 

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[NeverMarryAStripper 21864]

I built this with my daughter. It had 1,969 pieces which I thought was a nice touch.

[Shoxthemonkey 1976]

My 5th grade Granddaughter participates in a lego sponsored robotic competition. As the kids get older the tasks and programming requirements get harder. It's pretty cool what she and her partners have been able to accomplish. Wichita State's school of engineering and Spirit Aerospace are the big local sponsors. I highly recommend the program to any child that has it available to them.

http://www.firstlegoleague.org/

[bernorange 8359]

Probably my favorite toy as a kid.  I used to have a huge tub filled with pieces (bunches of sets all mixed in one container) that we (brothers and I) would dump on the floor and start building random things.  My kids never got into the legos like I did though.  :(

[Kennythetiger 9374]

We never had Legos when I was a kid, but we did have something called Construx, or similar.  We built all kinds of shit, and also found out that the blue joints made great slingshot ammo.

[gsoda3 3245]

i'm not in to them but my kids are.  what do you guys do with the completed sets?  they take up so much space.  

[Buffsoldier 1895]

I had the knockoff version from Sears:  Brix Blox.  Still had fun, but since the two were incompatible, I always knew I was a lesser class citizen.

[Llano Estacado 1257]

In34.

Took Jr, almost 4, to his first movie theater movie Lego 2. When we got home he wanted me to build a heart he could give to his sister. Hit me in the feels.

He also had a questions about why my favorite character was the spaceman.

Paraphrasing here - “Dad had tons and tons of spaceman legos in the 80s, but your ignorant stupid stupid grandmother threw/gave them away when he was in high school, and you should resent her forever for it”.

[utee94 15797]

10 minutes ago, Buffsoldier said:

I had the knockoff version from Sears:  Brix Blox.  Still had fun, but since the two were incompatible, I always knew I was a lesser class citizen.

Same here.  We couldn't afford Lego or Levis, for us it was Brix Blox and Toughskins.

[G650 14229]

Legos were my jam when I was a kid. I loved the pirate ships especially.

My three year old is into Duplo so far, so I'm sure he will move to Lego as well.

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4974]

Ice planet was my jam back in the day.

 

[Armybrat 40814]

I had an Erector set and some Lincoln Logs. Same for my kids in the 1970s.

[Brisketexan 105037]

My mom kept my late 70s-80s era legos.  That was the starter for the boy.  Then our neigbhbors down the street sold all their legos in a garage sale.  Then he started asking for a variety of sets.  We used to sit on the floor and build competing spaceships.  He's 15 now, and still will occasionally build an elaborate airplane or something, just to mellow out.

In summary, legos fucking rule.

[Brew 3049]

LEGO Friends were a great roll out by them. My girls have every set up through a couple of years ago when they got out of it somewhat. They still rebuild the ones they have, set up cities, and play with them on occasion. However, there was a period of time when it was all they wanted.

[Kennythetiger 9374]

5 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

My mom kept my late 70s-80s era legos.  That was the starter for the boy.  Then our neigbhbors down the street sold all their legos in a garage sale.  Then he started asking for a variety of sets.  We used to sit on the floor and build competing spaceships.  He's 15 now, and still will occasionally build an elaborate airplane or something, just to mellow out.

In summary, legos fucking rule.

Until you step on one hidden in the carpet. 

[El Diablo 4232]

7 hours ago, Armybrat said:

I had an Erector set and some Lincoln Logs. Same for my kids in the 1970s.

Same here along with the Brix mentioned above. All came from the Goodwill store that was on my dads mail route. 

[dingleberryswitzer 2724]

11 hours ago, Kennythetiger said:

We never had Legos when I was a kid, but we did have something called Construx, or similar.  We built all kinds of shit, and also found out that the blue joints made great slingshot ammo.

Yea, we had those too.  Shoot my brother figured out how to make a crossbow or of them that shot the long pieces. 

[InkaUtexas 25852]

man I need to bust ours out. When living on a farm lego was what we did at night with the kids. Ended up with a 6x6 medieval city. I loved it. Will see if I can find any pictures. 

 

[Hate 20106]

My son was really into Legos a few years ago. We probably had 30-40 sets that he had put together. His masterpiece was putting together the Technic front end loader. That took a while. The problem was when we took them all apart we didn’t keep the pieces separated for each set. We had boxes of gray, black, yellow, etc. so that if you tried to build one of the sets again it took forever to find any of the parts. We finally donated what was probably well more than 10k pieces to his school. He’s starting to get into them again after LEGO Movie 2, but we will be a little smarter about how we disassemble them this time.

[Longhorn Al 440]

I was big into the Pirates legos in the late 80s/early 90s.

[Brisketexan 105037]

My son was really into Legos a few years ago. We probably had 30-40 sets that he had put together. His masterpiece was putting together the Technic front end loader. That took a while. The problem was when we took them all apart we didn’t keep the pieces separated for each set. We had boxes of gray, black, yellow, etc. so that if you tried to build one of the sets again it took forever to find any of the parts. We finally donated what was probably well more than 10k pieces to his school. He’s starting to get into them again after LEGO Movie 2, but we will be a little smarter about how we disassemble them this time.

Never bothered us. We’d build the set the first time. Then, after a while, it’s time to break it down and add the pieces to the collection. Maybe later, you’re build something inspired by the original set, but after that, it’s all creativity.

[NeverMarryAStripper 21864]

I had an Erector set and some Lincoln Logs. Same for my kids in the 1970s.

When I was young I had an erection set too

[utee94 15797]

7 hours ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

When I was young I had an erection set too

username checks out

[G650 14229]

8 hours ago, Longhorn Al said:

I was big into the Pirates legos in the late 80s/early 90s.

My man.

[Hate 20106]

8 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Never bothered us. We’d build the set the first time. Then, after a while, it’s time to break it down and add the pieces to the collection. Maybe later, you’re build something inspired by the original set, but after that, it’s all creativity.

Of course.  He built all kinds of crazy stuff with the thousands and thousands of bricks he had, but he eventually got bored with that and wanted to build the originals.  We'd do the best we could and had to use different colors of the original parts, but it was very difficult sorting through a box with 1000 pieces looking for one the size of a thumb tack.  

[Longhorn Al 440]

1 hour ago, G650 said:

My man.

I still have this one in a box. It was partially dismantled by a cousin and I never got it back together. I'd have to locate a copy of the instructions, and probably some missing pieces.

[G650 14229]

1 minute ago, Longhorn Al said:

I still have this one in a box. It was partially dismantled by a cousin and I never got it back together. I'd have to locate a copy of the instructions, and probably some missing pieces.

Yep ,that's the OG one. My little brother dismantled mine and I almost killed him.

[Incredulity 11643]

Hits close to home.

 

I spent a couple hours last night with my 5 year old on a police station set he got for his birthday.

I really have to fight the urge just to build it myself.  I make him find the pieces and try to put it together.  If he misses a couple times I offer to do it. 

[davidg 4035]

17 hours ago, Kennythetiger said:

Until you step on one hidden in the carpet. 

 

[RDCanecutter 26376]

I give Lego credit-- playing with those bricks as a child gave me the ability to pass lots of math and physics courses.

I mean, sure, I failed those courses, because I stopped doing the homework, but Lego gave me the ability to pass them.

[Hornstrader 179]

On 2/18/2019 at 8:02 PM, NeverMarryAStripper said:

I built this with my daughter. It had 1,969 pieces which I thought was a nice touch.

My wife got me this set for Christmas. Looks like a fun build

[NeverMarryAStripper 21864]

I’ve seen plans for the Mercury and Gemini rockets in the same scale. I’m thinking about rounding up the pieces and trying to build those.

[RexWilson 1344]

Finished, took about 5 hours. The house lights are a nice touch. Now gotta figure where to put it.


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[wild_turkey 3159]

I still have this one in a box. It was partially dismantled by a cousin and I never got it back together. I'd have to locate a copy of the instructions, and probably some missing pieces.

We had that one as well. Can’t remember if it was mine or my brother’s (he also posts here). We had a big walk-in closet with entire shelves dedicated to the various themes, mostly the pirates, castles, and space sets.

[Gene Parmesan 4002]

On ‎2‎/‎19‎/‎2019 at 11:12 PM, Brisketexan said:

Never bothered us. We’d build the set the first time. Then, after a while, it’s time to break it down and add the pieces to the collection. Maybe later, you’re build something inspired by the original set, but after that, it’s all creativity.

Yeah after the initial build and teardown after a week or so the bricks go into general circulation bucket.  We just but lots of extra packs of wheels and such so he has plenty of base level things to create with.  The sets are filled with such specialized pieces that a lot of goes unused, but a kids imagination can amaze you.

[Wiler77 1566]

22 hours ago, RexWilson said:

Finished, took about 5 hours. The house lights are a nice touch. Now gotta figure where to put it.


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All that's missing is a Lego handgun

[Buffsoldier 1895]

Seems like the appropriate place for this:

[huge 3793]

My kid is 4 and LEGOs are his thing.  It's awesome but we need another room to keep all the shit in it.

[DallasHorn26 586]

My oldest has a huge collection, she has quite a few of the friends sets with one of them being the amusement park.  Shes done all of them on her own with very little assistance too.

[High Plains Drifter 11024]

Just an fyi,

You can find all the instructions for the multitudes of various lego sets on the lego website. You just have to know the name of the set. If you don't know the name of the set, you can browse through the pictures of the boxes until you find it. Might take a while tho.

You can also order individual pieces that have been lost.

 

 

[troph 24781]

I used to love them.  now I'm so over lego even more so than match box cars.  we have probably 6-7 large storage containers of lego bricks.  we have to pick them up with a broom and dustpan.  I can't wait to rid my home of the little fuckers.  the legos not my kids.

[ztejas 43411]

On 2/19/2019 at 8:20 AM, Shoxthemonkey said:

My 5th grade Granddaughter participates in a lego sponsored robotic competition. As the kids get older the tasks and programming requirements get harder. It's pretty cool what she and her partners have been able to accomplish. Wichita State's school of engineering and Spirit Aerospace are the big local sponsors. I highly recommend the program to any child that has it available to them.

http://www.firstlegoleague.org/

This has been a thing for awhile - I did it at my elementary school and it was pretty cool. 

Legos were the tits - and being a child of the 90s/00s I got to play with multiple decades worth of them. 

I was never really into following the instructions more than the first time out of the box, though. 

[Jograves 357]

On 2/20/2019 at 6:18 PM, RexWilson said:

Finished, took about 5 hours. The house lights are a nice touch. Now gotta figure where to put it.

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Doesn't this hobby get damn expensive?

My godsons are just now getting into them. I bought some for Christmas and was floored by how much they cost these days.

[NeverMarryAStripper 21864]

There's a reason that Lego is considered the most valuable brand in the toy industry

[atomheartbevo 89617]

On 3/27/2019 at 12:08 PM, Jograves said:

Doesn't this hobby get damn expensive?

My godsons are just now getting into them. I bought some for Christmas and was floored by how much they cost these days.

If you try building with the knock-offs, you'll understand why. most of us stick to the actual LEGO brand.   Shit is quality.

[troph 24781]

Doesn't this hobby get damn expensive?
My godsons are just now getting into them. I bought some for Christmas and was floored by how much they cost these days.

Part of it is licensing deals for the marvel and Star Wars brands but yeah even LEGO only brands are whack expensive

[Rimbo 25908]

39 minutes ago, troph said:

Part of it is licensing deals for the marvel and Star Wars brands but yeah even LEGO only brands are whack expensive

To be fair, the price is generally worth it over the knock-offs. The bricks tend to stick together better and come apart more easily than the knock-offs, and the designs have gotten much better.

By the way: This book is fantastic.

[elfenix 34221]

On 2/19/2019 at 10:58 AM, Kennythetiger said:

We never had Legos when I was a kid, but we did have something called Construx, or similar.  We built all kinds of shit, and also found out that the blue joints made great slingshot ammo.

i built the shit out of construx.  legos i'd basically just build whatever the kit was and that was that.  construx i'd build something, take it apart, build something else, rip that apart, build something else, etc. buildings, spaceships, rovers, suit of armor, etc. 

[Chewbacca 7765]

On 2/20/2019 at 7:26 AM, Longhorn Al said:

I still have this one in a box. It was partially dismantled by a cousin and I never got it back together. I'd have to locate a copy of the instructions, and probably some missing pieces.

My brother got that for Christmas sometime in the late 80s.  I built it while he was out of the house.  He's still pissed off about it.

[Gil Bang 25907]