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I have a different perspective: I’d say Lego is having a hard time keeping its core principle (building stuff) while going along with the times. In particular

by hrktb 7y ago

I have a different perspective: I’d say Lego is having a hard time keeping its core principle (building stuff) while going along with the times. In particular Lego has a “Technic” and “Boost” series that in particular allows remote control, with motors, actuators and these recent years bluetooth hubs. The first saliant point: Lego doesn’t sell the “Control +” bluetooth hub alone, and it’s been a while now that the piece has been in sets. You’re SOL if you break/lose the one from the set, there is no legit way to get one if you want to use it on other creations in parallel, even if it’s arguably the central piece of a lot of constructions. It’s not listed with the other bricks in the order site, and it’s not handled by sites like bricklink. Then Bricklink: taken over by Lego, they got rid of most custom parts and anything that was extending what you could do with lego bricks ahead of what Lego publishes. Last, their whole latest Control + app has customizations for their specific sets. For the Top Gear one for instance there’s specific mini games and efen the motor control is slightly tweaked to have a “racing” effect. This goes pretty far astray from having generic playing tools. In general their efforts in the Power Functions/Boost/Mindstorm/NXT/Control + area seem overly proprietary, limited and way too expensive for what we get. So much that at this point third party hubs are better than Lego’s in almost every respect especially ability to use vanilla Scratch), but get limited by Lego stalling the whole ecosystem. Why is there even 4 different systems doing the same thing, it’s insane. I guess the people staying on more classic sets feel it less heavily, but for me Lego is really lost in how they want to move forward, now that kids playing with gears and programmed parts has become realistic and commercially viable.

lubujackson 7y ago
I couldn't disagree more as a parent of a 5 and 3 year old. I remember LEGOs being a big bucket of like 4 colors when I was a kid (80s) and never got too into them. Now there not just the designed sets but a whole community around the creative process, like Lego Ideas (fan made designs that get turned into sets for sale based on fan votes) and "3 in 1" sets where you can make 3 different things from the same set. My 3 year old loved the Queen Waterva "Build Whatever" set where there are instructions for about 20 different designs and he builds them with his brother over and over. There is something to be set for giving kids an entry point for creativity. First they figure out how blocks go together, then they build things from instructions, then they play with them and break them and rebuild them and learn to be more careful. Then they notice how the sets always design walls or ships or legs and start to modify designs for their own needs. A gentle introduction is best. If I dump 1000 legos in front of my kid he won't do anything, but if he has only 20 pieces I am amazed by the things he comes up with. I know some school actually use legos in the classroom for into robotics. It seems to me LEGO is doing very well engaging on multiple fronts and hitting different age ranges.
- frosted-flakes 7y ago
  LEGO made a set called X-Pods around 2005. Each one is a little pod with around 50 themed pieces (wheels, etc.). Because of the limited selection, making cool things is less about digging through a massive pile of LEGO bricks on the floor looking for "that one piece" than it is creatively thinking how each specific piece can be used. More about X-Pods here: https://lego.fandom.com/wiki/X-Pod https://lego.fandom.com/wiki/X-Pod I also like the idea of making "mini-scenes" with LEGO that depict a small slice of something with a small number of pieces. Here are a few examples: https://flickr.com/photos/127745496@N03/27230802250/ https://flickr.com/photos/127745496@N03/27230802250/ (Harry Potter Waiting for the Knight Bus) https://flickr.com/photos/iridescentnohow/8187261324/ https://flickr.com/photos/iridescentnohow/8187261324/ (Back Alley in micro-scale) https://flickr.com/photos/pbpancho/3081120968/ https://flickr.com/photos/pbpancho/3081120968/ (Factory in micro-scale)
- hrktb 7y ago
  It’s a valid point. Every kids are different, we went head first with the big bucket approach with ours, so any further set we bought were more to have a group of coherent pieces at a bundle price. One side effect was that the stickers on the bricks made them weirder to reuse. Also sets with a lot of specific shape bricks (like slightly curved long flat and smooth triangular cover pieces for instance) can be reassembled in one or two configurations, but those weird pieces are also harder to reuse. We had Star Wars set which were long and pretty boring (following instructions) to build for our kid, but he loved to try to make his own spaceships with the monochrome pannels. I see the value of Lego’s current approach, and am glad it’s working well for you. I’d be even more happy if they were more commited to both approaches. Forcing themselves to have any single piece they produce to be available in their pick-a-brick section would go a long way. PS: schools using Lego’s robotics introduction often use a 400$ set, released and never updated since 3 years. The compatible consumer variant is 300$ and the programming has to be done in the lego app. It is something, and it was super fun for kids to discover programming, we were interesting in getting it, but for instance their latest system (Control +) who technically could do the same things has no interface compatibility with the EV3 ecosystem. Nor does their “Boost” system for smaller kids, for that matter. At this point it looks like a dead end. The best system right now seems to be using their deprecated “Power functions” motors and elements and plug them to third party central units like SBrick. It’s a situation that feels really weird to be honest, and I am left wondering why we ended up here.

by hrktb 7y ago

lubujackson 7y ago

I couldn't disagree more as a parent of a 5 and 3 year old. I remember LEGOs being a big bucket of like 4 colors when I was a kid (80s) and never got too into them. Now there not just the designed sets but a whole community around the creative process, like Lego Ideas (fan made designs that get turned into sets for sale based on fan votes) and "3 in 1" sets where you can make 3 different things from the same set. My 3 year old loved the Queen Waterva "Build Whatever" set where there are instructions for about 20 different designs and he builds them with his brother over and over. There is something to be set for giving kids an entry point for creativity. First they figure out how blocks go together, then they build things from instructions, then they play with them and break them and rebuild them and learn to be more careful. Then they notice how the sets always design walls or ships or legs and start to modify designs for their own needs. A gentle introduction is best. If I dump 1000 legos in front of my kid he won't do anything, but if he has only 20 pieces I am amazed by the things he comes up with. I know some school actually use legos in the classroom for into robotics. It seems to me LEGO is doing very well engaging on multiple fronts and hitting different age ranges.

frosted-flakes 7y ago
LEGO made a set called X-Pods around 2005. Each one is a little pod with around 50 themed pieces (wheels, etc.). Because of the limited selection, making cool things is less about digging through a massive pile of LEGO bricks on the floor looking for "that one piece" than it is creatively thinking how each specific piece can be used. More about X-Pods here: https://lego.fandom.com/wiki/X-Pod https://lego.fandom.com/wiki/X-Pod I also like the idea of making "mini-scenes" with LEGO that depict a small slice of something with a small number of pieces. Here are a few examples: https://flickr.com/photos/127745496@N03/27230802250/ https://flickr.com/photos/127745496@N03/27230802250/ (Harry Potter Waiting for the Knight Bus) https://flickr.com/photos/iridescentnohow/8187261324/ https://flickr.com/photos/iridescentnohow/8187261324/ (Back Alley in micro-scale) https://flickr.com/photos/pbpancho/3081120968/ https://flickr.com/photos/pbpancho/3081120968/ (Factory in micro-scale)
hrktb 7y ago
It’s a valid point. Every kids are different, we went head first with the big bucket approach with ours, so any further set we bought were more to have a group of coherent pieces at a bundle price. One side effect was that the stickers on the bricks made them weirder to reuse. Also sets with a lot of specific shape bricks (like slightly curved long flat and smooth triangular cover pieces for instance) can be reassembled in one or two configurations, but those weird pieces are also harder to reuse. We had Star Wars set which were long and pretty boring (following instructions) to build for our kid, but he loved to try to make his own spaceships with the monochrome pannels. I see the value of Lego’s current approach, and am glad it’s working well for you. I’d be even more happy if they were more commited to both approaches. Forcing themselves to have any single piece they produce to be available in their pick-a-brick section would go a long way. PS: schools using Lego’s robotics introduction often use a 400$ set, released and never updated since 3 years. The compatible consumer variant is 300$ and the programming has to be done in the lego app. It is something, and it was super fun for kids to discover programming, we were interesting in getting it, but for instance their latest system (Control +) who technically could do the same things has no interface compatibility with the EV3 ecosystem. Nor does their “Boost” system for smaller kids, for that matter. At this point it looks like a dead end. The best system right now seems to be using their deprecated “Power functions” motors and elements and plug them to third party central units like SBrick. It’s a situation that feels really weird to be honest, and I am left wondering why we ended up here.