LEGO: Making of a Brick

[hismikeness]

I recently watched an episode of Megafactories: LEGO and was very impressed. The factory in Bulland, Denmark has a nearly automated, totally robotic manufacturing floor, state of the art (and robotic) warehousing facility, impressive quality control (12 bad bricks per 100,000  ) and an attention to detail that is unprecedented.

I am at work, and all videos are blocked, so forgive me if this doesn't work, but I believe this to be part one of five of the show I was watching. I will check it out and confirm later. Part 1. There's also this short interactive website: Making of a Brick.

My brothers and I had a bunch of sets, and it was a pretty standard Christmas gift for me up until about my 13th birthday. Combined, we could pile our bricks up, wrap them in a bed sheet, and they would fill a large trash can almost 3/4 full. My parents ended up selling all of them at a garage sale  a few years later. When I was in college, my ex-girlfriend bought me a couple of the Technic sets that resembled Star Wars characters.

My favorite all time set was this one, the semi truck and helicopter combo:




So, who else is/was a LEGO collector?

[joeactor]

... I'll confess - I'm a Legomaniac.

Legoland is pretty cool - they've got a mock-up of the factory process and machines.
Amazing process.

I've always been most impressed by the wordless assembly instructions.

(Lego SpongeBob is staring at me),
JoeActor

[Whitney]

i loved my legos...I think I still have them somewhere in storage.

[Tank]

LEGO freak here too 

[The Magic Pudding]

We used have a Duplo hour every night when my daughters were little.
Duplo can be used with lego and it has better animals. 
I still have our pre internet Duplo avatars in view, waiting for action, it's been a long wait.
The lego guys were usually villains, pirates and such, not to be trusted.
I used to buy cheap imitation duplo sheeting, cut it up and combine it with wood to make stuff, trains, planes, ships and a castle.
Timber floors make obvious seas, carpets are range lands, beds become mountainous plateaus.
We haven't disposed of any lego/duplo, I'm hoping to have some more duplo hours eventualy.

[Tank]

We used have a Duplo hour every night when my daughters were little.
Duplo can be used with lego and it has better animals. 
I still have our pre internet Duplo avatars in view, waiting for action, it's been a long wait.
The lego guys were usually villains, pirates and such, not to be trusted.
I used to buy cheap imitation duplo sheeting, cut it up and combine it with wood to make stuff, trains, planes, ships and a castle.
Timber floors make obvious seas, carpets are range lands, beds become mountainous plateaus.
We haven't disposed of any lego/duplo, I'm hoping to have some more duplo hours eventualy.

My grandson awaits induction into the world of the plastic building brick!

[xSilverPhinx]

I love the idea of legos, but any collection I've come across is really expensive 

I've always wanted to make one of those lego animations people upload to YouTube.

[The Magic Pudding]

I love the idea of legos, but any collection I've come across is really expensive 

Who are you wanting to play lego's with?  Young en's are open to imagining, everyday things can join in, I have a no name soap dispenser that looks like a friendly/evil mantis Queen. You can cut out a bit of a lego base and glue it to any cheap toy and it is assimilated, damn, where's KDbeads, she'd get this kind of thing.

[Asmodean]

I used to love legos... Well, everything that let me tinker with stuff and make stuff out of it... Even space heaters were fascinating once... *sigh* Aye, 'twas a time when everything was new and deserving of a second look... Now so many things are just not, even though there is more in my world now than ever before... *musing on*

[xSilverPhinx]

I love the idea of legos, but any collection I've come across is really expensive  

Who are you wanting to play lego's with?  Young en's are open to imagining, everyday things can join in, I have a no name soap dispenser that looks like a friendly/evil mantis Queen. You can cut out a bit of a lego base and glue it to any cheap toy and it is assimilated, damn, where's KDbeads, she'd get this kind of thing.

Yes, I particulary like the idea of taking something that would otherwise go into the bin, shuffle it's parts, glue it together and make something functional again.

[original_gender]

I used to love legos... Well, everything that let me tinker with stuff and make stuff out of it... Even space heaters were fascinating once... *sigh* Aye, 'twas a time when everything was new and deserving of a second look... Now so many things are just not, even though there is more in my world now than ever before... *musing on*

Oh trust me, things are still every bit worth a second look; self-awareness is what steals life's sparkle.

Crawling around in the bushes outside of an office building may be the most visually stimulating thing you will do in your entire life, but you wouldn't enjoy the resulting attention so you are forced to abstain.

[xSilverPhinx]

I used to love legos... Well, everything that let me tinker with stuff and make stuff out of it... Even space heaters were fascinating once... *sigh* Aye, 'twas a time when everything was new and deserving of a second look... Now so many things are just not, even though there is more in my world now than ever before... *musing on*

Oh trust me, things are still every bit worth a second look; self-awareness is what steals life's sparkle.

Crawling around in the bushes outside of an office building may be the most visually stimulating thing you will do in your entire life, but you wouldn't enjoy the resulting attention so you are forced to abstain.

An office building?

[original_gender]

An office building?

Not specially an office building, I was groping for an example.

My point is when you are young you aren't as concerned about the social implications of climbing a tree, or crawling into a drainage pipe with a flashlight, et cetera.

[Willow]

Our firstborn (5 years) had birthday money so we bought this yesterday.  I'm loving building a new Lego collection with him.

[Asmodean]

Oh trust me, things are still every bit worth a second look; self-awareness is what steals life's sparkle.

Crawling around in the bushes outside of an office building may be the most visually stimulating thing you will do in your entire life, but you wouldn't enjoy the resulting attention so you are forced to abstain.

You've semi-missed my semi-obscure point: it's not that things are not worth the second look, it's just that... It seems like every fascinating bit I find is balanced by a huge pile of crap. Didn't see the crap when I was a little kid.