[HN Gopher] LEGO Building Instructions ___________________________________________________________________ LEGO Building Instructions Author : micah_chatt Score : 312 points Date : 2023-07-06 14:29 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (archive.org) (TXT) w3m dump (archive.org) | albertopv wrote: | Amazing! I was thinking just about this a few days ago, my | daughter got a tons of Lego from hers uncles, of course without | instructions | gumby wrote: | It wasn't until I started buying Lego for myself (in my 20s) that | I learned that Lego came with instructions. When I was a kid my | parents would open the box and discard the instructions before | giving it to me. | | Back then (60s/70s) the sets were quite general and open ended. | Modern day Lego has the thinking done ahead of time, and has too | many specialised pieces. | tspike wrote: | This is definitely a "get off my lawn" comment. Creativity with | Lego has never been more vibrant. I encourage you to visit your | local Lego fan convention, or explore one of the many online | forums where people share their "MOCs." | | Those "specialized" pieces are incredible fodder for sculpting. | Check out newelementary.com to see some examples. | grigri907 wrote: | Agreed - the constraints of a limited set of bricks really | forced creativity. | | However, there's been a huge paradigm shift in terms of what is | "allowed" as far as odd brick placements so the realm of what's | possible to build has expanded at least as much as the | inventory of brick options. | jjallen wrote: | There's also an app with all of the instructions if that's more | convenient | toastandbacon1 wrote: | So much nostalgia. I remember playing and building with tons of | Legos back in the day. Then id destroy them and build my own | stuff. | mrweasel wrote: | Now if someone would just make an app that can figure out which | set my bricks belong to. I have at least two sets that I can't | find the instructions for, because I have no idea what they're | called or which number they have. The bricks are fairly unique, | they can't be in more than 10 sets. | jjkaczor wrote: | There are typically numbers somewhere on bricks that you can | lookup. | | Or ... Reverse image search. | bennyp101 wrote: | I'm sure there was a brick scanning app that appeared a while | ago, or try and find a number and enter it on Lego site [1], | otherwise post a picture on BrickLink and I'm sure someone will | know what it is! Then you can look on BrickLink or Rebrickable | to find sets that it came from | | [1] https://www.lego.com/en- | gb/service/help/building_instruction... | tectec wrote: | Brinklink has list for each brick of the set it belongs too. I | was able to use that to discover a set I didn't know my older | brothers had. | gaazoh wrote: | You can try to find the parts that stand out on bricklink[0], | which will point you to the sets they were used in. It's pretty | quick, once you figure out what the part can be called or what | category it fits in. | | If you can't figure it out, you can ask for help on the | "bricks" StackExchange site[1]. | | [0] https://www.bricklink.com [1] | https://bricks.stackexchange.com/ | lapetitejort wrote: | I've attempted to find some sets based on a single | complicated brick and it can be challenging. How do I find | the "official" name of the brick based on my own vague | description [0]? What is the true color? How do I find | special printed bricks? I'm sure with practice it gets | easier. How open is bricks stack exchange to posting just an | image of a brick with not much more to go on? | | [0]: As an example, here the description of a brick I | struggled to name. I've since figured it out, but you are | welcome to guess: flat 4x1 with bumps only on the ends (yes, | "bumps", because I don't know what the technical term is. | Again, I'm sure there's a guide or glossary I could find.) | toast0 wrote: | > What is the true color? | | I have a palette of bricks of known color to calibrate | against. If you've got a good number of sets, you'll likely | start to accumulate things that are only in a few colors. | If possible, it's nice to switch those up with a 1x2 brick | in that color for consistency and because the 1x2s are | stable on the large area maps. | | > As an example, here the description of a brick I | struggled to name. I've since figured it out, but you are | welcome to guess: flat 4x1 with bumps only on the ends | (yes, "bumps", because I don't know what the technical term | is. Again, I'm sure there's a guide or glossary I could | find.) | | You kind of work up to it. There are _very_ small and hard | to read numbers on a lot of the parts that helps sometimes. | Searching for 1x4, ignore printed parts, shows 230 parts on | rebrickable (other sites may vary), looking through all | those pictures gets me to "Plate Special 1 x 4 with 2 | Studs" [1]. I don't think there's a brick like this, or I | can't find it, just the plate; but then you didn't know the | magic terminology that the flat pieces (1/3rd height) are | plates, not bricks. Had I properly interpreted your | description, I'd have jumped to the plates, special | category, and skipped the search. | | [1] https://rebrickable.com/parts/92593/plate- | special-1-x-4-with... | photonerd wrote: | Probably an age thing, but I've never understood the point of | Lego instructions. Or the sets. | | The whole point of Lego was creative free form building. Remove | that & it's dull as hell. It just becomes model building with | poor quality models as the result. | | I'm happy _other_ people find it fun, but to me it misses the | entire point in favor of weak licensed "kits". | dsr_ wrote: | My own take: | | Some people want to play with playsets. Some people want to | display models. Some people want to create art. Some people | want to construct machines. Some people want to assert | allegiance. Some people want to collect. | | All of these aims are valid. The diversity of ways to buy LEGO | supports them all, while maintaining a high-quality, largely | compatible, reasonably consistent medium. | bluetomcat wrote: | In recent years, there is a general drift towards | "collectible display models". This means that the piece count | in most sets is inflated by a majority of small "finishing" | pieces. The models are finicky to build with lots of unusual | building techniques (attaching bricks on sidewalls, for | example) and are not easy to repurpose into something else in | a reasonable amount of time. | | In the 1990s, it was a "construction toy" first, playset | second, display model last. A kid could take any set and | rebuild it into something else in an hour or so. Now, they | would need more time only to sort the tiny 1x1 pieces before | starting to build anything. | LeifCarrotson wrote: | The 1x1 sticker tiles sort themselves by granular | convection [1] to the bottom of a Rubbermaid tote just like | the sunflower seeds in a snack mix. In our house, they | frequently get neglected except as gems/coins/treasure to | fill a pirate chest. The large plates and bricks float to | the top during shaking and digging. | | [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granular_convection | lacksconfidence wrote: | Personally I find the display models awesome. I'm not a big | lego fan but the apollo rocket was nifty so I built it and | put it on display. | lukas099 wrote: | Sounds like a greater diversity of pieces for free-play | construction to me. | PhasmaFelis wrote: | See, I love all those detail bits. I love to make tiny, | intricate models that say a lot in a small space. I love | grabbing a couple of random gribbly bits, sticking them | together, deciding they look like the beginning of | something, then sticking on more bits to make it more like | the thing. | | The "voxel sculpture" style where you just stack (mostly) | rectangular bricks into a shape is perfectly valid, but | it's less interesting to me personally. | | Modern Lego supports both. Both are valid. They still sell | big brick buckets, and no one's stopping you from buying | one of those and doing your thing. | epiccoleman wrote: | What I'd really like to see is a "brick bucket" that | contains mostly large bricks and maybe a few doors, | windows, and slanted tiles. I'm all for gribbly bits, but | it seems harder to accumulate a good collection of the | basics these days - because the big "brick buckets" you | describe are probably half gribbly bits. In my experience | as a kid, what we really wanted was enough mass to build | walls and houses and forts, and were not as interested in | small detail stuff. | dsr_ wrote: | Set 10698. 790 pieces, $35 at amazon. | | https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/lego-large-creative- | brick... | epiccoleman wrote: | That looks pretty good actually, but now I'm going to | move the goalposts and wish for a similar box with less | color variety so that you can build, for example, a white | house with a red roof, instead of having to cobble | together various colors. | | Still though, I just might have to top off the kids | collection with one of these boxes. Good find. | rkangel wrote: | > In recent years, there is a general drift towards | "collectible display models" | | I think there is an actually an "addition" here rather than | a change. You're an adult conversing with adults (I assume) | and therefore the discussions you have and the marketing | you see are more about sets targeted to AFOLs (Adult Fans | of Lego). | | The classic Lego childhood lines (Lego City) still exist | and still work just as well for play and creative | construction as they ever did - and they don't use a lot of | 1x1s. It's just that we've _also_ gained these new lines of | large adult sets that never used to exist. | bluetomcat wrote: | Even the vehicles in 5+ City sets are affected by this | trend. It takes about 50 parts stacked in intricate ways | just to build the base chassis structure of a van, for | example. | | In the 1990s, Town vehicles were 4-stud wide and didn't | focus on the small detailing. The instructions for the | original vehicle were just a single sheet of paper with | less than 20 steps. You could build the original vehicle | by memory after having built it a couple of times with | instructions. The back of the box suggested alternative | builds, which, although looking "imperfect" were a solid | base for imagination. | Freak_NL wrote: | Those complex sets are great for stimulating certain | types of spatial reasoning, perseverance, and fine motor | skills. My four year old went from 'building a tractor | (60287) with dad helping' to 'building 5+ kits all by | himself'. | | The kits don't stop him from just building his own stuff | either. The two forms of play seem complimentary. | rkangel wrote: | There is a good range of "3-in-1" sets that are good at | starting kids off building the same bricks into multiple | models: https://www.lego.com/en-gb/themes/creator-3-in-1 | | Once they've got a few sets like that, the rebuilding | into unspecified stuff seems to come naturally (at least | with the cousins and friends kids I've played with). | zgluck wrote: | Lego nailed it in 1980 with the 8860 Auto Chassis, IMO. It | does all of those things in a nice balance with piece count | of 662 (for a 57 cm long car) and IMO still ends up looking | better than today's 3000 piece models. | | http://www.technicopedia.com/8860.html | thirteenfingers wrote: | I personally agree about the whole point of Lego being free | form building - and I still have some Lego magazines from the | days when that was explicitly encouraged by Lego - but you | _need_ kits and instructions to get to the point where you can | do free form building. It 's like composing music, you're going | to have a very difficult time of it if you don't first study a | whole lot of existing, well-constructed music. | photonerd wrote: | I mean... I didn't. At all. So I'd dispute the "need", tho | it's of course a learning option I guess. | nuancebydefault wrote: | The fun of building new sets off instructions is the | satisfying-ness. You know the instructions are correct, that no | pieces are missing and all pieces click together satisfyingly | into the result, that looks and feels nice. Each click is | satisfying. | | It is a whole lot different from tinkering with arduino | hats/sw, as frustration can creep in if things don't work as | expected. | lubesGordi wrote: | Yeah we never had sets or instructions as a kid (of the 80s). | But now doing sets it's pretty relaxing, fun, easy. It's a | puzzle. Eventually everything ends up in a heap like other | comments mention. I imagine once the heap is big enough we'll | go back to creative free form building with the variety of | generic and tailored pieces we've accrued. | germinalphrase wrote: | Free building is great, but my experience is that my young son | _also_ wants to build his sense of competence - following the | steps correctly, fixing mistakes, and making something exactly | like the picture. Sure, he plays with it for a minute and then | tears it apart to make something original - but, like you said, | that's the beauty of Lego. | xdrosenheim wrote: | The whole point of LEGO is to "LEg GOdt" (Play great/good/well, | however you want to translate that). | stinkytaco wrote: | I like both. I think Lego sets are in many ways my first | experience of technical documentation and I still use those | skills. It also helped me learn about how sets went together so | I could design my own. Finally, I wanted to play with what was | on the box. | m3kw9 wrote: | Why did you buy the specific kit just to build your own stuff? | The process of going thru the process and the satisfaction of | finishing is rewarding | photonerd wrote: | I didn't. That's my point. Kits were rare (usually just | suggestions with a slight subset of blocks) and most "sets" | were 100s of pieces & so infinite options to build. | | Now that's still available but VERY much tertiary. | CWuestefeld wrote: | I'm with you. I remember my childhood experience with Legos. Me | and a friend down the road would drag out this big bucket full | of random stuff. We'd build forts, and then crazy many-wheeled | trucks that would assault them. | | The whole thing was about those designs just springing from the | imagination, and I really don't get what fun building toward a | prescribed design would be, especially since it's so low | fidelity. | photonerd wrote: | Right, exactly. | | Like I understand the appeal of model building but Lego | models aren't very good models & look like ass compared to | (often a lot cheaper) model kits. | lfowles wrote: | It gives you a core set of patterns for going off on your own | and building. Think of it as lego practice that shows you a | neat model at the end you can then scrap :) | jedberg wrote: | The purpose of the instructions is to learn the techniques. | First you build with the instructions, then you tear it apart | and build what you want. | | Not everyone is into the instructions -- my daughter follows | them meticulously and will only build with instructions. My son | refuses to follow instructions and will only "master build". | | When I was a kid I'd build with the instructions, and | eventually I destroyed everything and built a whole city from | scratch. | | Every kid is different. | roryisok wrote: | Growing up, myself and my siblings built sets when we first got | them as gifts, but after that they went in the pile. We would | build whatever was in our imagination, from the multicolored | heap. | | Now I have my own kids, and they all want to build sets from | instructions. The odd time we'll dive into the pile of orphaned | bits and build a house or a boat or something, but mostly they | want to recreate what they remember. My wife spends hours | finding all the pieces of a set and bagging them up for the | kids to build later (so she's gonna love this) | | It's tempting to say "kids nowadays" but I think it's just | different personality types. In other media, my kids are far | more creative and imaginative than I ever was, but with Lego | sets they prefer to recreate the perfect image than make a | hodge podge thing that never existed. | epiccoleman wrote: | For us growing up, the point of the sets was that you got a | cool spaceship or whatever, which you would put your personal | Lego guy into, park near your "base", and play with until some | other project demanded the parts. Then it would be disassembled | mercilessly and consigned to the bin as grist for the | constantly evolving construction project laid out on our much- | abused air hockey table. | | If a set was a particularly cool build, we might disassemble it | and then rebuild it - but most of the time, once something got | taken apart, no one was ever going to bother trying to | reconstruct it from the manual, since doing so would have | involved finding all 500 necessary pieces in the mega-bin. | FireBeyond wrote: | Aimed more at adults, but the Architecture Studio was intended | to be more free-form: | | https://www.lego.com/en-gb/product/studio-21050 | | There are no 'models' to build, and the "instructions" that | come with it are more a discussion of architectural principles, | as adapted for Lego as needed. | onemoresoop wrote: | Neither did I till I had a kid. My kid loves following | instructions, builds a set a few times, then he goes into | creative mode and builds his own way. Instructions helped my | kid learn the basics of instruction following which is a good | skill to have for a 5 year old. | photonerd wrote: | Yeah I have a 2 yr old & larger blocks. He's all about free | building atm. | mcphage wrote: | > The whole point of Lego was creative free form building. | Remove that & it's dull as hell. | | The point is that Lego can be played with in a bunch of ways. | It's parts that you can do whatever with, and it has | instructions for one or more models that you can make. Some | people like the sheer possibilities of making things up, and | some people find that daunting. Lego supports both, and | anything in between. | | Following the instructions does teach you techniques that you | can use on designing your own builds. It's a way to learn from | experts. | photonerd wrote: | > The point is that Lego can be played with in a bunch of | ways. | | Indeed: the exact opposite of a set of instructions & | specific, custom produced, build pieces. | mcphage wrote: | > specific, custom produced, build pieces | | How they reuse molds in Lego models is crazy. I have a | model with a pagoda, that uses bananas for the points on | the eaves. My favorite is the orchid model, where the | smaller orchid blossoms are demigorgon heads from the | Stranger Things sets. | XCSme wrote: | It's like assembling Ikea furniture. Some people like it. | photonerd wrote: | I like model building. But Lego models are not very good | models | swayvil wrote: | I agree. | | It's like painting by numbers. Or drawing from one of those | "how to draw a pirate" instructional guides. | | It's a completely different thing. | | I know a guy who prefers the instructions. He builds them and | then keeps them on display, on shelves and such. | globular-toast wrote: | I love following instructions. It's so relaxing for me to just | follow without having to figure anything out. Building my own | stuff with Lego would be a completely different thing and I | never enjoyed that, probably because I'm not very good at it. | jjkaczor wrote: | I am in-between - so, the way I used instructions was for ideas | on how things could be put together that were "non-obvious". | | I would build it once, then play with that model for a bit, | then deconstruct it, put it into my box of loose LEGO and then | build whatever I wanted - sometimes it would look similar, but | it was never the same way twice. | | I fail to understand expensive sets that get built and sit on | shelves or in glass enclosures... Might as well break out the | Kragle (I think many people failed to see the point of that | movie...) | hugi wrote: | I'm in my early forties but I still grew up with instructions | and sets. Usually I'd assemble a set and probably learn a thing | or two along the way, then I'd tear the sets down and build | stuff myself. | | As a father of three, that's exactly how I see my kids using | the sets today. The sets get built once, then they get torn | down and the bricks get reused. | JNRowe wrote: | I sincerely applaud _everything_ ending up on IA. However, if you | 're searching for specific instructions brickinstructions is | excellent as it is far more navigable. For a random example see | Starguider1. I wonder if someone has already scraped that site | for IA, beyond simply praying to the Wayback Machine. | | 1 https://lego.brickinstructions.com/m/lego_instructions/set/6... | el_benhameen wrote: | Thank you for sharing this. I'm going to show it to my 6 year | old and he's going to lose his mind. Great way to make use of | my massive box of childhood legos and empty summer hours. | bombcar wrote: | There is/was a website where you could upload all your parts | and it would tell you what you could build. | dunham wrote: | There is a app for that too, which works off of a photo of | your parts: https://brickit.app/ | tspike wrote: | Rebrickable. Very much still alive. | internetter wrote: | Yes, we archived the entire thing in 2020[0] (~100gb). Maybe | it's worth running again. | | [0]: https://archive.fart.website/archivebot/viewer/job/avlad | | Edit: What this means is you can open any* link to | lego.brickinstructions.com and see it in the wayback machine | (IA ingests these archives) | | *maybe not the mobile view you linked, not links after the job | ran, not pages that couldn't be found in a crawl | JNRowe wrote: | That is great. I could see a lot it was in the wayback | machine, but I have no idea what the pipeline for that is. | Poking around from your link was informative, thanks! | kazinator wrote: | When brickinstructions goes belly up, or just messes up its | URLs for shits and giggles, you will need to go through | archive.org to find out what used to be at that URL. | FeteCommuniste wrote: | Wow, that just gave me a crazy flash of nostalgia. I think I | must have had this set, or at least a very similar one. | kevinob11 wrote: | Whoa, WHOA, I could never have named or described this but it | suddenly felt like I was 8 hoping for specific christmas | gifts again. | lukebbutton wrote: | Same, it hit hard | fxtentacle wrote: | me too :) | rhplus wrote: | I'm surprised there's no copyright notice on these instruction | booklets. Has LEGO ever stated that their booklets are freely | reproducible or is this a gray area? | | Note: I'm talking about the layout and graphics of the booklets | themselves, not the logical instructions (i.e. recipe book versus | recipes). | IG_Semmelweiss wrote: | This is a great reminder for parents of lego-addicted kids to get | their into STEM by entering in FRC. It starts early, with legos! | | https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/fll | sxp wrote: | For modern sets, you can also get a PDF from the official site: | https://www.lego.com/en-us/service/buildinginstructions/7622... | | One of these days, I want to learn enough computer vision to | write an LEGO instruction booklet to LCAD convertor that could be | fed old instructions and generate a 3D model of the set. An | archive of the instructions is nice, but a virtual archive of | sets would be nicer. | xp84 wrote: | Then feed that model into a 3d printer and archive your built | sets immutably in meatspace! :D | bryanmgreen wrote: | Over the last several years I've made a habit of downloading PDF | manuals for many things I own and saving them in a Google Drive | folder for safe-keeping. | | You never know when you need one until you do and it's a | nightmare if you lost it! | jordij1 wrote: | My manuals are sorted in folders by maker / brand name. | jonathankoren wrote: | Internet Archive is a great resource, but man the interface | sucks. Part of it's because there's no good way browse online, | and part of it is because the search is broken. Indexing so much | data in such diverse formats with questionable or missing | metadata is hard. I'd love a better interface, but I also suspect | that a crappy interface is what help IA stay alive. There's | plenty of legally questionable data hosted there if you know | where to look. | lostlogin wrote: | The crowd who like Lego May also enjoy the tv series Lego Masters | (and it's versus regional versions). Some of the builds are | actually amazing. | OliveMate wrote: | My old man recently got a bunch of boxes from my childhood out of | his, including multiple tubs of mixed Lego and a box of | incomplete instructions. This will prove to be a valuable | resource in the coming months, thank you very much! | | I keep staring at all the artwork included on some of the early | Bionicle instructions and I love that dark mysterious island | aesthetic. | roryisok wrote: | Lego themselves have an archived copy of every instruction set | going back to the 80s, available here - https://www.lego.com/en- | us/service/buildinginstructions | | But for whatever reason, the scans are poor quality and very | dark, and it can be hard to make out what piece is which. These | ones look much better | aleph_minus_one wrote: | > Lego themselves have an archived copy of every instruction | set going back to the 80s, available here - | https://www.lego.com/en-us/service/buildinginstructions | | Since can't be true: I am _very_ certain that there exist Lego | Technic models from before 1996, which is the oldest year that | can be selected. | gleenn wrote: | I was sad not to see the original Technic Super Car. It had a | working V8, 4 wheel drive with 4 wheel steering and 3 way | differential, and even an actual gear box with shifter. You could | see the pistons pump when you pushed it around. One of the best | birthday presents I ever asked for. | netsharc wrote: | The 8880: https://brickset.com/article/20017/8880-super-car- | the-best-e... | MisterTea wrote: | That was a great set - it also featured double wishbone | suspension supported by spring struts. | marceldegraaf wrote: | That was an amazing set. The first one I bought from my own | hard-saved cash as a kid. Really fun to build and amazing (and | informative) to see the working steering, differential, | suspension, and gear train assemblies. | | I have this set laying around, mostly complete. Should really | rebuild it someday! | xdrosenheim wrote: | Do you know the set number? There is a "Super Car" in Technic | with set number 8070, available in the archive. Not sure about | the steering and differential, but it seems to feature a V8 and | a stick shift. | amelius wrote: | It would be nice to have 3D models of these, so I can play with | them without shelling out $$$. | Waterluvian wrote: | My kids being 4 and 6 means we're full into Lego. I grew up with | two brothers so we have like three hundred pounds of it. But lost | most of the instructions. | | It's been amazing to go online and find any instruction and re- | assemble these kits. | | It also made me realize something: half the value of buying a kit | these days is that you aren't spending hours finding needles in a | 300lb haystack. | m3kw9 wrote: | You need a rule that you cannot mix more than 2000 pieces from | different kits. Basically 1/3 of those organizer boxes. A | balance between search ability and organization, otherwise you | get in these situations where it's not feasible to rebuild a | kit that you have, it's like mixing different engine parts and | expect to build that same engine | paulryanrogers wrote: | > ...half the value of buying a kit these days is that you | aren't spending hours finding needles in a 300lb haystack. | | My guess is that is why techies keep inventing their own Lego | sorting machines | omoikane wrote: | > you aren't spending hours finding needles in a 300lb | haystack. | | I guess that's for people who have a specific thing in mind | that they wanted to build. I find a lot fun just picking out | random pieces and then thinking about where to attach them | afterwards. | cortesoft wrote: | My kids never want to build the instruction versions, they only | want to make their own designs. | suddenclarity wrote: | > It also made me realize something: half the value of buying a | kit these days is that you aren't spending hours finding | needles in a 300lb haystack. | | It's a bit of work but I found enjoyment in sorting my old | childhood Lego. Don't do colors, do categories (bricks, slopes, | plates, etc). Once done, I could complete my old childhood | models even faster than the unsorted ones you buy new. It also | lowers the threshold to break it down and build something else | since it's so easy to find the parts. On the downside, it takes | more space than a single bin. | pbronez wrote: | Absolutely categories are better than colors. It doesn't LOOK | as pretty but it's way more functional. | samstave wrote: | >>* _half the value of buying a kit these days is that you | aren't spending hours finding needles in a 300lb haystack.*_ | | Are you NUTS? | | Are you trying to shame my 1980s values with LEGO? | | "I KNOW that FN piece is in here!!!! I JUST SAW IT!!!!" | | You're robbing your kids of a life lesson. and better image | recognition, memory, sorting processing thoughts, etc. | | There are so many lessons embedded in working with LEGO that | can only be learnt through the frustration of a F-ton of brix | in a bin and your looking for that specific 1x2 -- or worse | yet, 1x1 smooth piece. | | I used to buy things in bulk from LEGO at the mall in San Jose | and just have bins of smooth pieces and other were parts... | usefulcat wrote: | I get what you're saying, but in a large pile, finding the | right piece is easily 10x harder now because the number of | unique LEGO parts is much, much higher than when you and I | were kids. | samstave wrote: | Ah, I mis-interpreted that.. and I agree. I hate the | custom/uniques that lego builds with some lame co-branding | like a movie with DC/Marvel.... | | Lego is by default the foundationaly builing block. | | I HATE custom pieces to a lego set. | kroltan wrote: | > It also made me realize something: half the value of buying a | kit these days is that you aren't spending hours finding | needles in a 300lb haystack. | | What! That is the best part! | | Wading through a mound of Lego has to be one of the most | satisfying sounds I know, the clatter of a bajillion pieces of | precision plastic, each with their different cavities and | sonority, moving around each handful you scrape off to the | side... Good times. | | In the rare occasion I get a Lego set nowadays (no kids yet), | the first thing I do is open every bag of pieces into a tray so | I can do it on a smaller scale. | mirkules wrote: | > no kids yet | | You will know no fury as when your kids intentionally mix up | all the pieces for fun. We have hundreds of LEGO people, and | my kids intentionally dismembered them into their individual | pieces (including HANDS!). But how can you get angry at kids | playing??? _twitch_ | jmmv wrote: | It sounds like you should watch The Lego Movie (: | BanazirGalbasi wrote: | I think having sets that you like to keep together and | you don't want to mix up is fine. Too many people saw the | Lego Movie and took it to mean that keeping sets as sets | is bad. Note that the person you responded to isn't | stopping their kids even as they cause more destruction | than the Lego Movie showed, they're simply complaining | about it here because what _they_ had is gone. | | Yes, let kids mix and match and play. But also | acknowledge that we all play differently, and for some | people having a model of something that they built is | where the fun lies. People who like organization can | still have fun, let's not shame them for their | preferences. | nimajneb wrote: | My daughter will be getting her own Lego and possibly a | selection of mine. I organized mine for the first time in | my life last year. Some of the sets I've had since the very | late 80s and early 90s. Those aren't getting lost :P | | She can play with them supervised, but she'll have her own. | This is all assuming she's even interested, she's only 2 so | who knows yet. | Tade0 wrote: | Mine is also two and really into Duplo, so Lego will be a | natural progression, especially considering that the | blocks are compatible, so I wholeheartedly recommend it. | | Also some the ones she's playing with are currently over | 30 years old and still going. | davely wrote: | > Wading through a mound of Lego has to be one of the most | satisfying sounds I know | | My friend, let me introduce you to this Spotify playlist: | LEGO White Noise [1] | | [1] https://open.spotify.com/album/6qZUya0mkucuxvoIp4akVT?si= | RgH... | fluxinflex wrote: | That made my day! That's soooo incredibly unbelievably | mindnumbingly stupid that I love it :+1: | gertlex wrote: | I recently had the realization... I've carried this enjoyment | onwards into how I store parts for hobbies. While I use | compartmentalized containers for things, compartments are | still a mix of parts. I can search for quite a while without | getting frustrated, just knowing, "those servo mounting | brackets are in one of these two containers in the garage..." | | I don't buy or aspire to own new Lego as an adult, but I'm | still basically doing the same thing I did as a kid: every | time I decide to do a hardware project is me digging through | my bins of assorted parts instead Lego parts. | | Oh and of course, my desk is perpetually just as messy as the | floor was as a kid, and I'm often fidgeting seeing how random | things do/don't fit together. | | (also, also... building the set? nah, building my own things | without instructions, and similarly writing my own code...) | pbronez wrote: | Agree! My partner disagrees though. She wants the LEGO | organized by color or set. I find this blasphemous. It's | legit harder for me to find pieces when they're sorted like | this. My brain is tuned with specialized LEGO bin stirring | techniques that reliably turn up what I need... but that | doesn't work at all when the piece has been squirreled away | where it "belongs"! | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: | There's someone who's really into knolling | (https://knolling.org/what-is-knolling) and hates this | comment. | semi-extrinsic wrote: | Always Be Knolling. | lostlogin wrote: | > Wading through a mound of Lego has to be one of the most | satisfying sounds I know | | There are two sounds I associate with Lego. The one you | describe and the other. | | The words you can find and the tone you utter them with when | you unexpectedly stand on a piece, or even better, when you | kneel on a bit when trying to find the tv remote. | jjkaczor wrote: | The sound of swishing through a mound/box/bin of LEGO has to | be the most relaxing thing for me ever... | bombcar wrote: | The word 'Gruschteling' is a German word used by German | Lego fans. It is used to describe the distinctive sound | made when you sift through a large bucket of Lego, trying | to find the right piece. | lukebbutton wrote: | My grandfather used to say that whenever we played lego | as kids | Waterluvian wrote: | I looooove that sound. But with young kids there's no point | trying to sort. And without sorting, every piece takes a | while to find. | epiccoleman wrote: | One of my "core memories" wrt Lego is meticulously | spending days sorting small parts into some of those | Sterilite multi-drawer things and then knocking it over, | spilling all my hard work onto the floor and undoing it. | | I was probably 8 or 9. From that point on, fuck it, they | all go in one big box. My brothers and I would compete to | see who could find the most valuable pieces. Mostly | treasure chest coins, little gems, and basically anything | translucent qualified - transparent single stud pieces, | cone pieces, and lightsaber beams were very high value, | since one could not build a respectable Lego sci-fi | arsenal without all of them. | kroltan wrote: | Ha! That was a common competition between me and my | friend around that age too. | | He is very fortunate to be part of a reasonably affluent | family, so he had like 6 60-liter boxes full of assorted | Lego. | | We would spill a couple at a time (who am I kidding we | spilled all of them) on the floor, when the flow of | pieces stopped, the game was on! So many arguments about | the nature of the simple shapes, like "oh no this isn't a | blue lightsaber, it is a cylinder of _pure diamond_! " | dsr_ wrote: | My wife says that sound means that I'm happy and relaxed. | kevmarsden wrote: | I'm totally the opposite. That sound is grating to me. But | I'm sensitive to other sounds too, so it's not just LEGO. | celticninja wrote: | Get the brickit app, saves some time | Waterluvian wrote: | I'll have to check it out again. Last time it looked like it | wanted a subscription. | | I would just like to pay once for an app that 100% offline | scans for blocks. Let me pick an instruction book and begin | pointing out pieces to me that belong in the set. | | Fingers crossed. | marak830 wrote: | I disagree. A whole bunch about Lego is the search. I was | recently reintroduced by my son (5) and the fun of searching | for what we want to try to complete a build - and | occasionally redesigning due to what we find - is amazing. | | Also helps him learn to adjust on the fly, which is a great | thing to learn at a young age. | LeifCarrotson wrote: | I have been building with my 6yo, and he has the | traditional giant bin where all the sets of Creator pack of | assorted bricks, plus the sets from Ninjago and Spider Man | and Minecraft and various cars and so on all get | disassembled after about 3 days for him to dig through. | | More recently, I also got out my old boxes of Knex, which | I'd put away a decade ago by sorting the parts by color | into about a dozen quart-size ziploc bags (there are far | fewer variants of Knex than of Lego, even ignoring the | myriad custom tiles and stickers). He was THRILLED to have | them all sorted, and for more than a month now - probably a | dozen sessions of use - has put them back in the right | bags. It's like pulling teeth to get him to keep his art | supplies organized, those can just be piled in a heap, it | can take two hours for him to do his laundry, typical | playtime with friends is an explosion of toys from bins, | but it is critical that the Knex go in the right bag even | during use. | | After seeing that, I got a compartmentalized organizer that | used to hold fishing tackle, dumped all the tackle in the | big tackle box, and washed it, and he has been keeping "the | good Legos" in that. If you're curious, it turns out that | the good Lego are the wheels, propellers, blocks with pins | to connect to those wheels and propellers, the Technik | couplers, the Ninjago transparent flames, especially the | Ninjago spring-loaded bolt gun thing, and the Minecraft | character heads Not the character bodies, not the Iron Man | head, not even the ones that look like him and Mom and Dad, | just Minecraft heads - everything else can go in the bin. I | think he made a good selection, builds just seem to go | together faster when those parts are available. In | particular he used to need help on occasion to find the | right wheels - everything seems to need wheels - and now he | has them. | | God I hope he's more organized and tidy than me. | chias wrote: | Oh man, this sent me down a trip to memory lane. I had a lot of | the Spyrius set as a little kid, and I loved them to bits. I just | looked up how much they'd cost to buy them again, and they're | like $1000 a pop :o | endemic wrote: | nostalgia is a helluva drug | aeneasmackenzie wrote: | You may be able to (entirely legally) part out the sets on | bricklink, buy the generic bricks from webrick, and buy the | specific bricks from bricklink sellers. This will be | substantially cheaper and it's an onboard into non-Lego | building bricks which have gotten really good in the last few | years. The glut of vendors selling copied Lego sets has given | the field a bad name, but the brick design is out of patent and | there are many sellers designing their own sets as well as | selling MOCs. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-07-06 23:00 UTC)