Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/02/21/illegal-lego-builds.html
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I am the law
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“Technic Half-Beams and System Plates are not friends”
That’s the saddest thing I’ve read today.
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LEGO mortar:
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This attention to how their parts fit with each other within fractions of a mm is the reason Lego is the best. I love a properly engineered product, and people who are committed to making sure it works well and keeps working for as long as possible, even if it’s just a toy.
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The talk about how the Lego logo on the studs makes them 0.17mm taller and thus incompatible with a similar Technic brick was eye opening to me.
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Lego is the gold standard for this stuff. They are backwards compatible over 50 years! You need to have LAWS (not just “best practices”) to keep that going.
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My cousins would get a LEGO set and only build what was on the box. I said after a few days you might want to take it apart and create your own thing “NO!!!”
Never understood that, my LEGO tray was all mixed together, you would always find the most interesting little parts in the corner… half the build was spent sweeping though the parts, the tactile feeling and selection.
I heart LEGO.
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This is so fascinating. I have built a lot of Lego in my time and I had no idea about these rules. A little bit of a bummer that they couldn’t render the Technic and System pieces 100% compatible, though.
This makes my favorite Lego model of all time–the (fan-designed!) Apollo Saturn V–that much more impressive. It’s packed with SNOT (stud not on top) construction and all kinds of weird Lego engineering that I couldn’t even have imagined were possible. And yet they apparently managed to do it all without busting any of these rules.
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I think that the sound is really important too.
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I am so blatantly over joyed that my kids are all out of the Lego phase. We had fun with it and all…but man alive my poor feet never felt such agony that was the minefield of our home.
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Fascinating indeed.
an Audi TT that was difficult to put together, required the user to deform components for them to fit, and came with no instructions.
Can you imagine? The user might have wound up using those parts to construct something other than what was in the picture!
You can conenct a single stud unto a single Technic hole and a child can still take them apart. Any more than that and the resistance becomes too great and there is the potential for elements (and children) being stressed.
I’m surprised they don’t include a prohibition against stacking two 1x1 or 1x2 flat pieces on each other. No way those are coming apart easily. (How many children over the ages resorted to blades trying to pry those apart? Or at least cracked their fingernails?)
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I know I can always count on Gulli to jaunt in here with something interesting. This place is full of wonderful things.
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When Lego builds are illegal, only Illegals will build Lego!
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