I haven’t had a chance to see many of the kits out there now, but of the few I’ve seen, they’re amazing.
But surprisingly, the ones I really miss are the big bins of generic bricks, because I loved trying to come up with my own combinations. Actually I did that with the kits too. I’d follow the instructions the first time around, and then I’d tear it back down and try something completely different. I’m totally convinced that doing that constantly as a child helped me break down and visualize complex technical problems.
Oh, yeah, totally. I like to get many kits in the same series, just so I have a bigger pool of wacky pieces, and then after I have built the ninja castle, I take everything apart and attempt to build the super crazy ninja fortress! Much better that way. And I think you're right, that doing that kind of thing as a kid definitely develops useful skills you end up needing later, in some way or another.
I totally did. Never had many of the kits but I went nuts over those big bins full of them. I have fond memories of building houses on a neighbor's front porch. :)
When I was younger and my family was poorer, I could never get any of the shiny new stuff, so my parents bought sets of bricks second-hand from friends and relatives. So at least starting out, I didn’t have instructions or even a rough idea of what to do. It was a lot of trying different things and seeing what worked and what didn’t. For example, I figured out pretty quickly that a wall would be stronger if the bricks were staggered. Then a little while later, I found out that they did that in real life!
For a while I considered architecture as a career, solely based on my Lego building skills. I got discouraged when I realized how much math it involved!
In all seriousness, if I ever wind up with kids, I’m definitely letting them loose on Legos. I’d be hard-pressed to name a better kind of toy. Certainly better than, say, video games or some of the more frivolous things out there.
Now I’m beginning to sound like my parents. Scary!
The thing I loved about Legos was the ability to break just about anything down into its smallest components, and then rework them in other crazy ways. This was harder with the kits as opposed to the big bins of generic bricks, but even then you could combine generic parts with specialized parts. You should’ve seen some of the monorail stations I used to make back in the day! Anyway I wonder if Playmobil had the same sort of flexibility-I never had a chance to try it, but from what I’ve seen it looks cool.
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But surprisingly, the ones I really miss are the big bins of generic bricks, because I loved trying to come up with my own combinations. Actually I did that with the kits too. I’d follow the instructions the first time around, and then I’d tear it back down and try something completely different. I’m totally convinced that doing that constantly as a child helped me break down and visualize complex technical problems.
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For a while I considered architecture as a career, solely based on my Lego building skills. I got discouraged when I realized how much math it involved!
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In all seriousness, if I ever wind up with kids, I’m definitely letting them loose on Legos. I’d be hard-pressed to name a better kind of toy. Certainly better than, say, video games or some of the more frivolous things out there.
Now I’m beginning to sound like my parents. Scary!
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i actually liked playmobil more. it was like lego, but no bricks, more complicated, and awesome.
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