We finally finished our Ninjago boulder Blaster. What a fun time. Listening to Andreas Vollenweider in the background while working away with my son. If you don't know Andreas you should check him out. He is one of my favourite musicians and even Fintan is starting to appreciate what I hear. But I digress, My appreciation of Lego has really grown these last few days after many years of ignoring the stuff.
The limitations I remember when I was a child have all been addressed and now there seems to be every part the mind can imagine.
I marvel at the precision of the pieces. Apparently, they are accurate to within .004mm and this is something that Mr.Lego calls Clutch power. You will be surprised to know that I didn't know that off the top of my head, it is due to the extensive research I did like I do for all my posts. Did you know that there are 1300 pieces of lego manufactured every second, that's 4.6million an hour? The word LEGO is a mix of two Danish words Leg (play) and Godt (good). Lego is the largest manufacturer of car tires in the world and if you lose a Lego piece on the carpet just take off your shoes and socks, They have a built-in homing device for bare feet.
I was so impressed that every part we needed was in the box of 223 pieces. Nothing would have been worse than if we were ¾ way built and were missing something. Okay, maybe ⅚ the way in!
As a toy manufacturer, Lego seems to be very concerned with their users experience unlike Matel which I went on a rant about in this post Fixing an Indominus Rex Destroy 'N Devour Dino Rival - Workshop
It really is a timeless toy and one which can be appreciated by any age. Not bad for a company that was started by a carpenter.
Our build went smoothly enough until, that is, I moved the box and sent the half-finished thing off the side of the table, crashing to the floor. My co-builder wasn't too impressed. Through the kicking and screaming, I quickly got it back together like someone who works in a F1 pitstop.
I discovered that this little wheel had snapped off at an axial. Luckily I went through Fintans other stash and was able to find a replacement. I love this modular aspect of all the pieces.
Lego is quite strong, I read somewhere that a single brink can support the weight of over 375000 other bricks on top of it. That would make a tower 2.17 miles tall or nearly 3.5 kilometres. But my little faux pas found its weakness.
We liked how the whole thing came together even down to the little sticker decals. This machine has a working Gatling gun on the front that shoots bullets as you spin it around. It is a bit dangerous in action and nearly took my eye out while testing.
That was fun... for Fintan.
I have often seen grown-ups play with Lego and thought. Would you not just grow up and leave these toys to children. Now I understand what is happening. It is quite addictive and a bit like how I look at sand sculpture, most of us did it as children but for one reason or other we left them behind. Play building is innate and a hunger we need to feed instead of suppress. We should really nurture it, in children and in adults.
We still have a few other Christmas gift sets to make but will savour them while the holidays are still with us.
PS. There are over 3700 different Lego elements and at least 400 billion Lego pieces in the world.
