Today is the great Dutch Danish toy’s 50th birthday. Since I was a kid, Lego has added many new products, including a Star Wars line. Kids today have it easy; all that is required to make an X-wing is to ask Santa for the kit and then follow the instructions. Before Lego made X-wing kits, we had to disassemble several other models and build X-wings from scratch.
The most prominent display to mark this occasion so far has been the Google logo made with Lego as seen above. Google and Lego seem to be unrelated, but Lego did play an important role in Google’s early days. Google’s Page and Brin used enclosures made with Lego to house hard drives, as seen below.
Complements of Gizmodo, here is a gorgeous time line that shows the distinct point in time when kids lost the need to built X-wings from scratch. (click for the full image)
My lego x-wing sucked… What the kids have now though is the bad ass lego, like the stuff you can program on your computer to chace your cat, I would have loved that shit.
I would argue that it was more rewarding to try to build an X-wing from the ground up, even if it wasn’t as good as the models today.
The new Lego Mindstorms kits are awesome. If I had one of those kits, I would definitely buy a cat to ‘play’ with.
ooh i love lego. i grew up with the stuff. i especially liked how you can make houses with it and play house. hehe kidding. im going to let my kid play with lego when she’s old enough because i know it’s such an educational toy compared to all those computer gadgets and stuff.
Danish, not Dutch!
The Scandinavian has spoken.
Thanks for that Stine, I stand corrected.
Legos were (and still are) the best toys ever created. They’re great to help with logic (following the directions) AND with creativity (NOT following the directions).
I’ve done both – but my favorite lego creations were the ones that didn’t have directions – I created them myself.
Namaste,
A. Caleb Hartley
http://www.environmentastic.com
I got a beef with A. Caleb. Lego is only ever singular, kind of like sheep. I can’t remember the number of times I got in arguments with other kids about that, it just gets under my skin…
I agree TS, ‘Legos’ sounds terrible to me. Though it probably doesn’t sound as bad as me calling Lego Dutch did to Stine.