Subject:
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Re: What makes a cool kid cool? (was: Re: A new area of LEGO.com: the Build section)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.lego.direct
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Date:
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Thu, 10 May 2001 07:08:53 GMT
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Viewed:
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869 times
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In lugnet.lego.direct, James Simpson writes:
> I'd like to make a comment about the Build.com section which is a little bit
> off-topic, but which is, I feel, nonetheless germaine. Part of me has a
> problem with the section where people can vote for their favorite fan MOC; I
> just don't think its good to put up a voting contenst that pits 6-year-olds
> against grown people.
<snip>
Yes, that's a very germane comment, and not really off-topic at all! You'll
be glad to know that we consider the current Builders Gallery contest to be
just a modest start, much like the rest of the Build section. We have plans
and ideas for expanding and improving it, some that are similar to things
that have been mentioned in this thread. For the modest launch of Build we
simply adopted the contest as it currently existed in the Club area of the
site, but we were well aware that there's room for improvement.
On a more personal note, I also agree that LEGO building isn't fundamentally
about competition. But I do think that contests can be fun, rewarding,
motivating, and inspiring for creative people of all ages, and compatible
with LEGO as a creative medium. Just think of competitions for creative
writing, poetry, or visual arts. That said, I don't think we'll be elevating
contests to a central, dominant position in the Build section or throughout
the rest of the site.
A good place to look for a contest that's worked well over the last couple
years is the "venerable" Mindstorms area of the site -- which happens to be
run in part by the same team that put together Build. Members of the
Mindstorms community can share pictures, descriptions, and programs for
their creations, without needing to enter a contest. Members can also
nominate particular creations for the semi-monthly contest, which is broken
into novice and expert levels. And then members can vote on which of the
nominees is their favorite, and voting determines the winners. The site
admins (us) mostly just pick a theme for the "special" category, weed
through the nominations to pick out the final contestants, and publish the
results.
LEGO also runs contests that aren't about building per se, like the Life on
Mars Coloring Contest (for which the winners will be announced soon) and the
recurring Story Contest on LEGO.com. So you don't necessarily have to be a
building expert to get recognition for creativity. Among other things, the
Build section hopes to encourage and help kids to make their own LEGO
creations, so we'll be focusing on the stuff that involves sticking bricks
together, and contests are one way to foster that.
A contest often spurs someone on to make their next awesome creation -- we
saw a lot of very nice walking robots come out of the recent Ambulator
contest on the official Mindstorms site. Of course, it's probably a good
idea to provide positive reinforcement for all the kids (and big kids) who
get nominated, for instance, not just the winners. And for that matter,
everyone who bothers to upload an actual picture of a creation. So we're
keeping that in mind as we evolve the Build section, and we'll see what we
can do.
> When a child sees that his/her model is only preferred by 6% of voters, I'm
> afraid that it could send a hurtful message to the child [...]
Here's a question -- is it better to keep the exact percentages of votes
under wraps? And just announce winners and runners-up and honorable
mentions, or something along those lines, instead of the "interactive" 6% /
15% / 43% kind of thing? I admit, however, that I tend to vote for the
underdog, especially the wild "rainbow warrior" creations that are usually
made by the younger kids.
Tomas Clark
Producer, LEGO Direct
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