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Subject: 
Re: Quantifying and Classifying the LEGO Community
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.general, lugnet.people, lugnet.fun.community
Date: 
Wed, 16 Apr 2003 22:37:53 GMT
Viewed: 
5508 times
  
In lugnet.general, Tim Courtney writes:
Hi Damien -

In lugnet.general, Damien Guichard writes:
Yes, that's sharing building experience and you are lucky.
My only sharing experience ended with "i don't need you, i have more lego
than you anyway".

I'm sorry to hear that. Most of the people I build with have more LEGO than
I do. I have quite a bit, perhaps just under 100,000 pieces. But, I still
don't have the parts to construct what I really want to, which is part of
the reason I don't built MOCs that often. When I do build, it's usually in
spurts, where I have several weeks or a couple months of heavy building,
followed by months and months just refining MOCs, doing small design
studies, and looking at other peoples' stuff. I usually need a purpose to
build things -- ie. I'm gradually building models for a short film I want to
shoot, I'm in a train club, LEGOfests, etc.

Ok you share building experience.
I mean you don't share building skills.
You construct your own building skills.
But they may be usefull only to you.
Because chances are that your building style is unique.
And should another be interest by your building skills, you have no tutorial
to help. Little or no effort has been made to flatten the learning curve.

When you build with others, you share skills. At least, I do when I build.
I'm always learning and taking in from other builders, and they learn from
me too.

I had a unique experience over the last few months. A friend of mine, Bruce
Lowell, built the same model I did. We shared ideas since my model was
already built. When I finally met Bruce at BricksWest 2003, we were able to
compare our models right next to each other.

We took totally different approaches to building the same thing, a UH-1
Huey. Mine was more minifig scale, in fact I think a hair bigger (8-wide)
;-D He went for a smaller scale, where the figs would be slightly smaller
than minifigs. We learned a lot from each others' building, and I told him I
was going to steal his rotor design :^D

Here's Bruce and I. I'm on the left, wooshing my helicopter, in the really
awesome BricksWest bowling shirt, which might not even be "normal" in
southern California. :-)
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=353557

This is particularly obvious for kids.
Lego is very difficult and kids are so impatient.
They will not try and fail a thousand times.
So they just renunce, then grow and most of them will forget lego forever.
And the opportunity of more play value has been lost.
Building tutorials (not only building instructions) could help but none is
available. Of course there is no right or wrong way to play with lego. That
should not be an excuse for no tutorial: each significant building style
could have its own tutorial.

This is why it's a good thing to give kids social LEGO experiences - to
learn from other builders and to inspire them to stick with the hobby. LEGO
has so many applications, if not as a toy for play, as a tool for school or
in the professional world. I think it's great to have organizations like
FIRST LEGO League so kids can build together and solve problems together.

As far as tutorials - there need to be people to write them :-) I've got a
good outlet for such tutorials, Bricks Magazine. We're a tad behind our
originally anticipated schedule for a release, but we're no less committed
to delivering a top-notch publication geared towards entertaining LEGO fans
and broadening their horizons. If you want to write tutorials for Bricks,
please email me. If you want to stick them on a website somewhere - that may
be a better option, so they're more accessible.

Perhaps that's a good community project? Is anyone else keen to create
building tutorials and place them on a website? I know I just don't have the
time with everything else I'm doing :-\

Seems like expert builders are more interested in building innovation than
in sharing skills. That is the absence of sharing i speak about.

Sure. Remember though, each person is in the hobby for some personal
satisfaction. If they gain more satisfaction from building and raising the
standard for themselves than teaching others - good for them. Not
necessarily bad for others, since many people post pictures and LDraw files
of amazing creations and those photos and files reveal wonderful techniques.
Take James Mathis for example -- WOW! Dissect one of his train LDraw files
sometime, you'll be amazed.

As for you, Damien, you're in France, right? Are you involved with FreeLUG?
If not, that would probably be a great place to start getting to know other
LEGO builders in person and sharing the LEGO experience more. And on a
larger scale, there's the 1000steine Land coming to Berlin in July, and
LEGOWORLD coming to Zwolle, NL in October. I should be at the latter :-)

I encourage you to get involved with other LEGO fans and discover that it is
possible to share building skills, as well as the LEGO experience!

-Tim

Many thanks Tim, your reply is really encouraging.
I currently try to figure out the best way to write a building tutorial.
The three major difficulties are:

1. It is REALLY intimidating to write the first tutorial ever. I don't want
to be suspected to define a building standard. A standard is simply not
desirable. At some points, to make a long story short i have to write things
like "this is good assembly" and "that is bad assembly" instead of "this
assembly is encouraged by this tutorial" and "this assembly is discouraged
by this tutorial". How can i say an assembly is "bad" without hurting anyone?
A tutorial is not a lesson (as many builders here are far more experienced
than me). How to present ad-hoc restrictions in a world of freedom is by far
the most difficult obstacle for me. May be the only solution is i write the
document as if i am the sole reader, then YOU make it more relative.

2. There is several quality criteria. Different tutorial designs maximize
different criteria. I think the best possible document is a complete set of
abstract building patterns. However a set of abstract building patterns
would be really terse for Kids. Nothing is already really decided, but i
tend to favour a "prerequisite" approach, a step by step progression
starting from no building skills.

3. The building style advocated will certainly imply a lego theme preference
and outdated classic building style. The outdated aspect is really annoying
as i think Kids should be the primary audience. Adults are supposed to be
patient enough to acquire their own skills.

Yes, i'm in France but not involved with FreeLUG.
But sure i should and probably i will be.

Damien



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Quantifying and Classifying the LEGO Community
 
(...) Don't be afraid to advocate techniques over others, but explain why one is 'better.' I don't think anyone will argue with you that interlocking bricks is better than stacking one on top of each other when building a wall :-) (...) You can show (...) (21 years ago, 17-Apr-03, to lugnet.general, lugnet.people, lugnet.fun.community)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Quantifying and Classifying the LEGO Community
 
Hi Damien - (...) I'm sorry to hear that. Most of the people I build with have more LEGO than I do. I have quite a bit, perhaps just under 100,000 pieces. But, I still don't have the parts to construct what I really want to, which is part of the (...) (21 years ago, 16-Apr-03, to lugnet.general, lugnet.people, lugnet.fun.community)

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