Subject:
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Re: LEGO, kids, and how it has come to this
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Mon, 10 May 2004 15:42:58 GMT
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Viewed:
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969 times
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In lugnet.general, Brian Davis wrote:
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That a 9 & 10 year old
hadn’t hit on the idea of *following the directions* is just, well,
stunning.
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Oh, they understood that the directions held the key, but using the directions
was outside their experience.
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.. I’ve always found the Lego instructions to in
some regards be the most amazing portions of the models - that you can come
up with a clear, language-independent way of directing the assembling of
several hundred individual pieces, *and* have it instantly understandable by
a 5 year old, just floors me. But I do sometimes wonder if some of my college
students could do it (frankly, I suspect some of them couldn’t).
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We’ve always been happy with the LEGO directions and admire that they work
across all languages, but there is a certain amount of assumed knowledge that
the directions don’t spell out. The directions don’t explicitly tell you to find
a part based on it its type, color, and stud dimensions. That’s something most
of us learn by experience or that we brilliant LUGNET types were born knowing.
The directions make it difficult to tell lt gr from dk gr from bk. My visitors
stumbled when they had to insert a 2 x 2 under a larger brick -- it was not
obvious that the studs (usually) don’t go in the holes, but rather between them.
The biggest stumbling block is that the directions don’t tell say to carefully
compare the current step with the previous step to find what is different. (Some
directions show all the parts that will be used in a given step, which helps.
This set was not documented that way. I think some way to highlight the parts
that get added in a step would be a plus for LEGO to consider adding.) These are
examples of things that could have been explained if the directions were in
English or Danish or Swahili.
-Ted
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: LEGO, kids, and how it has come to this
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| (...) in (...) There definitely used to be a lot more text in Lego literature, such as the catalogs and idea books. But I think the move towards internationalization of the product has made text almost obsolete. Now you only see a smattering of text (...) (21 years ago, 10-May-04, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: LEGO, kids, and how it has come to this
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| (...) This is something that isn't just their fault... I've been a long time LEGO collector, having built for over 20 years, starting at 2.5 years old. But since around 1998 I've had hard times with some instructions, since colors are no longer (...) (21 years ago, 10-May-04, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: LEGO, kids, and how it has come to this
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| (...) I personally doubt my experience would have been as good had I not had the "trial and error" phases early. I think this engenders persistance, which is IMO a Good Thing. Sure, they may get frustrated today, but more than likely they'll go back (...) (21 years ago, 10-May-04, to lugnet.general, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: LEGO, kids, and how it has come to this
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| (...) !!! Perhaps this also represents just the range of kids - my son (5, at the time) put 90% of the Mars Exploration Rover together with just the Lego instructions (the last 10% was becasue, after something like 5 hours and it being past his (...) (21 years ago, 10-May-04, to lugnet.general, FTX)
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