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Subject: 
Re: Mathematical proof that you can't build anything with LEGO bricks
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.general
Date: 
Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:38:13 GMT
Viewed: 
20560 times
  
In lugnet.general, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
   He’s got a (half baked) hypothesis. He wrote a paper 10 years ago and is still milking it. Don’t confuse him with data.

I think he’s doing the same thing that virtually everyone does when they see modern LEGO-- trying to figure out why they don’t like it as much.

Everyone that grew up with LEGO seems to go through that same stage of curmudgeon-ity, where they think that the new LEGO sets are awful, and the old stuff is WAY better.

One of the more defiant examples being one recently of someone who was born in the early 90’s, who thought that roughly 1998-2005 was the “golden age” of LEGO, despite the fact that it was probably the roughest time for LEGO when the sales figures bear out the fact that it was pretty bad.

Anyway, he’s trying to wrap his brain around why he doesn’t like the new LEGO sets that he’s seeing, and he latched onto the paper that he wrote years ago, despite the fact that the paper doesn’t really prove anything about the *quality* of a building toy-- it just proved certain tendencies for part diversity in some cross-section of LEGO’s lineup (I’m not even sure if his cross-section made any sense).

So, he’s mis-applying the conclusions that he came to 10 years ago-- which were actually pretty interesting. But I don’t think they don’t serve as evidence to validate his claim that modern LEGO is terrible. I think that reaction is due to the specificity of modern parts, and the decreased focus on building that LEGO has now. And that’s basically where much of the target market has taken LEGO-- quite successfully!

For the record, I’m not sure I’d call that particular trend “juniorization”, but we (the community) probably ought to have some sort of other term for it. Things like Exo-Force, Ninjago, Mars Mission, etc, aren’t really *juniorized* per se, so much as they’re focused on non-rebuilding. They’re feature-rich, less focused on exercising kids’ imaginations, and more “specific” rather than “iconic”.

By contrast, I think of “juniorized” as having fewer pieces that are simpler to assemble for younger age groups. But these models often involve more complex technic assemblies that are actually pretty difficult to build for young kids. But they’re just intended to STAY built.

But maybe that’s just my concept of “juniorization”. Perhaps the term is meant to encompass these other aspects as well, or has been sufficiently used to that end in the community?

DaveE



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: Mathematical proof that you can't build anything with LEGO bricks
 
In lugnet.general, David Eaton wrote: (snip good analysis) For more musings on the build/rebuild vs. build/play dichotomy see (URL) second one really reinforces what Dave's talking about, in that if you plan to NEVER take something apart but just (...) (13 years ago, 28-Feb-12, to lugnet.general)  
  Re: Mathematical proof that you can't build anything with LEGO bricks
 
(...) I think you're spot-on. He went fishing for empirical support for his intuition and really had to stretch to make it seem to fit. I think one contributing factor is that people who have not maintained familiarity with LEGO pieces over the (...) (13 years ago, 28-Feb-12, to lugnet.general, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Mathematical proof that you can't build anything with LEGO bricks
 
(...) He's got a (half baked) hypothesis. He wrote a paper 10 years ago and is still milking it. Don't confuse him with data. OK, that was harsh, but that's what I come away with, without detracting from the agreement points we DID find here. Like (...) (13 years ago, 28-Feb-12, to lugnet.general, FTX)  

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