Category: Lego

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Lego Turns 50 Today

Today is the 50th anniversary of the filing of the patent for Lego bricks.


The Google logo received a Lego treatment today.

I received my first Lego set 34 years ago—number 480, the Rescue Helicopter—at age 5, as a Christmas gift from friend-and-neighbor Chuck Altwein. I quickly learned to completely assemble and disassemble the model without the directions. This was followed by set number 135 that year from my parents (too small a set, but I do not blame them), and many, many others, including some of my favorites, 190, 404 (which still gets my vote for best classic building set), and the 487 Space Cruiser, which was one of a trilogy of sets that opened Lego’s hugely popular (and still running) space line. (This line also introduced the modern Lego minifigure, or minifig.)

Lego forever changed my childhood, as I spent nearly every Saturday morning surrounded by Lego. One of the worst punishments I ever received was when I got frustrated trying to build a truck, and threw the partially completed assembly across the room. My Mom put my Lego in the attic for a week, and I learned to control my temper better. (I recall an incident with Isaac, at around age 4 or 5, where he had his Lego taken away for something similar, and he cried for 3 1/2 hours straight.)

I continue to build with Lego with my kids on rainy days at home, and lead a Lego robotics group that meets once a week at work (where I am known by the nickname LegoDoug). We have completed one project using the original RIS/RCX, and are switching to the NXT this week, thanks to Nichelle’s wonderful anniversary gift.

My boys are crazy about Lego Bionicle and the Lego Star Wars lines, and even NaNi loves to build, and I can’t think of any toy that has provided so much innovative playtime.

Check out some coverage on Gizmodo, Slashdot, Time, and this Lego timeline on Wikipedia.

Following are images of some of my favorite bits of my own Lego history.


I lobbied shamelessly and amorally for this one Christmas. It was Lego’s largest set to date.


One of Lego’s best sets ever, which included a Lego motor.


The Lego Space Cruiser, an unquestionable classic.


Lego’s first castle set.


The first Lego robotics kit, and a little piece of history.


An iconic robot constructed from the new Lego NXT robotics kit.

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Random Webness

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Game Camp Nation – “Isaacing”

Isaac and David spent two weeks this year at Game Camp Nation, which has been operated for a number of years by our friends Phil Luchon and Steve Deyesso and their staff, originally under the name of “Camp Turing.”

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”11″ gal_title=”Game Camp Nation, 2007″]

All the photos from those weeks can also be viewed here on Google Photos.

David and Isaac were among the first students to test a new curriculum designed for younger students. They developed games using the GameMaker software, which allows sprite-based games to be created using a relatively simple properties-panel-driven model. (Game Maker also features its own scripting language, and the ability to do more advanced things, even as much as a 3D FPS game.) Game Camp Nation also offers courses in game programming using C++ (which will probably be switched to Java next year), and 3D modeling and animation using AutoDesk’s Maya.

Each student gets his own computer to work and play on all day. Attendees also have some non-computer time to play board games and enjoy meals. Still, this was more of a “Geek Heaven” kind of place than one might be expecting in a summer camp. (I wonder if any of the children noticed that the conference room the hotel gave them didn’t have any windows.)


Isaac and David Outside the Conference Center used by Game Camp Nation for their Waltham, Ma., sessions.

Both weasels enjoyed camp immensely, and readily learned to create and debug games. They were up before I was every morning, and I let them stay late almost every night to participate in the network gaming tournaments that the camp runs at the end of the day. David got so tired one day that he fell asleep in the car in the morning, and then on the couch in seconds when we got home, sleeping there nearly 12 hours through the night.


Isaac and David with Game Camp Nation staff members Chris, Steve, and Joy.

We Have a Weiner Winner!

The game tournament is open to all camp attendees, whether they stay overnight or not. To keep things balanced among different types of games, they played FPS games (Halo and Call of Duty), RTS games (StarCraft and Command & Conquer 3), and Motocross Madness 2. Scores were kept all week, and the winner each week got a $50 gift certificate to Best Buy.

Of course that meant that Isaac and David were staying until 8:30 every night, but I figured it was worth the effort for two weeks.

Isaac came in first the first week, despite my dragging him out early one night. During the second week, he was leading by 100% of the second-place person’s score. Steve decided that dominating by that much for two weeks in a row would be called “Isaacing.”


Isaac with the huge Lego set he purchased, #7662 Trade Federation MTT

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Why Can’t Things Like This Happen to Me?

A giant, smiling Lego man was fished out of the sea in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort on Tuesday.

Workers at a drinks stall rescued the 2.5-meter (8-foot) tall model with a yellow head and blue torso.

:: sigh :: That would have looked sooooooooo cool in my cube at work.

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This ’n That

Just a few quick bullet items:

  • President Bush had some great lines in his speech last night. Here are my two favorites:
  • “The other party’s nomination battle is still playing out. The candidates are an interesting group with diverse opinions. They’re for tax cuts and against them. They’re for NAFTA and against NAFTA. They’re for the Patriot Act and against the Patriot Act. They’re in favor of liberating Iraq, and opposed to it. And that’s just one senator from Massachusetts.”
  • “They now agree that the world is better off with Saddam out of power. They just didn't support removing Saddam from power. Maybe they were hoping he would lose the next Iraqi election.”
  • Last night I took Isaac and David sledding at Roby Park in Nashua. David has become quite the daredevil, which was surprising, because the last time we went sledding, he pretty much didn’t like the big slopes at all. (In fact, he used to beg to go to a nearby school for sledding that was about as thrilling as watching golf.) The slope at the park was mostly ice, so we got some great speed, and proved without a doubt that the best way to sled is to use David or Isaac’s smaller sled in front of mine, allowing me to hold onto the back of theirs and providing excellent steering.
  • Earth to the Palestinians: Want to get anything you want? Stop blowing up innocent people. One isn’t exactly going to garner sympathy by creating busload after busload of noncombatants killed by suicide bombers.
  • My team leader, Brian Cortez, gave us a milk crate full of model rockets and accessories. We will be repairing some of his old models (an X-16 looks particularly cool), and hope to have him present for its re-launch after so many years.
  • At work, I’ve been learning and working with the Jakarta Struts framework, which has been both challenging and fun. The only gripe is the number of “silent failures” that occur (a code-500 server-side error with absolutely nothing in a log file is not exactly easy to diagnose and debug).
  • The new commute is awesome. It takes me only about 45 minutes to take the kids to school and then get to the office in the morning, and I can get home in as little as 20 minutes. Even with slightly longer work hours due to the new project, family time has improved dramatically.
  • The new house, with the entire first-floor in an open layout, is also very good for family interaction and activities. I also have to thank Nichelle for her graciousness in allowing the Lego collection to stay out for days at a time.
  • Speaking of Lego, the new family room has enough room to spread out and build, and we are developing the habit of spending Saturday mornings building with Lego. It’s been great, although I’m still missing one box of miscellaneous Lego that got shuffled in the move.
  • Speaking of Lego, I have to commend them on their customer service. I e-mailed them a suggestion on improving the Lunar Lander set, by using gold visors for the astronauts (instead of the clear ones provided), and they sent me six of the gold visors for free.
  • Moving out of state costs money! (God has provided all that we need, but we have spent quite a bit on car registrations, new licenses, new insurance, new cell phone services, etc.) It seems one has to spend money to save money. (Our car insurance will drop about $125 to $150 per month. Our new cell phone plan will save us up to $100 per month. Gasoline savings will amount to about $100 per month. School tuition is cheaper. Now, if I could just get out of donating 5% of my income to the State of Massachusetts … but the law on that isn’t likely to change!
     
  • The Route 3 widening is a few months behind the schedule that had been listed on their FAQ until a few weeks ago. They are now promising a “substantial completion” by May of 2004, instead of February. Still, that is not very far off.
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    A True Dream Job—Becoming a Master Builder at LegoLand, California

    Co-worker Ted Trela sent me this droolworthy, Lego-related link from Wired news. [Editor’s note: December 15, 2005—It appears the link earlier in this paragraph is not working, try this related story this link instead.]

    Of course, I don’t get to build with Lego as a profession, but building software is almost as much fun, so my job is just about as close to being a LegoLand, Californi as the winners of Lego’s nationwide search.

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    Lego [in the] News

      

    I’ve seen a number of interesting Lego-related items in the past two days. Here are three good ones:

    Wow! I still haven’t gotten around to completing my Lego Thunderbird 2 model (my first ever attempt at a Lego reproduction.