Comment by kbouck | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kbouck | Hacker News Reader

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Observing my 7yo son's open-ended play with modern-era LEGOs, I must disagree with Minsky. Perhaps the LEGO sets have changed since this this comment was made. I find the current LEGO Technic pieces to be the perfect tool for open-ended exploration, and for building of simple machines. While the sets do come with prescriptive instructions to build something specific out of that set - you aren't forced to follow them. Those instructions are more of a demo of what you can do with the pieces.

The pieces are almost all generic, and closely model their real-world mechanical equivalents -- beams, pins, gears, axels, motors, linear actuators, switches, battery power supplies. There a great book exploring all the technic fundamentals: "Unofficial LEGO Technic Builder's Guide" [1]. It covers concepts like leverage, torque, gears, gear ratios, differentials, suspensions, transmissions, etc.

Throw in the fact that technic electronic components (motors, lights, sensors) can be driven by code (eg. scratch on a rapsberry pi), and I can't imagine a better learning toy which is initially so approachable, and yet has such a high ceiling for advanced learning.

If you want to see what incredible creations are possible in the hands of the masters, check out "Incredible LEGO Technic" [2].

[1] https://www.nostarch.com/technicbuilder2

[2] https://www.nostarch.com/incredibletechnic

Technics are awesome, as a 60 year old engineer I hated to part with the extensive set I had acquired while leading a Lego League team, but I passed it on to my nephew.

However, I see many kids building one model, and then sitting it on a shelf as something they have made. What a waste of Legos...

By contrast I see my 4 year old itching to tear apart any complete Lego model and tear it down to make...planes. Always planes. And rockets.

So let's say I want to use those two books to get started with LEGO Technic (I have long LEGO experience, not so much with Technic), how I find the sets to have use of the books? Should I buy the parts by themselves, after buying the books? Can I find a aggregated set somewhere, where the most common pieces are included?

Basically, how I can find start-sets of LEGO Technic?

See my reply to a sibling comment asking the same question.

In addition to those comments, another option is the Lego WeDo construction set (9580) [1]. Not as many technic parts, but it contains a couple of sensors (tilt/distance), and the USB hub for interfacing with a computer.

You could also just buy a small technic set or two from the toy store (they are all clearly labeled "technic" on the box), but after buying a couple of these, you'll wish you had just bought a single large set for the value for parts.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Lego-Education-Wedo-Construction-9580...

NOTE: Same caveat that this set uses the power functions 1.0 plug design, and version 2.0 is upcoming and seems incompatible. Maybe they'll make adapters.

Looks like a nice book. I have zero exposure to legos. Which lego kit should I buy to go along with the book? An amazon link would be very helpful. Thanks.

If you're willing to go all-in, get a big technic set which has the most "power functions" components (motors, remotes, battery box). These are the parts that are harder to come-by unless you order them individually (which is more expensive).

When I looked >= 1-2 years ago, the best single set for spare parts I found was the Volvo L350F wheel loader aka. "42030" [1] (each lego set is uniquely identified by a numeric id). It had the most power functions parts I could find, and probably gives you all the beams, wheels, gears, and other parts you need.

You can supplement your collection with specific parts from places like BrickLink [2] or even the lego.com store [3].

NOTE: Be warned that LEGO is changing their Power Functions plug shape. Most current sets are still on Power Functions 1.0, and new sets will eventually become 2.0

[1] https://www.amazon.com/technic-Volvo-L350F-wheel-loader/dp/B...

[2] https://www.bricklink.com/

[3] https://shop.lego.com/

Out of curiosity, what makes 42030 better than MB Arocs (42043) or Mobile Crane II (42009)? I was just looking for a gift for myself a week ago, and 42043 looks great.

For my purposes I wanted the most parts for the money. Specifically I wanted the power functions parts, since the other parts like beams and wheels will accumulate from every other set. The 42030 had the most power functions parts included. You can see which PF parts are included on the front of the box.

42043: - contains the pneumatic pump & tubes which are less common pieces - this is the only other large technic set I've bought (and I got it mainly for the pneumatic parts)

42009: - Lots of beam parts, but not many power functions parts included.

It's a shame this article didn't come out a few weeks ago, when NoStarch Press had a ton of their Lego books available in a Humble Book Bundle

We've got a 50% off deal running now on all of our print books. And that includes a lot of LEGO books. Coupon code is a the top of the main page.

The page banner says all books, does it include PDFs as well?

I'm not sure if the coupon is good for just ebooks, but you do get ebook versions with the print. I just bought the print Land of Lisp at half price, and got a link to download PDF, Mobi, and ePub versions. I haven't read it yet, obviously, but Paul Graham's review is quoted on the site:

"Turns out the border between genius and insanity is a pretty cheery place."

The generic was part of the appeal. It seems to have peaked in the 90s, now LEGO is milking dedicated shapes. Expected, that's how "progress" evolve. Even my father complains.

> now LEGO is milking dedicated shapes. Expected, that's how "progress" evolve. Even my father complains

I think most of the people who make these complaints simply haven't shopped for Lego in a while and so are operating on a lot of feeling but not much data. Stroll down the Lego aisle(s) at Target, you'll see plenty of free-form sets and traditional pieces like these entire product lines: https://www.lego.com/en-us/classic?icmp=COUSFRClassic and https://www.lego.com/en-us/creator?icmp=COUSFRCreator

It's indeed a reflex based on the new sets I saw since a few years (lots of franchise). I still feel something missing from how sets were designed in the 80s-00s era. Something of that period I miss, half nostalgia, but not only. A balance between surface and simplicity. Kinda like pixel art.

The sets I remember having in the 80s and 90s had lots of custom pieces. My son's Lego seems to have less custom pieces than I remember having when I was growing up. It is amazing watching what he creates after he gets bored of the original creation.

> A balance between surface and simplicity. Kinda like pixel art.

Check out the architecture series: https://www.lego.com/en-us/architecture

They use mostly basic shapes, and not many colors, but I think have found a nice balance between representation & abstraction for the buildings they model.

Another thing going on is, I think their model designers have gotten a lot more skilled at using pieces in novel ways in their models. They've gotten better at representing details, so more details show up.

Good point, they have part of what I mentionned, but these are restricted less playful sets.

They're not playful, I agree, but they're not restricted. They're made up of primarily generic pieces.

When I've looked, there've been dozens of co-branded products and far fewer classics/free-form sets. Some of the bulk brick buckets have been unavailable when I've shopped for my son locally.

But yes, that Creator line is great. I think the 3-in-1 sets especially are very good. My 3-4 yo son loves those. e.g., https://shop.lego.com/en-AU/Vacation-Getaways-31052

Especially when the 3 options are quite diverse; in this case a campervan, a house and a boat. The campervan is particularly clever.

There are definitely a lot fewer Classic sets, but like... the point of them is that they're just a bunch of generic pieces. You don't need that many different sets, just sets of different sizes.

Of course, a just-pieces set of Lego technic would be amazing :-(

They screwed up the formula in the early 2000s, with what is commonly known in AFOL circles as "Juniorization" - lots of big specialized pieces replacing what used to be made out of multiple pieces. Think an entire car chassis, in one piece.

They turned things around again in the late 2000s, and in some cases, have gone a bit too far in the other direction, in my opinion. Some sets are overwhelmed with tiny 1x1, 2x1, etc pieces where larger ones (though still from the basic brick set) would be stronger structurally, and wouldn't inflate the piece count as much.

There's a necessary evolution toward these, to differentiate and "improve" over the past. Maybe before realizing the past was just fine ?

"The past" where LEGO was hemorrhaging money like crazy?

I meant the design mind set, obviously not the financial health of the company. Most people understand the reasons why LEGO did what it did with franchise and new sets.

Yeah, if anything, the peak of "special pieces" LEGO was in the 90s.

If you want to complain about the current direction of lego, at least pick something that's still going on, like lego's increasing commitment to IPs. These used to be all licensed (Star Wars) but now there are a lot of sets that are on lego-owned IPs like Bionicle.

What there is is much less emphasis on traditional lego lines like "city". There is, if anything MORE availability of basic pieces at different prices. Other than size, why would you need lots of basic sets? The point is that they are basic.

Also, inflation adjusted, bulk purchase of lego basic pieces is historically very low right now, because it mostly seems to track the price of raw materials (mainly oil). I'm not 100% sure of this but I read someone making this case with some analysis on one of the lego collector boards.

Anyway, if you like plain, generic lego, this is probably the absolute best time to be into lego: extremely cheap basic lego in the constructor sets, very reasonable priced SPECIFIC lego in the bulk orders, ability to export from lego cad, the best range of technic parts and computer integration of all time...

lego is in much better shape than it was in the dark days of 2001.

the lego price historically: http://www.realityprose.com/what-happened-with-lego/

Previously on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9692408

As others have said, this is a constant resounding complaint about modern Lego, and I don't think there's much truth to it right now, if there ever was. I agree that very large, single-purpose piece like large molded rocks or entire wall sections aren't great, but in my experience most of the smaller "dedicated" pieces aren't single-purpose at all, and really encourage creativity.

Personally, if I have a big pile of mostly plain bricks, I tend to make a few generic things like a stick figure and a car and a rocketship and then run out of ideas. But give me a piece with a weird angle, or a bar sticking out of it, or a weirdly-shaped socket, or an engraved texture, and I start thinking, "What else could this be? What could I attach to this and how?"

Online Lego galleries (and official sets!) are full of designs that use apparently single-purpose pieces--handheld items for minifigs like weapons, tools, food, and flowers; larger components like doors, radar dishes, and wheel wells; even minifig limbs that were never even designed to be popped off of the torso or pelvis piece--to build weird new joint assemblies or imply small details or represent all sorts of objects. Limitations foster creativity.

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