“Illegal” Lego Builds (2006) [pdf]

Ah this explains why my kid brought me that cylinder-through-cone for me to take apart.

BTW the last slide says "Play Well". That's what you get when you tranlate "Leg Godt" from Danish. Which is where you get Lego from.

A useful reminder that LEGO is actually a set of injection moulded parts with extremely fine tolerance, such that even the printing must be taken into account. It looks like they've run some of those models through finite element analysis software to calculate the force too.

Also note: don't use pieces outside of LEGO or Technic. That includes powerful motors attached to technic axles, steel axles or bricks, bearings, etc. The bricks were designed with certain assumptions in mind and you will ruin your pieces over time doing that. Source: experience.

What is the origin of this document? Is it meant for designers at LEGO? Very cool!

Most interesting was the description of the Audi kit that changed their testing process.

Most of these seem very natural (if you've messed with LEGO before), but I hadn't realized that specific materials choices were the reason that the cone-around-bar construction is a problem (I remember having a terrible time trying to undo that exact configuration). Super interesting deck!

One thing that the presentation only slightly addresses is the standards for overall structural integrity. Official sets seemed to favor a very "light" building style (to make constructions simpler? to save on materials?) that had a reasonably sturdy base (so the set can be picked up without collapsing) but which were vulnerable to lateral attacks or dropping (which would shatter stacked stud-based connections). My experience was that you could typically make models much stronger by adding vertical/diagonal braces via technic pieces.

This is pretty awesome. A lot these are pretty intuitive and the satisfying "click" is definitely something a child can understand.

LEGO has more rules than this in my opinion. One thing that I did not understand as a kid was why other kids built things where there were no 'rules' when it came to colour. If I built a house then the bricks would have to be consistent regarding colour, the scope and design would be limited to what was available. If there weren't enough bricks of a given colour for the roof (for instance) then there would have to be a design consideration there, so maybe a line of substitute colour bricks could be used, or another house in the town scene rebuilt to get the required coloured bricks with that one having the substitute colour.

Using all the bricks in the suitcase would also be a requirement, so larger projects, e.g. that Saturn 5 rocket would be a skilled use of available resources, the limits on the design being the black and white bricks for the actual rocket with the obligatory lunar rover able to be made in another colour, e.g. yellow. A randomly coloured Saturn 5 would not fly.

I also think that there should be an occasional worrying project from a child's creativity. For instance, if the news has some story of military exuberance then a child really should be modelling whatever it is, in this day and age something like a Predator drone would fit the bill. Political statements from ten year old kids in LEGO art remind the parents of what their world has become.

Feng Shui is also another rule. This has to be innately learned and understood. This is how to learn what design is, by experimenting and refining one's LEGO craft. Taste is a vague thing and if you can build tasteful LEGO models then that sets you up in life for being able to think for yourself in other domains and do better than the instructions on the back of the box.

The lessons learned apply to the web, if you can create fantastic LEGO models and have the taste to get the rules of what goes mechanically as well as regarding unofficial colour and Feng Shui rules then there is no reason why you can't create beauty online in a world where everyone else is serving up div soup, copying from the instructions.

I love how the audi tt lego car is as poorly engineered as the real deal.

As a kid I figured out the perpendicular connection trick, the height of a “1” tall (flat plate kind of) piece is the same as the width between two pegs, so you can wedge em in there for neat reasonably sturdy perpendicular connections.

(A standard brick is 3 tall, in this calculus)

I use Lego blocks as a metaphor for mathematics (a discrete number of building blocks, with rules how one can connect them to each other). In this context, an explicit list of illegal constructions makes this metaphor even stronger.

A plate slotted into another at right angles, and plugging a brick into a fence, were standard techniques when I was a lad. Returning to Lego in later years with my own kids, the various bricks introduced in the interim with studs on top and the sides, obviating these hacks, were the most glaring (and welcome) innovations.

If you want to see actually illegal Lego, Google "lepin star wars"

Come at me, LEGO police

Awesome! When I was a kid busy tinkering with this stuff, I often wondered whether models made by set designers had to adhere to a minimum standard of structural integrity. Now it seems a standard does exist, and here are all the illegal moves. I wonder how exhaustive is the list, and whether there is a document with a set of legal builds considered best practice?

Slide 12. "... the resistance becomes too great and there is the potential for elements (and children) being stressed."

Note that this still pertains to the old (studded) Technic bricks, not the new (studless) ones.

From a builder's perspective, all rules are advisory. You may want the specific effect these rules state is a problem - what if you want something to detach with less force than the "click"?

But these rules are really for Lego's internal use - I can understand the company wanting to make sure that kits it sells work properly in isolation, but obviously they can't control the other kits it will be mixed with. Maybe this means that they should have considered more possible combinations when designing those particular parts?

Anyone know the software they used for those models? Some artifacts remind me of the early build of Sketch-Up.

Slide #34 is the best.

I was surprised by page 24: "Definitely Illegal!"

The ⊥ shape is apparently illegal because "because the receiving brick has smaller dimensions than the one being connected to it."

I always thought that was intentionally possible.

So happy to see this here, I was looking for the slide deck for months but wasn’t able to google for it and everyone I asked didn’t know it.

Also, don't let your family gift your children with counterfeit blocks. I know it isn't socually acceptable to complain when you receive gifts but I had to lecture my family I will not accept even single counterfeit block because they ruin the fun.

Does their software check these design rules automatically?

#13 made me physically ill

Lego has made their decision, now let them enforce it.

Is there a reason that they’re using such low polygon count models? They look like poorly exported STLs from some CAD package.