The LEGO Handbook - Everything you need to know about LEGO

Aron Rasmussen

Description

LEGO Fan this is your ultimate resource for the amazing world of LEGO. Here you'll find the most up-to-date information on everything LEGO.

In easy to read chapters, with extensive references and links to get you to know all there is to know about LEGO right away: LEGO Group, History of LEGO, Ole Kirk Christiansen, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, Fabuland, LEGOland, LEGOland Windsor, LEGOland California, LEGO timeline, LEGO Technic, LEGO Town, LEGO Space, LEGO Pirates, LEGO Vikings, LEGO Castle, Bionicle, LEGO Adventurers, LEGO Aquazone, Slizer, LEGO RoboRiders, Duplo, LEGO Baby, LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Batman, LEGO SpongeBob SquarePants, LEGO Harry Potter, LEGO Indiana Jones, LEGO Toy Story, LEGO Mindstorms, LEGO Mindstorms NXT 2.0, FIRST LEGO League, Bionicle Heroes, LEGO Games, LEGO Sports, LEGO Atlantis, LEGO Power Miners, LEGO Agents, LEGO Aqua Raiders, LEGO Mars Mission, LEGO Mindstorms NXT, LEGO Avatar: The Last Airbender, Knights' Kingdom, LEGO.com, LEGO pneumatics, LEGO Boats, LEGO train, List of LEGO video games, LEGO Serious Play

Topic relevant selected content from the highest rated wiki entries, typeset, printed and shipped, combine the advantages of up-to-date and in-depth knowledge with the convenience of printed books. A portion of the proceeds of each book will be donated to the Wikimedia Foundation to support their mission.

Sujets

• Activities
• Games

Informations

• Publié par: Emereo Publishing
• Date de parution: 24 octobre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 3
• EAN13: 9781486433780
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 10 Mo

Extrait

Lego

Topic relevant selected content from the highest rated wiki entries, typeset, printed and shipped. Combine the advantages of up-to-date and in-depth knowledge with the convenience of printed books. A portion of the proceeds of each book will be donated to the Wikimedia Foundation to support their mission: to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. The content within this book was generated collaboratively by volunteers. Please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information. Some information in this book maybe misleading or simply wrong. The publisher does not guarantee the validity of the information found here. If you need specific advice (for example, medical, legal, financial, or risk management) please seek a professional who is licensed or knowledgeable in that area. Sources, licenses and contributors of the articles and images are listed in the section entitled "References". Parts of the books may be licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. A copy of this license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License" All used third-party trademarks belong to their respective owners.

Contents Articles Lego Lego Group History of Lego Ole Kirk Christiansen Godtfred Kirk Christiansen Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen Fabuland Legoland Legoland Windsor Legoland California Lego timeline Lego Technic Lego Town Lego Space Lego Pirates Lego Vikings Lego Castle Bionicle Lego Adventurers Lego Aquazone Slizer Lego RoboRiders Duplo Lego Baby Lego Star Wars Lego Batman Lego SpongeBob SquarePants Lego Harry Potter Lego Indiana Jones Lego Toy Story Lego Mindstorms Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 FIRST Lego League Bionicle Heroes

1 12 15 20 21 22 24 25 29 45 48 58 63 64 82 92 94 114 120 127 130 135 137 139 140 143 145 157 161 165 168 180 184 189

Lego Games Lego Sports Lego Atlantis Lego Power Miners Lego Agents Lego Aqua Raiders Lego Mars Mission Lego Mindstorms NXT Lego Avatar: The Last Airbender Knights' Kingdom Lego.com Lego pneumatics Lego Boats Lego train List of Lego video games Lego Serious Play References Article Sources and Contributors Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors Article Licenses License

195 196 199 201 212 215 217 221 229 230 249 253 257 258 262 264

268 273

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Lego Lego

Lego

Type Construction set Inventor Ole Kirk Christiansen Company Lego Group Country Denmark Availability sent1949 – pre [1] Official website

Lego (trademarked in capitals as LEGO) is a line of construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of colorful interlocking plastic bricks and an accompanying array of gears, minifigures and various other parts. Lego bricks can be assembled and connected in many ways, to construct such objects as vehicles, buildings, and even working robots. Anything constructed can then be taken apart again, and the pieces used to make other objects. The toys were originally designed in the 1940s in Europe and have achieved an international appeal, with an extensive subculture that supports Lego movies, games, video games, competitions, and four Lego themed amusement parks.

Early history

The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund, Denmark, who began making wooden toys in 1932. In 1934 his company came to be called Lego. It expanded to producing plastic toys in 1940. In 1949 Lego began producing the now famous interlocking bricks, calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks". [2] These bricks were based largely on the patent of Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks, which were released in the United Kingdom in 1947. Lego modified the design of the Kiddicraft brick after examining A pile of Lego bricks, of assorted colors and a sample given to it by the British supplier of an injection-moulding sizes. machine that the company had purchased. The bricks, manufactured from cellulose acetate, were a development of traditional stackable wooden blocks that locked together by means of several round studs on top and a hollow rectangular bottom. The blocks snapped together, but not so tightly that they required extraordinary effort to be separated.

The company name Lego was coined by Christiansen from the Danish phraseleg godt, which means "play well". The name could also be interpreted as "I put together" and "I assemble" in Latin, though this would be a somewhat forced application of the general sense "I collect; I gather; I learn"; the word is most used in the derived sense "I read".

1

Lego 2 The Lego Group's motto iskun det bedste er godt nokwhich means 'only the best is good enough'. This motto was created by Ole Kirk to encourage his employees never to skimp on quality, a value he believed in strongly. The motto is still used within the company today. The use of plastic for toy manufacture was not highly regarded by retailers and consumers of the time. Many of the Lego Group's shipments were returned after poor sales; it was thought that plastic toys could never replace wooden ones. By 1954 Christiansen's son Godtfred Kirk Christiansen had become the junior managing director of the Lego Group. It was his conversation with an overseas buyer that struck the idea of a toy system. Godtfred saw the immense potential in Lego bricks to become a system for creative play but the bricks still had some problems from a technical standpoint: their locking ability was limited and they were not very versatile. In 1958 the modern brick design was developed but it took another five years to find the right material for it. The modern Lego brick was patented on January 28, 1958; bricks from that year are still compatible with current bricks. Design Lego pieces of all varieties are a part of a universal system. Despite variation in the design and purpose of individual pieces over the years, each remains compatible in some way with existing pieces. Lego bricks from 1958 still interlock with those made in 2010, and Lego sets for young children are compatible with those made for teenagers. Bricks, beams, axles, gears, mini figures, and all other parts in the Lego system are manufactured to an exacting degree of precision. When snapped together, pieces must have just the right amount of A model of Trafalgar Square, London in strength and flexibility mixed together to stick together. They must Legoland Windsor stay together until pulled apart. They cannot be too easy to pull apart, or the resulting constructions would be unstable; they also cannot be too difficult to pull apart, since the disassembly of one creation in order to build another is part of the Lego appeal. In order for pieces to have just the right "clutch [3] power", Lego elements are manufactured within a tolerance of 2 µm. Primary concept and development work takes place at the Billund headquarters, where the company employs approximately 120 designers. The company also has smaller design offices in the UK, Spain, Germany, and Japan, which are tasked with developing products aimed specifically at these markets. The average development period for a new product is around twelve months, in three stages. The first stage is to identify market trends and developments, including contact by the designers directly with the market; some are stationed in toy shops close to holiday periods, while others interview children. The second stage is the design and development of the product based upon the results of the first stage. As of September 2008 the design teams use 3D modeling software such as Rhinoceros 3D to generate CAD drawings from initial design sketches. The designs are then prototyped using an in-house stereolithography machine. These are presented to the entire project team for comment and for testing by parents and children during the "validation" process. Designs may then be altered in accordance with the results from the focus groups. Virtual models of completed Lego products are built concurrently with the writing of the user instructions. Completed CAD models are also used in the wider organization, such as for marketing and packaging. Also the naming of the bricks such as 2x3 or 4x4 was made by intelligent children who tried describing the materials they [4] used to create such a "invention".

Lego 3 Manufacture Since 1963, Lego pieces have been manufactured from a strong, [3] resilient plastic known as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). As of September 2008, the engineers use the NX CAD/CAM/CAE PLM software suite to model the elements. The software allows the parts to be optimized by way of mold flow and stress analysis. Prototype molds are sometimes built before the design is committed to mass production. The ABS plastic is heated to 232 °C (450 °F) until at a dough-like consistency. It is then injected into the molds at pressures between 25 A Lego City and 150 tons, and takes approximately 15 seconds to cool. The molds are permitted a tolerance of up to two thousandths of a millimeter − 6 [4] (2×10 m), to ensure the bricks remain connected. Human inspectors check the output of the molds, to eliminate significant variations in color or thickness. Worn-out molds are encased in the foundations of buildings to prevent [5] them from falling into competitors' hands. According to the Lego Group, about eighteen bricks out of every [3] million fail to meet the standard required. Lego factories recycle all but about 1 percent of their plastic waste from the manufacturing process every year. If the plastic cannot be re-used in Lego bricks, it is processed and sold on to [6] [7] industries that can make use of it. Manufacturing of Lego bricks occurs at a number of locations around the world. Molding is done at one of two plants in Denmark and Czech Republic. Brick decorations and packaging is done at plants in Denmark, the United States, Mexico and the Czech Republic. The Lego company estimates that in the course of five decades it has sold [8] 10 some 400 billion Lego blocks. Annual production of Lego bricks averages approximately 20 billion (2×10 ) per year, or about 600 pieces per second: if all the Lego bricks ever produced were to be divided equally among a world [9] population of six billion, each person would have 62 Lego bricks. Lego Group plans to close the production [9] [10] facility in Enfield, Connecticut and outsource this work to the Flextronics factory in Mexico. Flextronics will also oversee the factory in Kladno, Czech Republic. The Czech facilities would also be expanded due to the planned [10] closing of the Swiss factory in Baar, which mostly manufactured TECHNIC parts. On February 19, 2008, Lego [11] announced that the Lego Group would instead take over operations of the Kladno factory from March 1, 2008. On July 1, 2008, Lego announced their intent to take over plants in Mexico and Hungary and "phase out the existing [12] outsourcing agreement with Flextronics during 2009." According to an article inBusinessWeekin 2006, Lego could be considered the world's No. 1 tire manufacturer; the [13] factory produces about 306 million tiny rubber tires a year. Today Since it began producing plastic bricks, the Lego Group has released thousands of sets themed around a variety of topics, like the new "Atlantis". Other Examples include town and city, space, robots, pirates, Lego Trains,Racers, Vikings, castles,Bionicle, dinosaurs, holiday locations, scuba diving and undersea exploration, the wild west, the Arctic, airports and miners.

New elements are often released along with new sets. There are also Lego sets designed to appeal to young girls such as the Belville and Clikits lines which consists of small interlocking parts that are meant to encourage creativity and arts and crafts, much like regular Lego bricks. Belville and Clikit pieces can interlock with regular Lego bricks as decorative elements. Also the new creation of DesignByMe 3.0, which replaces the Lego Factory name gives people the chance to customize and build their own Lego set, any shape or size. Users can even customize the box that the set comes in. The one continuity not really touched on by Lego is that of military toys (despite there being over 30 types of Lego weapons). While there are sets which can be seen to have a military theme–such as Star Wars, the German and

Lego 4 Russian soldiers in the Indiana Jones sets, and Lego Castle–there are no directly military-themed sets in any line. This is following Ole Kirk Christiansen's policy of not wanting to make war seem like child's play. The Lego range has expanded to encompass accessory motors, gears, lights, sensors, and cameras designed to be used with Lego components. Motors, battery packs, lights and switches are sold under the namePower Functions. TheTechnicline utilizes newer types of interlocking connections that are still compatible with the older brick type connections. TheTechnicline can often be motorized withPower Functions. Bionicle is a line of toys by the Lego Group that is marketed towards those in the 7–16 year-old age range. The line was launched in January 2001 in Europe and June/July 2001 in the United States. The Bionicle idea originated from the earlier toy lines Slizers (also known as Throwbots) and Roboriders. Both of these lines had similar throwing disks and characters based on classical elements. The sets in the Bionicle line have increased in size and flexibility through the years. The Lego group's Duplo product, introduced in 1969, is a range of simple blocks which measure twice the width, height and depth of standard Lego blocks, and are aimed at younger children. 'Fabuland' ran from 1979 to 1989. The more advanced 'Lego Technic' was launched in 1984. 'Lego Primo' is a line of blocks by the Lego Group for very young children that ran between 2004 until it was discontinued in 2006. In 1995 'Lego Baby' was launched for babies. One of the largest Lego sets ever commercially produced is a minifig-scaled edition of the Star Wars Millennium Falcon. Designed by Jens Kronvold Fredericksen, it was released in 2007 and has 5,195 pieces. It was surpassed, [14] though, by a 5,922 piece Taj Mahal. Licensed themes Over the years, Lego has licensed themes from several cartoon and film franchises. These includeStar Wars, Batman,SpongeBob SquarePants,Harry Potter,Indiana Jones,Spider-Man,Ben 10,Toy StoryandThomas the Tank Engine. Although some of the licensed themes, such as Lego Star Wars and Lego Indiana Jones, have had highly successful sales, Lego has expressed a desire to rely more upon their own characters and classic themes, and less upon licensed [15] themes related to movie releases. Robotics sets Lego initiated a robotics line of toys called 'Mindstorms' in 1998, and has continued to expand and update this range ever since. The roots of the product originate from a programmable brick developed at the MIT Media Lab, and the name is taken from a paper by Seymour Papert, a computer scientist and educator who developed the educational theory of constructionism, and whose research was at times funded by the Lego Group. The programmable Lego brick which is at the heart of these robotics sets has undergone several updates and redesigned, with the latest being called the 'NXT' brick, being sold under the brand name of Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0. The set includes sensors that detect touch, light, sound and ultrasonic waves, with several others being sold separately, including an RFID reader. The intelligent brick can be programmed using official software available for both Windows and Mac computers, and is downloaded onto the brick via Bluetooth. There are also several unofficial programs and compatible programming languages that have been made to work with the brick, and many books have been written to support this community. There are several robotics competitions which use the Lego robotics sets. The earliest, and likely the largest, is Botball, a national U.S. middle- and high-school competition stemming from the MIT 6.270 Lego robotics tournament. A related competition is FIRST Lego League for elementary and middle schools. The international RoboCup Junior football competition involves extensive use of Lego Mindstorms equipment which is often pushed

Lego 5 to its extreme limits. Related products and services The Lego Group has used the Lego toy system to branch out into a number of other areas. Video games Lego has branched out into the videogames market with a number of titles, includingLego Star Wars: The Video Game,Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy,Bionicle Heroesas well as theLego Star Wars: The Complete Saga andLego Indiana Jones, aLego Batman,Lego Battlesand theLego UniverseMMOG.Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 was released in June 2010, andLego Rock Bandwas released in the fall of 2009. Another game announced isLego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure ContinuesincludingIndiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulland total remakes of the other movie's levels was released in the fall of 2009. The newest addition to the Lego video games is Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, based on the first and second seasons of The Clone Wars. The game is set for release in 2011. Lego Digital Designer is an official piece of Lego software for Windows and Mac OS X which allows users to build with Lego bricks on their computers. Users can then publish their creations online on the Lego Factory website, or purchase the physical bricks to build them. Lego Digital Designer includes some Lego products which only exist online, including models for the children's television programmesTUGS,Thomas and FriendsandSpeed Racer. Official website The Lego website has developed over the years, and aims to provide many extra services for fans, as well as simply a shop and product catalog. There are moderated message boards, founded in 2005.My Lego Networkis a social networking site that has replaced Lego Club pages. It involves items, blueprints, ranks, badges which are earned for completing certain tasks, trading and trophies called masterpieces which the user uses to go to the next rank. The website also has a built in inbox that contains prewritten messages. (This was to avoid cyberbullying.) The website has automated characters within the website called networkers. They are able to do things which normal users can't do, such as sending messages that were not prewritten, selling masterpieces, blueprints and other things of that sort. And last, there are modules which are set up on the user's page to 'grow' certain things, for showing picture compositions or both.

Lego 6 Business consultancy Since around 2000, the Lego Group has been promoting 'Lego Serious Play', a form of business consultancy fostering creative thinking, in which team members build metaphors of their organizational identities and experiences using Lego bricks. Participants work through imaginary scenarios using visual three-dimensional Lego constructions, imaginatively exploring possibilities in a serious form of play. Theme parks Merlin Entertainments operates four Legoland amusement parks, the original in Billund, Denmark, the second in Windsor, England, and the third in Günzburg, Germany; there is also one in Carlsbad, California. On July 13, 2005, the control of 70% of the Legoland parks was sold for $460 million to the Blackstone Group of New York while the remaining 30% is still held by the Kirk Kristiansen family. There are [16] also four Legoland Discovery Centers, two in Germany (Duisburg [17] and Berlin), one in Chicago, Illinois, and one in Manchester, UK. Lego Imagination Center at the Mall of America Retail stores Lego operates 44 retail stores (34 in the United States, 4 in the United Kingdom, 5 in Germany, 1 in Canada), including ones at the Downtown Disney shopping complexes at Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resorts as well as in the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. There is also a franchised Lego store in Abu Dhabi. The opening of each store is celebrated with weekend long event where a Master Model Builder creates, with the help of volunteers most of which are children, a larger than life Lego statue [18] Tyrannosaurus rex model outside the LEGO store which is then displayed at the new store for several weeks. at Downtown Disney in Orlando As of recently three Lego stores have opened up in the world that encompass a new idea for the Lego retail side called Lego education. At these three stores (which are located in Concord North Carolina, Hanover Maryland, and Berlin Germany) there are separate areas to the side of the store that are used as classrooms where specially trained facilitators teach children ranging from 4–12 years old about numerous different subjects while using Lego product. This is a new concept that is being tested and has only been [19] around for about 8 months.