BRICKER by Dayu Tao

Credit The Cult of LEGO, 2011 John Baichtal and Joe Meno Publish by William Pollock The LEGO Ideas Book: Unlock Your Imagination, 2011 John Baichtal and Joe Meno Publish by William Pollock Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry, 2013 David Robertson, Bill Breen Publish by Thomas Vincent Kelly

Table of Contents

History

Industry

Education

Lego Art

74 Cultural Exploration

History

History The name ‘LEGO’ is an abbreviation of the two Danish words “leg godt”, meaning “play well”. It’s our name and it’s our ideal. The LEGO Group was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen. The company has passed from father to son and is now owned by Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, a grandchild of the founder. It has come a long way over the past almost 80 years - from a small carpenter’s workshop to a modern, global enterprise that is now, in terms of sales, the world’s third-largest manufacturer of toys. The first LEGO automatic binding brick The LEGO brick is our most important product. This is why we are proud to have been named twice – “Toy of the Century”. Our products have undergone extensive development over the years – but the foundation remains the traditional LEGO brick.

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Beginnings, 1932-1959

Ole Kirk Christiansen transformed a Great Depression slump into the creation of wooden toys that he named “LEGO,” Danish for “play well” and Latin for “I put together.”

The Lego Group began in the carpentry workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, in Billund, Denmark. In 1916, Christiansen purchased a woodworking shop in Billund which had been in business since 1895. The shop mostly helped construct houses and furniture, and had a small staff of apprentices. The workshop burned down in 1924 when a fire ignited some wood shavings.Ole Kirk constructed a larger workshop, and worked towards expanding his business even further. When the Great Depression hit, Ole Kirk had fewer customers and had to focus on smaller projects. He began producing miniature versions of his products as design aids. It was these miniature models of stepladders and ironing boards that inspired him to begin producing toys. In 1932, Ole Kirk's shop started making wooden toys such as piggy banks, pull toys, cars and trucks and houses. The

business was not profitable because of the Great Depression. Farmers in the area sometimes traded food in exchange for his toys; Ole Kirk continued producing practical furniture in addition to toys to stay in business. In the mid-1930s, the yo-yo toy fad gave him a brief period of increased activity until it suddenly collapsed. To reduce waste, Ole Kirk used the leftover yo-yo parts as wheels for toy trucks. His son Godtfred began working for him, taking an active role in the company. In 1934, Ole Kirk held a contest among his staff to name the company, offering a bottle of homemade wine as a prize. Christiansen was considering two names himself, "Legio" (with the implication of a "Legion of toys") and "Lego", a selfmade contraction from the Danish phrase leg godt, meaning "play well." Later the Lego Group discovered that "Lego" can be loosely interpreted as "I put together"

History

1-1 An advertisement of Lego from 1950. By 1949 the owner of Lego was manufacturing a variety of plastic toys including a building block named the Automatic Binding Brick.

the first modular toys to be produced was a truck that could be taken apart and reassembled. In 1947, Ole Kirk and Godtfred obtained samples of interlocking plastic bricks produced by the company Kiddicraft. These "Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Bricks" were designed by Hilary Page. In 1939, Page had applied for a patent on hollow plastic cubes with four studs on top (British Patent Nยบ.529,580) that allowed their positioning atop one another without lateral movement. In 1944, Page applied an "Improvement to Toy Building Blocks" as an addition to the previous patent, in which he describes a building system based on rectangular hollow blocks with 2X4 studs on top enabling the construction of walls with staggered rows and window openings.

The addition was granted in 1947 as British Patent Nยบ 587,206. In 1949, the Lego Group began producing similar bricks, calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks." Lego bricks, then manufactured from cellulose acetate, were developed in the spirit of traditional wooden blocks that could be stacked upon one another but could be "locked" together. They had several round "studs" on top, and a hollow rectangular bottom. They would stick together, but not so tightly that they could not be pulled apart. In 1953, the bricks were given a new name: Lego Mursten, or "Lego Bricks." Plastic products were not well received by customers initially, who preferred wooden or metal toys. Many of Lego's

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1-2 This is the 1958 shows three children so absorbed in play that they couldn’t even bother to look up at the camera. The children weren’t models but Lego’s managing director Godtfred Kirk Christiansen’s daughters Hanne (who tragically died in an auto accident in 1968) and Gunhild (now Gunhild Johansen) as well as his son Kjeld (future owner of the company and heir to the Lego fortune).

History

shipments were returned, following poor sales. In 1954, Godtfred had become the junior managing director of the Lego Group. Godtfred's conversation with an overseas buyer struck the idea of a toy "system", with many toys in a line of related products. Godtfred evaluated their available products, and saw the plastic bricks as the best candidate for such a "system". In 1955, Lego released the "Town Plan" as such a system, using the building bricks. The building bricks were moderately received,

1-3 In 1957, Lego released several architectural sets that were packaged in what many consider be the most beautiful of all Lego boxes.

but had some problems from a technical standpoint: their "locking" ability was limited, and they were not versatile. In 1958 the bricks were improved with hollow tubes in the underside of the brick. This added support in the base, enabling much better locking ability and improved versatility. The company patented the new design, as well as several similar designs to avoid competition. Ole Kirk Christiansen died that same year, and Godtfred inherited leadership of the company.

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Change to Plastic Bricks, 1960-1969

1-4 This picture is from a set of Legos in 1967, when they started to focus on making Lego train sets.

History

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Another warehouse fire struck the Lego Group in 1960, consuming most of the company's inventory of wooden toys. Godtfred decided that the plastic line was strong enough to abandon production of wooden toys. As a result, Godtfred's brothers Gerhardt (then head of wooden toys) and Karl Georg left the Lego company and began a separate company "Bilofix". By the end of the year, the Lego Group was employing more than 450 people. In 1961, Lego wished to expand sales to North America, but did not have the logistical capabilities to do so. Lego made an arrangement allowing Samsonite to begin producing and selling Lego products in the United States and Canada. 1961 and 1962 saw the introduction of the first Lego wheels, an addition that expanded the potential for building cars, trucks, buses and other vehicles from Lego bricks.

1-6 Another view of a set of battery-driven controlled set of port and ship. Note that the ground became gray as it is concrete, while it is blue for sea in image 1.5.

Also during this time, the Lego Group introduced toys specifically targeted towards the pre-school market. In 1963, cellulose acetate, the material used to create Lego bricks, was replaced by the more stable acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS plastic), which is still used today. ABS is non-toxic, is less prone to discolouration and warping, and is more resistant to heat, acids, salt, and other chemicals. Samsonite manufacturing in North America did not switch at the same time, and still used some degree of cellulose acetate in its Lego products. 1964 was the first year that instruction manuals were included in Lego sets. One of the LEGO Group's most successful series,[citation needed] the Lego train system, was released in 1966. The original train sets included a 4.5-volt motor, battery box and rails; two years later, a 12-volt

History

1-5 This is a set of batterydriven controlled set of port and ship. Note that there were wheels under the ship.

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1-7 In 1969, the Duplo system went on sale. Duplo bricks are much larger than Lego bricks, making them safer for young children.

Legoland Billund is today the most visited tourist attraction in Jylland. Five other Legolands have been built in other parts of the world: Windsor, 1996; California, 1999; Germany, 2002; Florida, 2011; Malaysia, 2012. motor was introduced.On 7 June 1968, the first Legoland Park was opened in Billund. This theme park featured elaborate models of miniature towns built entirely from Lego bricks. The three acre (12,000 m²) park attracted 625,000 visitors in its first year alone. During the next 20 years, the park grew to more than eight times its original size, and eventually averaged close to a million paying visitors per year. More than eighteen million Lego sets were sold in 1968. In 1969, the Duplo system went on sale. Duplo bricks are much larger

than Lego bricks, making them safer for young children, but the two systems are compatible: Lego bricks can be fitted neatly onto Duplo bricks, making the transition to the Lego system easily made as children outgrow their Duplo bricks. The name Duplo comes from the Latin word duplus, which translates literally as double, meaning that a Duplo brick is exactly twice the dimension of a Lego building brick (2× height by 2× width by 2× depth = 8× the volume of a brick).

History

1-8 On 7 June 1968, the first Legoland Park was opened in Billund. This theme park featured elaborate models of miniature towns built entirely from Lego bricks. The three acre (12,000 mÂ˛) park attracted 625,000 visitors in its first year alone.

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Expansion, 1970-1991

During the last three decades of the 20th century Lego expanded into new areas of toy making and marketing. In 1971, Lego began to target girls by introducing furniture pieces and dollhouses. In 1972, Lego added boat and ship sets, with floating hull pieces. During this same period, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen's son, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, joined the managerial staff, after earning business degrees in Switzerland and Denmark. One of Kjeld's first achievements with the company was the foundation of manufacturing facilities, as well as a research and development department that would be responsible for keeping the company's manufacturing methods up to date. Human figures with posable arms made an appearance in 1974 in "Lego family" sets, which went on to become the biggest sellers at the time; in the same year, an early version of the "minifigure" miniature Lego person was introduced, but it was not posable and had no face printed on its head. A Lego production plant was opened in Enfield, Connecticut in the

1-9 The Lego Group became one of the top 10 toy companies in this year; it was the only toy company in Europe to be among the top 10. Legoland Billund had more than one million visitors in this year, for the first time in its history.

History

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1-10 The first Shell sets were released in 1966. These were only available in Europe though. In the US, only sets with Exxon livery were released. Beginning in 1986, Shell sets were also released in the US.

United States. In 1975 "Expert Series" sets were introduced, geared towards older, more experienced Lego builders followed by the "Expert Builder" sets in 1977. The technical sets featured moving parts such as gears, differentials, cogs, levers, axles and universal joints, and permitted the construction of realistic models such as automobiles, with functional rack and pinion steering and lifelike engine movements. In 1978 the Lego "minifigure" was added. These small Lego people have posable arms and legs, and a smile. The figure was used in many varieties of Lego sets, allowing construction of towns populated with the smiling minifigure Lego citizens.

Kristiansen became the president of Lego in this year. Since the 1960s,educators saw Lego bricks' constructive potential as being an invaluable asset in helping children to develop creativity and problem-solving abilities. Teachers had been using Lego bricks in the classroom for a variety of reasons. In 1980, the Lego Group established the Educational Products Department (eventually renamed Lego Dacta, in 1989), to expand the educational possibilities of their toys. A packing and assembly factory opened in Switzerland, followed by another in Jutland, Denmark that manufactured Lego tires.

In 1979 Lego expanded into space with the creation of Lego Space sets with astronaut minifigures, rockets, lunar rovers and spaceships and the Scala series, featuring jewelry elements marketed towards young girls. Kjeld Kirk

Between the 1960s and 90s Lego worked with Royal Dutch Shell in allowing Shell branding on certain items. In 1981, the second generation of Lego trains appeared. As before, these were available in either 4.5 V (battery powered) or 12 V

History

(mains powered), but with a much wider variety of accessories, including working lights, remote-controlled points and signals, and decouplers.

1-11 In 1978, the LEGO mini figure with moveable arms and legs was introduced. By 2011, more than 4,000,000,000 had been produced. The image above is from1978 US Patent Drawing.

The "Expert Builder" series matured in 1982, becoming the "Technic" series. August 13 of that year marked the Lego Group's 50th anniversary; the book 50 Years of Play was published to commemorate the occasion. In the following year, the Duplo system was expanded to include sets for even younger audiences, particularly infants; new sets included baby rattles and figures with adjustable limbs. The year after, Lego minifigure citizens gained a realm of knights and horses, with the introduction of the first Castle sets. Light & Sound sets made their appearance in 1985; these sets included a battery pack with electrical lights, buzzers, and other accessories to add another dimension of realism to Lego creations. Also that

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1-12 Early Space sets had a simplistically modern yet colourful charm unrivaled by any other mass-produced science-fiction toy of the time. Many of the themeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more specialized pieces had yet to be developed, although when Space was first introduced, many parts were new, or were older parts made in new colours. Examples of these early simple sets include 462 Rocket Launcher (1978), and 442 Space Shuttle, and 452 Mobile Tracking Station (both 1979).

History

1-13 New system of Dacta released in 1988, this theme is circus.

year, the Lego Group's educational division produced the Technic Computer Control, which was an educational system whereby Technic robots, trucks, and other motorized models could be controlled with a computer. Manaus, Brazil gained a Lego factory in this year, as well. In 1984, the Technic line was expanded with the addition of pneumatic components. This Lego model of a composite of London, including a motorized model of a London Underground train controlled by computers, can be seen in Legoland Windsor. In August 1988, 38 children from 17 different countries took part in the first Lego World Cup building contest, held in Billund. That same year, Lego Canada was established. The Lego line grew again in 1989 with the release of the Lego Pirates series, which featured a variety of pirate ships, desert islands and treasure; the

series was also the first to depart from the standard minifigure smiling face to create an array of piratical characters. The Lego Group's Educational Products Department was renamed Lego Dakta in this year; the name is derived from the Greek word "didactic", which roughly means "the study of the learning process." MIT's Dr. Seymour Papert, from the Laboratory of Computer Learning, was named "Lego Professor of Learning Research," after his ongoing work in linking the Logo programming language with Lego products. Until 1989 Lego minifigures only came in a yellow skin color with standard smiling face, though early prototypes had a variety of skin colors and facial expressions. Lego Pirates in 1989 expanded the array of facial expressions with beards and eye patches, followed by sun glasses, lipstick, eyelashes, and so on. However, many older collectors resented the new look, saying they looked too "cartoon-

1-14 Pirate is a Pirates minifigure introduced in 1989. The minifigure has appeared in only one set from 1989 through the present date. In the themes they have been included in, they often fought Imperial Soldiers.

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1-15 The faction was introduced in 1987 when the set 6066 Camouflaged Outpost was released. This set included the iconic forestman hats, but not the stag emblem, as Forestmen did not officially become a faction until the next year.

ish" or "kiddy", and preferred the simplistic nature of the two eyes and smile.In 1990 a new series designed for advanced builders was released. Three Model Team sets, including a race car and an off-road vehicle, featured a level of detail and realism not previously seen in any Lego series. Where Technic was mechanically accurate, Model Team was visually and stylistically accurate. The Lego Group became one of the top 10 toy companies in this year; it was the only toy company in Europe to be among the top 10. Legoland Billund had more than one million visitors in this year, for the first time in its history. The first-ever "Lego Professor of Business Dynamics," Xavier Gilbert, was appointed to an endowed chair at the International Institute for Management

Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. Lego Malaysia was also established in 1990. In 1991, the Lego Group standardized its electrical components and systems; the Trains and Technic motors were made 9V to bring the systems into line with the rest of the Lego range. In 1992 two Guinness records were set using Lego products: A castle made from 400,000 Lego bricks, and measuring 4.45 meters by 5.22 meters, was built on Swedish television, and a 545 meters long Lego railway line with three locomotives was constructed. Duplo was augmented with the addition of the Toolo line featuring a screwdriver, wrench, nuts and bolts; the Paradisa line, targeted towards girls, brought a variety of new pastel colors into

History

the Lego system and focused around horses and a beach theme. In 1993 a Duplo train and a parrot-shaped "brickvac" that could scoop Lego pieces up off the floor were released. A model of St Paul's Cathedral in London can be seen in Legoland Windsor. It is made of thousands of Lego bricks. The rotating model of the London Eye in the background is also made of Lego bricks. In the late 1990s, the Lego Group brought out a series of new and specialized ranges aimed at particular demographics. The Slizers/Throwbots line preceded the Bionicle range, and uses Technic pieces and specialist moldings to create a set of action figures for boys, while Belville is a more conventional line aimed at girls and featuring large posable figures like

1-16 The package of Pirate is a Pirates minifigure introduced in 1989. In the themes they have been included in, they often fought Imperial Soldiers.

those in the Technic range. A "Lego 4 Juniors" group features 2-inch (51 mm) tall medium-sized figures ("medi-figure") without jointed arms, and longer legs than the classic Lego minifigure. In 2003, the Lego Group introduced a completely new system, Clikits, aimed at girls and consisting of customizable plastic jewelry and accessories. In 2004, Lego added the QUATRO brick, for ages 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;3. Much like Duplo, a Quatro brick is four times the dimension of a regular Lego brick. is compatible with the Duplo brick. Also that year, they created the second line of Knights Kingdom themed product.

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Decline, 1992-2004

Lego's profits had declined since 1992, and in 1998 it posted its first ever loss, at £23 million. In the same year the company laid off 1000 employees. In 1999 the first Lego products featuring licensed characters, i.e. not designed inhouse, were Lego Star Wars and Winnie the Pooh Duplo, followed in 2000 by Lego Harry Potter characters to figures from other Steven Spielberg movies. Soren Holm, the head of Lego Concept Lab said toy weapons had always been heavily debated, but that since the Lego Star Wars release Lego has grown "more comfortable with conflict". Mr Laursen, executive North American operations suggested to make “violence not explicit, but humoristic.” After 1999 a number of in-house characters were strongly characterised with media utilisation and non-Lego System merchandising, most notably Bionicle from 2001-2010.

In 2004 Lego posted a loss of £174 million, with executive vice-president of marketing Mads Nipper later describing the company as having been "almost bankrupt" at this point. He analysed in retrospect that "we continued to invest as if the company were growing strongly. We failed to realise that we were on a slippery path…. Children were getting less and less time to play. Some of the western markets had fewer and fewer children. So play trends changed, and we failed to change. We were not making toys that were sufficiently interesting to children. We failed to innovate enough. And we had nowhere cut deep enough to right-size the company". In 2004 Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen resigned as CEO and appointed Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, the first non-family CEO. The four Legoland parks were sold to theme-park operators, and manufacturing that had been outsourced to 80% was returned to Lego's control.

History

1-16 The first ever Lego official website, www.lego. com is launched.

1-17 Orient Expedition was one of the various subthemes of Adventurers released in 2003 and discontinued in 2005. These LEGO sets featured Johnny Thunder and his fellow scientists and adventurers. It was unique in that every set above 100 pieces came with stat cards and/or a piece of a game board that could be added to the Orient Expedition Board Game to maximize fun. This is was the last subtheme of Adventurers.

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Recovery, 2005-present

1-18 Lego started to corporate with movie industry to produce 3D based video game in late 2000s.

The company focused on its core products and reintroduced Duplo. Since 2004 manufacturing moved to Mexico and distribution from Billund to Central Europe. By 2007 a global workforce of 9,100 in 1998 was reduced to 4,200 due to outsourcing. In the US alone Lego sales increased 32 percent, because of “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” themed games, while globally 2008 sales increased 18.7 percent. Mr Laursen, Lego executive of North American operations said in 2009 that licenses played a bigger role in the American market than overseas. About 60 percent of Lego’s American sales were

estimated to be linked to licenses, twice that of 2004. Laursen stated in 2009 that Lego was "definitely more commercially oriented”. In 2009, both Lego Games (board games) and Lego Power Miners were introduced; despite the Great Recession profits for 2009 were £99.5 million, with Mads Nipper, Lego executive vice-president of marketing stating to be "delivering twice the return on sales of any competitor".

History

1-19 LEGO Games is a line of brick-built board games introduced in July 2009. Currently it comprises twenty-nine games, and thirty-three different sets. Unlike previous LEGO board game releases such as Chess or Tic tac toe, the LEGO Games line features original games developed by LEGO in conjunction with veteran designers from various game industries.

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1-20 The LEGO Movie, originally named LEGO: The Piece of Resistance and later LEGO: The Motion Picture, is a movie released in theaters February 7th 2014 (USA and North America), 14 February 2014 (Europe and Asia) and 3 April 2014 (Australia). It is rated PG, and is a cross between stopmotion and computer generated animation. It came out on DVD and Blu-ray on June, 17th.

In 2011 Lego resumed a long-term contract with Royal Dutch Shell, after using its logo on products from the 1960s through to the 1990s. This co-branding was criticised by Greenpeace in 2014. In 2012 an animated short film titled The LEGO Story made by Danish studio Lani Pixels for the 80th anniversary of Lego, depicted the struggles of Ole Kirk Christiansen and his son Godtfred Kirk Christiansen from 1932-1968, as they worked to make the company successful. In 2014, Warner Bros and The Lego Group released The Lego Movie, a computeranimated adventure comedy film telling the story of an ordinary Lego minifigure prophesied to save the world. It received one of the highest recorded openings for an original animated movie, and the Los Angeles Times noted "nearly unanimous positive reviews" for the film.

History

Industry

Industry The Lego Group is a family-owned company based in Billund, Denmark, and best known for the manufacture of Lego brand toys.The company was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Christiansen. The word Lego is derived from the Danish words “leg godt”, meaning “play well.” The word “lego” also means “I gather together” in Latin, and “I connect” or “I tie” in Italian. As of 2014 the Lego Group is the world’s largest toy manufacturer, surpassing Mattel, previously holding that position. The history of Lego spans nearly 100 years, beginning with the creation of small wooden playthings during the early 20th century. Manufacturing of plastic lego bricks began in Denmark in 1949, but since has grown to include factories throughout the world. Today, the company is an iconic brand.

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Design

2-1 Dimensions of some standard Lego bricks and plates. Nominal dimensions of standard Lego bricks.

Lego pieces of all varieties constitute 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 the current time, and Lego sets for young children are compatible with those made for teenagers. Six pieces of 2x4 bricks can be combined in 915,103,765 ways. Each Lego piece must be manufactured to an exacting degree of precision. When two pieces are engaged they must fit firmly, yet be easily disassembled. The machines

that make Lego bricks have tolerances as small as 2 micrometres. 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

Industry

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 modelling software 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 â&#x20AC;&#x153;validationâ&#x20AC;? process. Designs may then be altered in

2-2 LEGO Digital Designer

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 organisation, such as for marketing and packaging. A computer program (LEGO Digital Designer) is available for consumers to create their own digital designs, and a similar tool is available for the Chrome browser. A service to ship physical models from LDD to consumers ended in 2012.

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Industry

2-3 This artwork series is based upon vintage US patent drawings of ingenious inventions, in this case, a 1961 Toy Building Brick. This patent is for interlocking toy bricks, a.k.a. the favorite childhood toy of budding architects, LEGO速 Bricks.

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Manufacture

2-4 This is a close-up look of a mould used to produce LEGO elements in producing process.

Since 1963, Lego pieces have been manufactured from a strong, 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 optimised by way of mould flow and stress analysis. Prototype moulds 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 moulds at pressures between 25 and 150 tons, and takes approximately 15 seconds to cool. The moulds are permitted a tolerance of up to two micrometres, to ensure the bricks remain connected. Human inspectors check the output of the moulds, to eliminate significant variations in colour or thickness. According to the Lego Group, about eighteen bricks out of every million fail to meet the standard required. Lego factories recycle all but about 1 percent of their plastic waste from

the manufacturing process. If the plastic cannot be re-used in Lego bricks, it is processed and sold on to industries that can make use of it. Manufacturing of Lego bricks occurs at a number of locations around the world. Moulding is done in Billund, Denmark; Nyíregyháza, Hungary; and Monterrey, Mexico. Brick decorations and packaging is done at plants in Denmark, Hungary, Mexico and Kladno in the Czech Republic. The Lego Group estimates that in the course of five decades it has produced some 400 billion Lego blocks. Annual production of Lego bricks averages approximately 36 billion per year, or about 1140 elements per second. If all the Lego bricks ever produced were to be divided equally among a world population of six billion, each person would have 62 Lego bricks. According to an article in BusinessWeek in 2006, Lego could be considered the world’s No. 1 tyre manufacturer; the factory produces about 306 million small rubber tyres a year. The claim was reiterated in 2012.

In December 2012, the BBC’s More or Less programme asked the Open University’s engineering department to determine “how many Lego bricks, stacked one on top of the other, it would take to destroy the bottom brick?” Using a hydraulic testing machine, the engineering department determined the average maximum force a 2×2 Lego brick can stand is 4,240 newtons; since an average 2×2 Lego brick has a mass of 1.152 grams (0.0406 oz), according to their calculations it would take a stack of 375,000 bricks to cause the bottom brick to collapse, which represents a stack 3,591 metres (11,781 ft) in height. Private tests have shown several thousand assemblydisassembly cycles before wear-out, although Lego test for fewer cycles.

Education

Education There are no ballpoint grenade pens, no wrist-mounted dart guns, no Aston Martins tricked out with smoke screens, bulletproof glass, revolving license plates or ejector seats. Still, the geek-approved contraptions at Lego’s research-and-development facility in Billund, Denmark, are as covetable as anything cooked up by Q Branch. Q Branch, of course, is the section of Her Majesty’s Secret Service (MI6) that supplies James Bond with fanciful gadgetry. The headquarters of MI6 is a ziggurat-like fortress known within the intelligence community as Legoland. It gets its name from the toy company that has supplied earth with more than 600 billion tiny plastic bricks—about 80 for each inhabitant. The Lego company’s own HQ is a modest campus as neat and well-ordered as a quadratic equation. Huge colored bricks—a corporate nod to art—lie scattered in tidy piles, and simple rectangular buildings bear names like Idea House and Head Office.

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With programmable robots and student competitions, Lego is making “tinkering with machines cool again”

Lego’s own MI6, its top-secret R & D lab, is on the second floor of a drab brick structure called the Tech Building. Inside, gearheads in jeans and fleece pullovers are surrounded by enough electronic ganglia to jump-start Frankenstein’s monster. Amid a spaghetti of wires and a blaze of red, green, blue, yellow and purple blocks is an amazing array of robot prototypes, all capable of exasperating behavior. Some of these marvels propel themselves on Lego wheels; others skitter around on Lego legs. There’s a scorpionlike robot that turns sharply, snaps its claws and searches for an infrared beacon “bug.” There’s a Mohawked android that flings little red balls as it rumbles. And there’s a fanged robot snake that, with the wave of a smartphone, shakes, rattles and rolls. Dangle your cell in front of the serpent’s head and it lunges to bite you. All three gizmos are characters in Mindstorms EV3, the latest update of a do-it-yourself kit that enables budding Edisons to assemble robots, program them on PCs and Macs, and control them

via Bluetooth, downloadable apps and voice commands. Like any other Lego, Mindstorms EV3 is a jumble of parts (nearly 600 separate elements) that can be plugged together many ways. The toy, which clocks in at $350 and will be in stores this fall, comes with 3-D interactive building instructions for 17 different bots that walk, talk and stalk. And, this being Lego, enterprising kids are encouraged to hack away and turn the components into whatever they can dream up. Once upon a time, teachers lacked the tools to excite and engage pupils in engineering. And the technological knowhow required to put together a juddering robot limited the audience to high-school and university students. That all changed in 1998 when Lego launched its first wave of programmable bots. By the second wave, in 2006, the programming language had become visual and kids could make bots do pretty much anything simply by stringing directives together on a computer. “Today a second grader can make her own wall-

Education

3-1 EV3 Bundle, one of Robotics kit produced by Lego in the box.

3-2 This is LEGO Education Wheels Set, which components create the roof, wheel assembly, and chassis system for up to 12 different vehicles at the same time. It is suitable for ages four years and older.

Education

a second grader can make her own wallavoiding triceratops in 20 minutes,” says Chris Rogers, a professor of mechanical engineering at Tufts University. With bricks, action and hues as vibrant as tropical sunsets, Lego created a way for novices to learn the basics of structural engineering: bracing, tension and compression, loading constraints, building to scale. By combining Lego bricks to sensors, servo motors and microprocessors, those novices can now explore everything from basic pulleys and belts to computer programming. “Mindstorms EV3 makes tinkering with machines cool again,” says Ralph Hempel, author of Lego Spybiotics Secret Agent Training Manual. Mindstorms encourages young tinkerers to play their way into robotics. “It puts no limits on your fantasies,” says Niels Pugholm, a Danish college student who’s been playing with Legos from the time he was old enough to know he shouldn’t swallow them. “Most toys pre-tell a story; Mindstorms is exploratory and has no set rules. If I construct a Mars rover robot, I can rebuild it into a robotic arm and then a robotic humanoid. Lego robotics is a sneaky educational way to learn about design, planning, construction and, most importantly, reconstruction.” In Denmark, he says, it’s obligatory for a child to

build a Babel Tower out of Legos that “inevitably gets demolished.” The EV3 is the third generation of demolishable Mindstorms, and the second that’s been crowd-sourced. “The power of many,” says Marc-André Bazergui, one of a dozen Lego citizen developers—who call themselves the 12 Monkeys—impaneled to design the latest edition. Over the years, the many have fashioned Lego bots that solve Rubik’s Cubes, sort M&M’s by color and convert conventional toilets into robo-flushers. Part of the so-called “maker movement,” Mindstorms’ fanatic online community shares ideas by uploading plans for new creations to Lego forums and posting videos to YouTube. Across the globe, schoolchildren belong to leagues and hold tournaments in which teams are challenged to design, build and program a Lego robot to complete a specific task related to a theme like climate control or transportation safety. In the United States, competitions are run by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a nonprofit founded by the seemingly inexhaustible inventor Dean Kamen (creator of the Segway scooter). Every spring FIRST holds championships in four robotics divisions, spanning ages 6 to 18. At this year’s three-day Lego block party at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, 650 teams

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The kids make an educated guess and then run experiments to prove their theories,” he says. “They see that there is no right or wrong answer, just an infinite number of ways to address a problem. Learning that is as critical to engineering as it is to life.

vied for robotic superiority and more than $16 million in scholarships to 140 colleges. Half of all stateside middle schools and about a quarter of all elementary and high schools have folded Mindstorms into their curricula. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a Lego Chair, which is not a chesterfield made of Lego bricks, but an endowed professorship at the college’s media lab. At Tufts, the robotics sets have evoked an equal number of dissertations and disquisitions with catchy titles like “Teaching Basic Cardio-Vascular Mechanics with Lego Models: A High School Case Study.” Rogers worked with Lego to develop Robolab—a robotic approach to learning science and math—that’s been used in some 50,000 schools worldwide and has been translated into 15 languages. He stresses design thinking, the idea that you frame a problem by first imagining its solution. His approach is based on demonstration, critique and iteration: Everything can be made better, even failure. “The kids make an educated guess and then run

experiments to prove their theories,” he says. “They see that there is no right or wrong answer, just an infinite number of ways to address a problem. Learning that is as critical to engineering as it is to life.” Samuel Beckett exhorted: “Fail better.” In Danish, Lego is pronounced LEEgo. In English, the construction craze that has gripped the civilized world is pronounced LEEgoMAINia. An Italian artist painstakingly re- created the works of old masters in Legos, including da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring. A Chicago artist has designed Lego miniscale sets of the White House, the Sydney Opera House and 15 other eminent edifices. Others have gone to extraordinary lengths to assemble the world’s largest Lego bridge (122 feet), the world’s longest Lego train track (4,923 feet) and the world’s tallest Lego tower (106 feet, seven inches; 450,000 bricks). It would take 40 billion eight-stud Lego bricks to build a stack to the moon, though no one has yet attempted this. Not only does every significant new NASA

Education

3-3 Young school student test their Lego car through a narrow ruler in an engineer class.

spacecraft and mission now beget its own Lego model, but astronauts aboard the International Space Station have built them in orbit. There are Lego Darth Vader clocks, Lego Ninjago video games and a Lego Quidditch match. A year from now the animated adventure film LEGO: The Piece of Resistance is due in theaters. Featuring characters voiced by Will Ferrell and Morgan Freeman, the cartoon promises to be a real, ahem, blockbuster. At last count, four of the top 10 children’s chapter books on the New York Times best-seller list were from Lego. One of them, The Lego Ideas Book, carries the tag line “Unlock Your Imagination.” Imagination is what has guided Lego from its founding in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen, a Geppetto-

like carpenter with a small workshop in Billund, a rural hamlet in Jutland with the topography of a pancake. In a bid to beat the Great Depression, Kristiansen started making brightly colored wooden cars and pull-along ducks. Having concluded that his toy company needed a more evocative name than Billund Maskinsnedkeri, he truncated the expression leg godt, Danish for “play well.’’ In a fortuitous coincidence, Lego means “I put together” in Latin. Lego, as understood by most adults, began in 1949, shortly after Kristiansen bought Denmark’s first injection-molding machine and began cranking out toys with some plastic parts. According to Lego legend, he happened upon some hollow, British-made blocks

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3-4 Teachers and educationalists gain handson experience of Lego Educate and to learn more about how the Academy can add value in their school.

Education

called Kiddicraft, which inspired his own Automatic Binding Bricks, the forerunner of the Lego brick. The design breakthrough was a studs-and-tubes mechanism that allowed the bricks to snap together, hold fast and yet somehow come easily apart. “Legos are the ultimate symbols of Danish character,” Niels Pugholm says. “They’re unassuming little objects that depend on logic and geometry. Perhaps because Denmark has so few natural resources, ingenuity is treasured.” In 1958—the year of Kristiansen’s death— Lego patented its click-fit technology, which the company calls “clutch power.” The key is precision engineering; the tolerance of Lego’s Danish Modern prongs is one-fiftieth of a millimeter, ten times finer than a human hair. Over the next half-century Lego became one of the world’s most beloved toys. Roughly half the parents on the planet have been woken up by a disturbance in the middle of the night, dashed groggily into their kid’s bedroom and stepped barefoot on a Lego brick. “Children are fantastic little creatures,” Mads Nipper, the company’s marketing chief , has said. “Next to drunk people, they are the only truly honest people on earth.” As the millennium approached, Lego exploited that honesty by going on a branding bender. The family-run firm made forays into children’s clothing, baby products, jewelry, video games and theme parks.

But something was rotting in the state of Denmark. By 2004 Lego had made some blockheaded financial decisions and was on the brink of bankruptcy or a takeover by Mattel, the world’s biggest toy retailer. Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, CEO and grandson of the founder, appointed former management consultant Jorgen Vig Knudstorp to replace him and rebuild Lego, brick by brick. Which Knudstorp did, cutting costs, laying off staff, halving development times, scrapping the software division and slashing product lines. Seemingly relegated to the Great Toy Attic in the Sky, Lego made a remarkable turnaround. One line Knudstorp left untouched was Mindstorms, which began life 15 years ago in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab. “The original patent on our interlocking brick expired in 1975,” says Nipper. “The only way to continue differentiating ourselves from our competitors was through creativity.” And not necessarily Lego’s own creativity: The company has outsourced Mindstorms innovation to its hard-core fan base. The relationship between Mindstorms and its enthusiasts had always been symbiotic. A couple of months after the debut of the robotics kit in 1998, Stanford University graduate student Kekoa Proudfoot reverseengineered its proprietary microprocessors and posted the design secrets. Other hackers pounced on his findings, designed

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new software and operating systems, and shared performance tweaks with the rest of the Internet. While Lego’s management and legal team debated how to handle the breach, Nipper suggested that the company should encourage open-sourcing. Suing the modders, he reasoned, might alienate Lego’s adult hobbyists, who accounted for nearly half of Mindstorms sales and were, essentially, willing to work for free. In the company’s new business paradigm, development should be fandriven and fan-controlled, with very little oversight from Lego. So little that a “right to hack” was written into the Mindstorms software license. “We came to understand that limiting creativity is the opposite of our mission,” Nipper says. “Our goal is to foster inquiry and ingenuity.” The strategy paid off: Mindstorms became the best-selling product in Lego’s history. In 2005, with the kit due for a design upgrade, Lego trolled through online forums and websites for adult fanboys willing to be part of a Mindstorms User Panel, or MUP. The four finalists—all sworn to secrecy—and Lego’s engineering brain trust spent 11 months swapping e-mails about everything from firmware to input ports. In return for their contributions, the MUPpets got paid in Legos. “It’s the best possible relationship,” says panelist

Ralph Hempel, a professional engineer who specializes in embedded systems design. “Money would complicate the issue. There is no other brand in the world that I would consider doing similar work for at no charge. Getting advance copies of robotics kits is just icing on the cake for me.” For the latest version of Mindstorms, Lego expanded its user panel to a dozen brickheads (the 12 Monkeys) and studied how kids interact with robotic toys. Camilla Bottke, the company’s senior marketing manager, says kids don’t view robots as objects as much as extensions of themselves, things with character and personalities. “I think that’s a great concept, right up until the child has to build the robot and program it,” offers Hempel. “That’s when the reality sinks in of how much thinking and tinkering goes into making a design work.” “You say you want a revolution,” sang a skeptical John Lennon. “Well, you know, we all want to change the world.” The problem with the digital revolution, echoes Dean Kamen, is that the ability to play with technology is often confused with the ability to understand it. The 62-yearold engineer and entrepreneur holds forth from a hexagon- shaped house of his own design on the outskirts of Manchester, New Hampshire. He wears what is virtually his

Education

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3-6 The Stair Climber is one of six models that can be built using the EV3 Core Set with the EV3 Expansion Set.

uniform: an open-neck button-down denim shirt and denim pants. Kamen dropped out of college to develop the world’s first wearable insulin pump. He went on to create the Segway; a self-balancing, six-wheeled robotic wheelchair capable of going up and down stairs; and an electrical generator that can run on cow dung and produce potable water on the side. Of all his inventions—and Kamen holds 441 foreign and domestic patents—the one he’s proudest of is FIRST, a largely mental sport based on competitive robotics. He started FIRST in 1989 to demystify engineering and grow a generation of innovators. “Too many high-school kids in this country, particularly women and minorities, drop out of science and math classes,” he says. “There’s no incentive, no encouragement.” Indeed, he argues, there are all sorts of subtle disincentives and discouragements. “Kids need access to challenging, hands-on projects that result in a tangible product. Instead of

telling them why abstract concepts like algebra or trigonometry are important, science teachers should say, ‘Let’s build a Lego robot!’ With a little assistance, the kids build one and it solves a problem. Suddenly, they realize that math and science are very powerful tools. Suddenly, math and science are relevant and fun.” Kamen envisions a time when youngsters revere pioneering scientists as much as, say, NBA superstars. “The one thing American culture celebrates is sports heroes,” he says. “Lots of athletic teenagers think they’re going to make a fortune by bouncing a basketball and becoming the next LeBron James. That’s not realistic for even the tiniest percentage of them. Becoming an engineer is.” Still,

Education

Kamen concedes the innate differences between classrooms and playing fields have helped make careers in sports more attractive than ones in tech. “When athletes work together, it’s called teamwork,” he says. “If you work together in science class, it’s called cheating.” Though each team faces the same challenge, they devise vastly different design solutions. Local winners advance to one of the 58 regionals, where their bots battle for the chance to qualify for the finals in St. Louis. The championship is structured like March Madness, the NCAA Men’s Division I basketball tournament.

3-7 The Spinner Factory is the largest of six models that can be built using the EV3 Core Set with the EV3 Expansion Set, requiring 2 EV3 Intelligent Bricks.

Lego Art

Lego Art Artists have used Lego to create artwork, which is sometimes referred to as Lego art or brick art. Six people, in North America, Europe and Asia, have become Lego Certified Professionals; certified artists that use Lego bricks as their medium. The Lego Group recognizes their efforts and they have the ability to not only use the Lego name and copyrighted logo, but have earned a special, in-depth relationship with the company. They are Robin Sather, Dan Parker, Sean Kenney, Nathan Sawaya, Rene Hoffmeister and Nicholas Foo. Lego bricks have been employed to replicate famous works of art in a mosaic motif, often for the promotion of a Lego event or relating to the replicated artwork. There have been many art-related records (especially mosaics) set by using Lego bricks. The largest Lego mosaic record was set on May 5-7th in 2012, consisting of over 660,000 pieces and measuring 143.91 sq. meters.[9][10] It appears another world record attempt it under way to build a Lego mosaic of over 2,000,000 pieces as of January 2014.

Lego Art

Nathan Sawaya

Nathan Sawaya is a New York-based artist who creates awe-inspiring works of art out of some of the most unlikely things. His recent global museum exhibitions feature large-scale sculptures using only toy building blocks. LEGO® bricks to be exact. A full-time independent artist, Sawaya accepts commission requests and shows his art in galleries in New York, Miami and Maui. He’s available to design and build custom creations for private collectors, events, photo shoots and conventions. In addition, he occasionally makes himself available for speaking requests and is the author of two best-selling books.Sawaya was the first artist to ever take LEGO into the art world. His unique sculptures and touring exhibition, THE ART OF THE BRICK, continues to inspire creativity as well as break attendance records around the global.Born in Colville, Washington and raised in Veneta, Oregon, Sawaya’s childhood dreams were always fun. He drew cartoons, wrote stories, perfected magic tricks and also played with LEGO. Sawaya attended NYU. After college he rediscovered LEGO but not as a toy, but rather as a medium.

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Where do you get all of your bricks? I buy all of my bricks just like everyone else. Are you looking for an assistant or apprentice? I am always looking for good talent. You can email your resume to my current assistant. She will evaluate if you should take her job.

” Sawaya is a surrealist mash-up of forms and artists. Imagine Frank Lloyd Wright crossed with Ray Harryhausen, or Auguste Rodin crossed with Shigeru Miyamoto, and you start to get a sense of where Sawaya is coming from.” — journalist Scott Jones

How long does it take you to build a sculpture? It takes as much time as I have. Some sculptures take hours, some take days and some take months. A life-size human form sculpture typically takes 2-3 weeks depending on complexity. How many bricks does a sculpture use? Just depends on the size of the sculpture. A life-size human form sculpture typically has 15000-25000 bricks. A life-size ant takes less. What is the biggest thing you have ever made? I made a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton which is 20 feet in length. I also made an entire advertising billboard that measured 15 feet high and 53 feet long, using more than 500000 LEGO pieces. And I made my ego which is enormous. What is the smallest thing you have ever built? A tree. It had one brown piece on the bottom, and one green piece on top. It was not my most impressive sculpture.

Where do you get your inspiration and ideas? Inspiration comes from everywhere. Often my art is a reenactment of my own personal feelings. I am inspired by my own experiences, emotions and the journeys I am taking. Also, I surf the Internet. Do you sketch out your projects ahead of time? Yes, I sketch out almost all of my projects. I like to have an idea of what the finished sculpture will look like before I start building. Do you use a computer? Yes, I typed this entire Q&A on a computer. I also occasionally use a computer to help in determining body positioning and assist with the scaling of some sculptures. I also just eyeball it. Do you use glue? Yes, I find that museums and galleries get

Lego Art

grumpy when they open up a crate expecting to find a finished sculpture and find a pile of loose bricks. Since I ship sculptures all over the world, I now glue all my sculptures together so they are permanent pieces. What kind of glue do you use? I use a special plastics adhesive that I make from mixing goat milk with elf tears. Do you get special colors or bricks made for you by the LEGO company? No, I use the same LEGO bricks that you can buy in toy stores. The idea being that if you get inspired to make your own creation, you too can go use the exact same bricks that I use.

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I was using bricks from my childhood. They were 20 years old and still snapping together perfectly with brand new Lego sets I was buying. There was this crazy aspect about it, that this toy continues on, that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recycled through generations and still works. That you can take a toy from the 1970s and it still snaps together with a brand new brick 30, 40 years later is amazing.

Sawaya drew my inspiration from the many drawings that the campaign received from children across the country. Children were asked to draw and write about what they felt was important for the rebuilding of New Orleans. Through the thousands of pictures, He definitely noticed that no matter where they were from, all kids had very similar ideas about what was important for a city. It would need a fire station, a hospital, schools and a park. They were drawn in different styles and a plethora of colors, but He saw these themes repeated again and again. Other common themes included hotels, houses and libraries. In the end, He used these drawings as inspiration to create the sculpture.

Lego Art

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Sean Kenney

Lego Art

4-6 Sean Kenney in his studio and his big butterfly! The very much needed material, thousands pieces of bricks are in the background.

World-renowned artist Sean Kenney once fell into that grim majority. The man, who the New York Times calls the “artistic elite of LEGO-building,” worked as a cartoonist, illustrator and web designer for ten years before following his passion that began in childhood. Kenney, who calls himself a “professional kid,” says he was daydreaming about his favorite pastime one day when he symbolically tore off his tie and “just like that” walked out on a sterile desk job. Ten years later, Kenney is the author of several children’s books and his commissioned LEGO creations are in corporate headquarters, galleries and traveling exhibits around the world. Kenney’s mind-blowing “Nature Connects” exhibit at the Naples Botanical Gardens this past spring. Any guy who keeps two and half million LEGO bricks in his New York studio and tells people with a straight face that he is still 12-years old is my “kidness” hero and a perfect muse for this month’s blog focus on childlike playfulness. Kenney was kind enough to respond to my interview request while anxiously awaiting the overdue birth of his second child.

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It seems like most kids these days are building the pirate- and outer spacethemed LEGO kits, while you’ve devoted yourself to replicating real-life buildings and cities. Why? People build models based on what fascinates them. A kid will watch “The Matrix” and then pull out the LEGO pieces to build a hovercraft; I’ll walk along 7th Avenue in Manhattan and go model a cool high-rise. In fact, I was in Madrid a few weeks ago having lunch in a beautiful Spanish plaza, and out of nowhere I got an urge to build the entire plaza! I spent about 20 minutes photographing every building, tree, you name it. The local Spaniards were looking at me like I was crazy—”Some American took a picture of my garbage can!”

What scale do you build landmarks like that? Well, it really depends on how large a model I plan on building. A famous landmark like the Chrysler Building or Empire State Building can be easily recognized no matter how abstracted the model may be. I’ve built them as small as 1:2500 scale—only a few inches tall. But for structures with more ornate facades or more subtle curves and details, I need to build a model much larger before it begins to resemble something so specific. Generally 1:40 scale (the scale of the little LEGO people, called mini-figures) is sufficient to render the character, clutter and detail of a specific real-life place. At 1:20 scale (the scale that the LEGO theme parks are built at), the “blocky” nature of LEGO structures begins to disappear and more fluid curves can be built.

Lego Art

What scale is your model of Greenwich Village built at? My Greenwich Village model is 1:40 scale. When I built the Village, my challenge was to make all the buildings smaller than I was used to, but to cram in twice the detail in the process. Some buildings have signs of renovation or additions, as evident by changes of architectural style, while others still have window air conditioners, rooftop water towers and stone steps. Then there are fire hydrants, parking meters, crosswalk signs, trees, dumpsters, traffic lights, litter, you name it. And of course it’s not Greenwich Village without all the people: I’ve got LEGO folks stepping down on the pavement against the “Don’t Walk” sign waiting for a gap in traffic so they can cross, guys with bagel carts, someone running after a departing bus, window shoppers, tourists, folks tossing produce down through metal gates in the sidewalk and masses of people crossing an avenue as a taxi tries to poke its way through the crowd.

How long did it take to put that all together? The whole model took over six months of on-and-off construction and nearly 50,000 pieces. The model epitomizes the average New Yorker’s day, the things that are often skipped by tourists who are otherwise bound for The Empire State Building or the Bull at Bowling Green. I wanted to show the world the side of New York that New Yorkers are used to. Do you have any plans to create the rest of the city? Sean: Well, the city acts more like an inspiration than as a template. My model of Greenwich Village isn’t a literal reproduction of any particular street corner, or of actual buildings. I just wanted to capture the feel of the neighborhood. But there are some parts of town that I would like to create literal reproductions of at some point. Times Square comes to mind— complete with some little LCD televisions! I also thought it would be fun to research

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a random street corner and build it from the exact same angle in different time periods, say, in 1930, 1970 and today. You could watch it transform from paddy wagons to Vespas to SUVs as the buildings adapt (or crumble) over time. Mulberry Street seemed like a fun place to try out something like that. Have you ever considered quitting your day job and going to work for LEGO as a builder? Well, actually, I did quit my day job. I am self-employed and build LEGO models on commission. My clients range from marketing teams to grandmothers. Did you enter competition? Sean: I actually never entered the competition. I was in the process of moving from New York to Austin for my wedding. It wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the best time in the world to consider moving to California. The work in the theme park is also pretty hard; models are constantly being nibbled on by squirrels, bleached by the sun or rained on. Much of the job involves repairing and replacing the existing models.

Lego Art

How many LEGO pieces do you own? Sean: About a quarter million, although I haven’t really counted each one, and they’re going in and out the door pretty fast. That may sound like a lot, but without fail, whenever a new project comes along, I’ll never have what I need. I worked on a model last year that required about 10,000 clear LEGO pieces, and I only had a few hundred. I was on a tight deadline, so I bought out the entire supply of clear pieces from a LEGO store in New Jersey and another in Chicago. Roughly how much do you spend on this hobby each year? Well, it’s not a hobby anymore, per se, it’s a business, so the money spent on LEGO elements is paid for by my clients. This past year, I spent between $20,000 and $25,000 on LEGO pieces. Back when LEGO was still just my hobby, I gave myself a $200-per-

month budget. But I’m no millionaire, and bills got in the way, so I finally started limiting myself. I would dismantle old creations to build new ones, and I used as much of my collection—at the time, a mere 80,000 pieces—as I could for each major project. Limiting my budget actually helped spur my creativity. It forced me to say, “How can I build this model with what I have?” instead of, “I can build this model if I order 37 new little brown pieces.” Do you have a favorite LEGO creation? Sean: It’s hard to say. Perhaps my favorite is my sculpture of Homer Simpson. From the minute I was first inspired to build him, I barely slept until the model was done.

Cultural Exploration

Cultural Exploration They come in all colors and are synonymous with childhood: shiny building blocks used by children to expand their imagination and construct everything from castles to spaceships. At The LEGO Group’s U.S. headquarters, LEGO Systems, Inc., in Enfield, Conn., these building blocks, called bricks, are a way of life. The toy bricks are used for inspiration during business meetings; virtually every cubicle includes LEGO constructions; life-sized LEGO characters greet you as you stroll the lively office buildings; and even the lobby features LEGO-built chandeliers. Indeed, imagination, creativity and innovation are essential drivers of the corporation’s culture. They’re critical factors that help the privately owned company continue to expand globally and broaden its exposure to millions of children around the world.

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5-1 Lego watches are fully buildable and customisable from its strap links to watch faces. This allows the watch to cater to everyone’s style.

Central to that effort: a savvy HR team that instills the company’s culture in its 10,000 employees who span more than 130 countries. “Only the best is good enough.” This motto is painted on the walls of the LEGO Systems facility in Enfield. A motto that was created by the company’s founder nearly 80 years ago, it’s a quote that virtually every employee who works at The LEGO Group internalizes. The company has a high-performing culture — and nearly every decision that’s made is done with a focus on its core audience: children. With revenues last year of more than $4 billion, the world’s third largest manufacturer of play materials is clearly doing something right. According to The LEGO Group’s annual report for 2012, the Denmark-based

company has experienced yearly revenue growth of at least 15 percent for five years running. But with phenomenal growth comes a set of fresh challenges: the need to learn about new global markets and cultures and recruit the right talent for those regions — especially the company’s core mission and values. Moreover, the company knows it must continue to balance its trademarked physical construction toys with the opportunities of an increasingly digital world. And the HR team strives to pursue a unified agenda in the face of an array of different initiatives the growing company continues to pursue. Still, there’s one overriding initiative The LEGO Group’s capable HR team seems eager to accomplish: preserving the culture that has served the company so well in the

Cultural Exploration

last 80+ years in the face of organizational growth. “Focusing on leadership development is one way of preserving the LEGO culture,” says Shannon Paynter, HR manager for Global Talent Management, who holds the Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR®) credential. In the Enfield facility, it’s apparent that the atmosphere is conducive to having fun. Nearly every cube has a LEGO sculpture that reflects the occupant’s personality — anything from bright orange LEGO pencil and paper clip holders to custom LEGO character creations more than two feet tall. And there

are table tennis and foosball tables, flatscreen televisions with Wii game controls and outside volleyball and basketball courts. Children are also welcome at the facility. “The company’s atmosphere centers around play,” Paynter says, citing, in particular, the LEGO play areas found all throughout the campus that are often used by the children who visit. How does The LEGO Group maintain this same culture in every site around the world? Just ask Barbara Walton, SPHR, who recently assumed the role of director of Global Recruitment for The LEGO Group. Her role was created to understand

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Cultural Exploration

just this: how to build the correct strategies and processes to attract and retain the top talent needed for extensive global growth. Walton’s career in Enfield began 15 years ago. She started in an HR consultant role supporting the supply chain and moved into various other HR roles and projects before establishing a recruitment and employee relations service team in Enfield. According to Walton, The LEGO Group’s culture centers on a commitment to quality at all times. “When I say a commitment to quality, I mean quality of product and quality of staff,” she says. Walton says that The LEGO Group focuses on building relationships and that there is a culture of change and flexibility — traits that are key to the company’s continued success in the global marketplace. The company also makes a concerted effort to understand different cultures and styles of employees

5-3 The dress is embellished with over 5000 lego bricks and was made by Anne-Sophie Cochevelou, an art student from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design London.

from different countries. As The LEGO Group continues expanding into new markets such as China, Brazil and Singapore, Walton says she needs to focus on three key areas: attraction of new talent, selection of talent and the onboarding, or the organizational socialization, of new talent. Walton says she works with local partners and global e-recruitment software to find talent. But the selection system is still a work in progress. “How do we create a system that everyone uses and develop metrics to report globally?” she asks. She envisions a time when there will be Microsoft SharePoint spaces for recruiters around the globe to meet virtually. SharePoint is a business collaboration tool that enables colleagues globally to share and manage information. The LEGO Group has certainly come a long way since its founding in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen. The company, based in Billund,

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At LEGO Systems, collaboration and teamwork become “play.” In fact, a lot of fun happens when colleagues collaborate. Denmark, is still family owned, and this familial feeling continues to resonate despite the company being one of the world’s largest players in the toy sector. The word LEGO is an abbreviation of two Danish words, leg godt, which mean “play well”. This way of thinking is reflected ineverything the company does. The company’s mission is to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow. The mission has been at the core of the company since its inception. Most people are familiar with the infamous LEGO brick, but the first LEGO toys were wooden trucks and doll furniture. The

contemporary LEGO brick was launched in 1958, and now all of the company’s toys and materials are built around the brick. Tracy Michaud has been with The LEGO Group for nearly three years and says that the company has a high-performing culture — a culture that focuses on children’s creative development. Michaud, a senior HR business partner who also holds the SPHR credential, says the company wants to inspire the builders of tomorrow for a lifetime of creative learning and innovative thinking. “It’s LEGO over ego,” she says succinctly. This means working collaboratively and focusing on

5-4 The high heels are decorated with lego bricks and was made by AnneSophie Cochevelou, an art student from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design London.

Cultural Exploration

5-5 This Bruce Lee’s Portrait id produced by an Austrian company, Brixels, produces portraits of people using black and white Lego bricks.

solutions rather than the individual. She says there’s a level of healthy conflict that goes on in the workplace. But instead of creating tension, it creates great problem solving. And it is clear that “LEGO over ego” works. Michaud says that employee turnover is really low. She says, “I find my work here meaningful, engaging and rewarding.” Michaud began her tenure at the company in a senior HR operations role. She now supports the sales and marketing teams in North America. She says that her HR focus is to take the complexity out of the HR processes to allow the leaders to focus

on their businesses. This philosophy helps her address an important question: “How can we be scalable and adaptable as the company continues to grow?” Michaud says the biggest challenge is that there are so many initiatives the company wants to tackle that choosing an individual focus can sometimes be difficult. “We have to create one HR agenda.” Paynter agrees that change is important, but several LEGO values remain constant. In fact, she has been with LEGO Systems for more than 19 years, and during her tenure, she has had the opportunity to experience different areas of the company.

A Lego sculpture depicting a scene of protesters confronting riot police is displayed on a table outside government headquarters in Hong Kong on October 20th, 2014.

Bricker

She says that professional development of employees is very important and that The LEGO Group’s success stems from three things: the quality of its products, its highly talented staff and the company’s unwavering vision. In fact, Paynter’s current role is on the leadership development side, and her team develops initiatives that HR business partners will roll out around the world. Paynter’s entire team sits in Billund, where she visits once a month, and she runs most of her meetings through Microsoft Lync, an online meeting and video conferencing tool She says she loves her job because the

company’s HR function is so integrated with the business. And the company places a lot of value on the work-life balance of its employees. A yearly survey called the Pulse Survey — in which 98 percent of employees participate — is administered so that the company can understand employee motivation, satisfaction and ways to simplify processes. Michaud says that the CEO of The LEGO Group takes the survey results very seriously. In fact, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp goes to leadership forums to present the results and discuss ways to improve. Indeed,

In an annual reputation survey by Reputation Institute, The LEGO Group ranked as the most reputable company in North America. The LEGO Group has received a top 10 ranking globally three years running. according to the HR team, the commonalities within the organization are that The LEGO Group has a high-performing culture, smart people and employees committed to not letting their colleagues down. Walton says that at LEGO Systems, collaboration and teamwork become “play.” In fact, a lot of fun happens when colleagues collaborate. Each meeting room in the Enfield location contains a bowl of LEGO bricks, and the bricks often facilitate solutions. “Sometimes there’s a problem that seems insurmountable,” says Michaud. “But

we begin playing with the bricks and the innovation begins to flow. Suddenly we have a solution. It really happens.” In addition, Paynter and Walton say that cultural awareness training takes place to help new employees understand The LEGO Group’s culture. Paynter says her group uses GlobeSmart, web-based software that provides professionals with an extensive database on how to effectively business with people in countries around the world.

Cultural Exploration

5-6 The importance of cultural cues in establishing common language; how many of these mean something to you?