Ask a Science Teacher by Larry Scheckel

Author:Larry Scheckel
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: The Experiment
Published: 2013-11-27T08:00:00+00:00

120. How do Legos connect together?

Legos have reached cult status in the toy world. The popularity of the colorful interlocking plastic bricks has surpassed that of Erector Sets, Lincoln Logs, and Tinkertoys.

Ole Kirk Christiansen, a Billund, Denmark, carpenter, started making small wooden toys and playthings in 1934. Ole, a stickler on quality, named his company Lego, after the Danish expression leg godt, meaning “play well.” In Latin, “lego” means “I put together.”

In 1949, Legos came out with and early version the familiar plastic stackable hollow rectangular blocks with round studs on top. The precision-made blocks would snap together and hold, but not too tightly. A three-year-old could pull them apart.

Like many plastic devices, Legos are made by injection molding. The process starts with heating the acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic the bricks are made of to 450°F to give it the consistency of hot fudge, then forcing it into a mold at very high pressure and allowing it to cool for fifteen seconds. A mold is a steel or aluminum cavity having the shape of the desired part. The finished figure is ejected out of the mold.

Lego pieces have studs on top and tubes on the inside. The brick’s studs are slightly bigger than the space between the tubes and the walls. When bricks are pressed together, the studs push the walls out and the tubes in. The material is resilient and wants to hold its original shape, so the walls and tubes press back against the studs. Friction prevents the two bricks from sliding apart.

The popularity of the Lego system stems from its versatility. The design encourages creativity, as children can construct any number of machines, figures, and devices, then tear them down and reuse the parts.

In the late 1960s, Lego introduced the Duplo line of products. These bricks are twice the length, width, and height of the standard Lego block. Often dubbed Lego Preschool, the size of the larger blocks discourages tykes from swallowing them, and they are easier for small hands to manipulate. The Lego people have introduced numerous ancillary enterprises, including six amusement parks, competitions, games, and movies. They also put out new lines of Lego sets, Clikits and Belville, which are targeted to young girls. The addition of gears, motors, lights, sensors, switches, battery packs and cameras are incorporated in the Power Functions Line. Those smart Danish people have made sure that newer products are compatible with the older brick-type connections.

Lego claims they have manufactured 400 billion blocks in the last fifty years. That amounts to about fifty-seven Lego blocks for every person on planet Earth.

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