Speaker 1: I guess what, Mango? What's that? Will? So I know
Speaker 1: you're always looking for a different get rich scheme. It
Speaker 1: feels like every week you've got a new one in
Speaker 1: the work. I'm not sure the starting a trivia magazine
Speaker 1: or getting into podcasting was the right thing. Well, I
Speaker 1: have finally found this. This one is definitely going to work.
Speaker 1: And the idea here is to invest in Lego sets. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true. Actually I found this analysis from a couple
Speaker 1: of years back, and it shows that over the previous
Speaker 1: decade and a half, Lego sets that are still in
Speaker 1: pristine condition, I've seen a twelve percent increase in value
Speaker 1: each year over that time. Now that growth beats gold,
Speaker 1: which I know you like to look into a good
Speaker 1: bit as well, that's grown nine point six percent annually,
Speaker 1: and then D S and P five hundred, which grew
Speaker 1: by a little more than four percent each year over
Speaker 1: that time. And actually, if you look on eBay, some
Speaker 1: of the returns on this are even more extreme. There's
Speaker 1: the old Cafe Corner set which was released in two
Speaker 1: thousand seven. It's worth more than three thousand dollars on
Speaker 1: some of these eBay bids. And then there's also that
Speaker 1: crazy Ultimate Collectors Millennium Falcon seth from that same year.
Speaker 1: It's not worth more than four thousand dollars. So think
Speaker 1: about that, man, Think about how much money you could
Speaker 1: be making from this. I know I really should have
Speaker 1: been a hoarder in the early two thousand's, But is
Speaker 1: this better than like holding onto baseball cards or like
Speaker 1: beanie babies? Mago? This is not a fad. Lego is
Speaker 1: a way of life, you know, I don't actually I
Speaker 1: don't know why I just said that or what that
Speaker 1: even means. But we should probably do a little bit
Speaker 1: more research on this. But it is really interesting to see,
Speaker 1: and you know, seeing those stats on Lego and the
Speaker 1: fact that millions of Lego pieces are molded every single hour,
Speaker 1: it made us wonder how Lego got to be the
Speaker 1: massive brand that it is today. You know, what are
Speaker 1: the most amazing things to be built from Lego bricks?
Speaker 1: How have they been used to solve real world problems?
Speaker 1: And of course, what is the science behind the excruciating
Speaker 1: pain brought on by stepping on one of these things?
Speaker 1: So let's dive in. Ya Hey there, podcast listeners, Welcome
Speaker 1: to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always,
Speaker 1: I'm joined by my good friend Manues Ticket and on
Speaker 1: the other side of the soundproof glass, with only a
Speaker 1: couple of hundred or so pieces left on his Lego
Speaker 1: Taj Mahal, that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil now.
Speaker 1: Building this thing has been no small feet for Tristan
Speaker 1: because the Taj is actually one of the biggest lego
Speaker 1: sets ever produced. It's just shy of six thousand pieces.
Speaker 1: So you know, while that finished model does look pretty stunning,
Speaker 1: he's definitely had his work cut out for him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, he told me the bill takes about twenty
Speaker 1: five hours total and he's pretty much spent all week
Speaker 1: on it. The crazy thing, though, is that the taj
Speaker 1: Mall isn't even the biggest lego set on the market.
Speaker 1: There's a bigger one that just came out based on
Speaker 1: the Hogwarts Castle from Harry Potter that only has about
Speaker 1: forty more pieces. But then there's also this Millennium Falcon
Speaker 1: one that came out last year and it's actually the
Speaker 1: set with the highest piece count to date. It's got
Speaker 1: a whopping seven thousand, five one pieces, and of course,
Speaker 1: if Tristan wants to make that his next challenge, I'll
Speaker 1: have to sholl out eight hundred dollars to make it happen.
Speaker 1: Good grief. Wow, Well, I'm guessing that's a little out
Speaker 1: of his Lego budget. I hope it's a little out
Speaker 1: of his Lego budget. But you know, I know, Lego
Speaker 1: mania can be a pretty powerful thing when it takes hold,
Speaker 1: not to mention expensive. And you know, is it by
Speaker 1: chance that Lego has held steady as the world's most
Speaker 1: valuable toy brand for the past several years. Now, those
Speaker 1: little plastic pieces, you know, they give these endless opportunities
Speaker 1: for creative play, and that flexibility is definitely captured the
Speaker 1: imaginations of kids and adults alike for you know, more
Speaker 1: than half a century, that's right. In fact, this year
Speaker 1: actually marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Lego brick as
Speaker 1: we know it, as well as the fort anniversary of
Speaker 1: the Lego Mini figures that populated our Lego towns and
Speaker 1: pilot our Lego spaceships. So to kind of celebrate all
Speaker 1: those milestones, I think now is the perfect time to
Speaker 1: break down the little known history behind one of the
Speaker 1: world's most popular playthings. Well, definitely, because for as long
Speaker 1: lived as these two figures are the Lego Brick and
Speaker 1: the Mini figure, the company itself is actually a fair
Speaker 1: bit older, so today we definitely want to dig into
Speaker 1: those early origins as well as some of the different
Speaker 1: ways the brand has managed to reinvent itself throughout the years,
Speaker 1: and a little bit later we'll also check out a
Speaker 1: few of the more creative ways that Lego fans have
Speaker 1: found to put their favorite bricks to good use. But first, Lego,
Speaker 1: I know you wanted to give a quick note on terminology,
Speaker 1: right yeah, And I know it's a little weird to
Speaker 1: be a stickler about terms when discussing a kids to it,
Speaker 1: but one of our researchers was adamant about this. I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell you, like how you said, one of
Speaker 1: our researchers like, we don't know, it's gay. Of course,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to avoid another lecture from him,
Speaker 1: so but it is kind of interesting. So the first
Speaker 1: thing to keep in mind is that the word Lego
Speaker 1: is actually an adjective, not a noun. And this is
Speaker 1: something that's even reflecting the name of the company, which
Speaker 1: isn't simply Lego but the Lego Group. And if the
Speaker 1: company had its way no one would ever refer to
Speaker 1: one of their pieces as a Lego, but as a
Speaker 1: Lego brick, And of course that doesn't always happen. Lots
Speaker 1: of people just use the word on soone when talking
Speaker 1: about the pieces, and that little slip up usually gets
Speaker 1: a pass from the company and its fans, so long
Speaker 1: as you don't compound the problem by adding an s
Speaker 1: to the word to make it plural. And apparently that's
Speaker 1: beyond the pale for most people, because the true plural
Speaker 1: of Lego is just lego, never legos. All right, okay, well,
Speaker 1: we will try our best, I think. I mean, there
Speaker 1: are times where I'm just thinking, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna say Legos, Lego, lego, like to see how
Speaker 1: much we can drive them crazy. But I think we'll
Speaker 1: try to stick to those ground rules. And now that
Speaker 1: we've gotten the semantics out of the way, let's go
Speaker 1: back to a time before the Lego brick, and actually
Speaker 1: before the company itself, because the family business that would
Speaker 1: eventually become the Lego Group was actually established under a
Speaker 1: different name. Now this was back in August of nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty two. It's located in a rural village in Denmark,
Speaker 1: and the business was started by this master carpenter and
Speaker 1: woodworker named Old Kirk Christiansen. Now, in those early years,
Speaker 1: Old Kirk made a living selling things like step ladders
Speaker 1: and stools, even ironing boards, but the business was slow.
Speaker 1: This was you know, think about the timing. This was
Speaker 1: during the Great Depression that had been brought on by
Speaker 1: America's stock market crash just a few years earlier, and
Speaker 1: so few people had the money to buy these expensive
Speaker 1: or handmade furniture pieces, and so Old Kirk was struggling
Speaker 1: to turn a profit with his woodwork. So I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna guess here, that's when he came up with this
Speaker 1: idea for wooden building blocks. I mean, this was nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty two, so so the wooden building blocks had been
Speaker 1: around for for quite some time at least by that point.
Speaker 1: But the depression did motivate Oldkirk to seek out new
Speaker 1: product ideas, which is what ultimately led him into the
Speaker 1: toy business. So he thought that, you know, despite the
Speaker 1: financial strains of the era, people were willing to indulge
Speaker 1: their children with the occasional gift, of course, provided the
Speaker 1: price was low enough. But that spurtle Kirk to whip
Speaker 1: up his own batch of brightly colored wooden cars and animals,
Speaker 1: and this was really just using the wooden scraps from
Speaker 1: his workshop. That's pretty awesome. I love that the Great
Speaker 1: Depression basically turned him into this like real life Geppetto. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely did, and that move it seemed like a
Speaker 1: safe bet to Old Kirk, But sales pretty much stayed
Speaker 1: flat for the first year, and in fact, Old Kirk
Speaker 1: even went bankrupt at one point and had to take
Speaker 1: a bailout loan from his siblings, but they actually insisted
Speaker 1: one of the conditions for the loan was that their
Speaker 1: brother would give up on toys and go back to
Speaker 1: making furniture. But Old Kirk was pretty stubborn and he refused,
Speaker 1: but somehow managed to get them to loan the money anyway,
Speaker 1: and he had become convinced that toys were the future
Speaker 1: of his company. All he needed was just a catchier name.
Speaker 1: And you can decide whether you think he needed to
Speaker 1: catch your name. The name of his business was the
Speaker 1: Bill and Machine Joinery and Carpentry Business. Wait, so that's
Speaker 1: what the shop was called after they switched to toymaking.
Speaker 1: It feels weird, like, like why would they think that
Speaker 1: would work. I know, well, thankfully all Kirk came up
Speaker 1: with something much more evocative later on by truncating the
Speaker 1: Danish expression like god, which means play well, he landed
Speaker 1: on the word lego. So I actually took Latin in school,
Speaker 1: and I always heard that lego was the Latin phrase
Speaker 1: for I put together. So here's the weird thing. You're
Speaker 1: actually right about that that is the meaning in Latin.
Speaker 1: But that was actually just a happy accident, because apparently
Speaker 1: all Kirk found out about this years later that this
Speaker 1: is what it meant in Latin. But no matter what
Speaker 1: he thought, it meant. That renaming effort definitely paid off
Speaker 1: for the company, and it quickly grew from what was
Speaker 1: a six person operation in nineteen thirty four more than
Speaker 1: forty employees by the early forties. Now, much of that
Speaker 1: growth was due to the national popularity of Old Kirk's
Speaker 1: adorable line of poll toys. You've definitely seen these kinds
Speaker 1: of things before. You know, You've got the hand painted
Speaker 1: wooden duck on wheels that it open and closed its
Speaker 1: beak that you know as you pulled the string, and
Speaker 1: pretty neat to see those things. But anyway, the Lego
Speaker 1: ducks sold for barely more than a dollar at that point.
Speaker 1: This was when they were released in nineteen thirty five,
Speaker 1: but as one of those earliest and most recognizable Lego products.
Speaker 1: If you got your hands on one of these things.
Speaker 1: These days, a single duck can fetch more than two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars at auction. It's so funny because like, these
Speaker 1: are things that you see in like villages in India,
Speaker 1: these pull toys. They don't feel that special. What made
Speaker 1: them change from like wooden ducks to plastic bricks. It
Speaker 1: definitely wasn't overnight. It was a pretty gradual change, and
Speaker 1: much of it was brought on by necessity. So in
Speaker 1: Denmark they've been under German occupation during the Second World War,
Speaker 1: and by the time the war finally ended in nineteen
Speaker 1: many of those materials that were traditionally used for consumer goods,
Speaker 1: you think things like steel and wood, they were tough
Speaker 1: to come by, and so that was a problem actually
Speaker 1: all over the globe, not just there in Denmark. Now,
Speaker 1: the result of the shortages was that many manufacturers started
Speaker 1: experimenting with a new development in plastics. This was called
Speaker 1: plastic injected molding, and this is that process where melted
Speaker 1: plastic is shot into a precise mold of whatever it
Speaker 1: is that you're trying to make, and then once it
Speaker 1: cools and solidifies, you simply pop them out and you've
Speaker 1: got your finished item. And so it was a much
Speaker 1: cheaper and faster way to make these plastic goods compared
Speaker 1: to earlier ways of doing this, and so this breakthrough
Speaker 1: is really what made plastics a viable alternative for the
Speaker 1: manufacturers at that time. So all Kirk had felt the
Speaker 1: pinch from the lack overaw materials, so he decided that
Speaker 1: the Lego companies should take a chance on plastic toys.
Speaker 1: So you fast forward a little bit to and he
Speaker 1: placed in order with the UK company for what ended
Speaker 1: up being one of the first plastic injection molding machines.
Speaker 1: And the only problem was that the material shortage had
Speaker 1: led the Danish government to ban the commercial use of
Speaker 1: that machine until the following year. Fortunately they decided to
Speaker 1: spend their time wisely, so old Kirk and his son
Speaker 1: Gottfried were we're still able to experiment with the machine
Speaker 1: and kind of study the various sample products that have
Speaker 1: been included with it, and we're really trying to see
Speaker 1: what they could make from it. Well, one product that
Speaker 1: they stumbled into was this set of self locking building
Speaker 1: bricks and it was made by a British company called
Speaker 1: Kitta Craft. So they had these colorful two by two
Speaker 1: two by four bricks that had this special design features
Speaker 1: that set them apart from the traditional cube shaped building
Speaker 1: blocks of the past, because each one was hollow on
Speaker 1: the bottom and had these four raised studs on the top.
Speaker 1: This probably all sounds pretty familiar, and so the design
Speaker 1: added stability to whatever structures the kids built because the
Speaker 1: studs held each brick in place. So this is obviously
Speaker 1: really interesting to me, but I'm not sure I like
Speaker 1: where it's going. I feel like I'm a little worried
Speaker 1: that you'rena telling me that Lego just didn't invent the
Speaker 1: Lego brick, but they just kind of stole this idea,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure I can handle that sort of disappointment.
Speaker 1: And I think the truth is probably somewhere in the
Speaker 1: middle on this one, because once the Christiansen's were finally
Speaker 1: allowed to put their machine to work, that's exactly what
Speaker 1: they did. In fact, by nine, the Lego Company was
Speaker 1: producing around two hundred different plastic and wooden toys, and
Speaker 1: many of the plastic ones were simply new versions of
Speaker 1: earlier designs, so things like the plastic planes or trains
Speaker 1: or you know, different things like that. But among the
Speaker 1: repeats was this new but somewhat familiar product called automatic
Speaker 1: binding bricks. And as you feared, Mango, these were really
Speaker 1: just a copy of these bricks made by Kittacraft with
Speaker 1: a few small changes. But actually the lego version was
Speaker 1: was honestly a bit inferior to the original the company.
Speaker 1: You know, they just weren't used to making such small
Speaker 1: parts and the technology was still pretty new to them,
Speaker 1: and so as a result of this, many of those
Speaker 1: hollow Lego bricks were prone to cracking or shrinking, which
Speaker 1: is weird to think about now because they just seemed
Speaker 1: so indestructible in these days. But you know, actually sometimes
Speaker 1: it was so bad that once the plastic had cooled,
Speaker 1: the bricks didn't even fit together. I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: they're always growing pains, but it does feel crazy that, like,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna rip someone else's idea off, at least
Speaker 1: do a good job of it, right. That's always been
Speaker 1: my philosophy. When I try to rip people off but
Speaker 1: you know, you put the shottiness aside. I do want
Speaker 1: to say an old Kirk's defense that Kittacraft bricks weren't
Speaker 1: protected by a patent in Denmark, and the company reportedly
Speaker 1: said it was fine for them to use the design.
Speaker 1: And one other thing. It is worth noting that the
Speaker 1: Lego group did eventually buy the rights to the Kittacraft
Speaker 1: bricks from the inventor's descendants, and this was sometime in
Speaker 1: the early eighties. I think, oh, that's interesting, So maybe
Speaker 1: there was like a little bit of guilty conscience in
Speaker 1: there going on, but it's still nice to hear that
Speaker 1: they made it right. And I am curious though, if
Speaker 1: those automatic binding bricks were such poor quality, like what
Speaker 1: made them such a big hit? Well, they definitely weren't
Speaker 1: at first, and this was true the company's plastic toys
Speaker 1: in general during the early nineteen fifties, and at that
Speaker 1: time roughly half of all Lego sales were still from
Speaker 1: wooden toys, whereas you know, you look at the Lego
Speaker 1: binding bricks at that time, they actually only accounted for
Speaker 1: like five or six percent of their sales. And so
Speaker 1: to help turn this around, the Christiansen has made a
Speaker 1: few key changes. First, in nineteen fifty three, they ditched
Speaker 1: that austere sounding name and actually started calling the product
Speaker 1: Lego Merston or Lego Bricks. And so by this time
Speaker 1: Godfried was starting to take on a much larger role
Speaker 1: in the company. He became really interested in finding a
Speaker 1: clear focus for the company rather than kind of spreading
Speaker 1: those resources across so many different kinds of products. So
Speaker 1: he eventually decided that the adaptability, that wide appeal, and
Speaker 1: really the ease of production for something like Lego Bricks
Speaker 1: made it the ideal choice. But still, even then, the
Speaker 1: bricks weren't a hot seller yet, so there was obviously
Speaker 1: room for improvement. So Godfried and his father started tinkering
Speaker 1: with the bricks design, and in nineteen fifty seven they
Speaker 1: really stumbled onto their winning idea. Now, this breakthrough was
Speaker 1: to add tubes to the otherwise hollow interior of the bricks,
Speaker 1: so that the studs had something to connect to. And
Speaker 1: so these new studs and tubes that that kind of
Speaker 1: allowed these bricks to snap together and hold tight and
Speaker 1: and and of course still be able to pull apart
Speaker 1: pretty easily when you try to pull them apart. And
Speaker 1: so the company later called this clutch power. Sounds really strong,
Speaker 1: doesn't it, But it's clutch power. But I mean, it
Speaker 1: is pretty amazing how they were able to pull this off.
Speaker 1: But sadly, old Kirk didn't get to see just how
Speaker 1: much of a game changer this new design would be
Speaker 1: because they actually passed away the very next year. This
Speaker 1: was in ninety, which was also when Lego Bricks as
Speaker 1: we know them today we're first released. So I know
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier that's the sixtieth anniversary for Lego Bricks,
Speaker 1: but it is weird to think that it's the sixtieth
Speaker 1: anniversary of the death of the company's founder as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of bitter sweet. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: definitely the end of an era for the company. And
Speaker 1: actually just a couple of years after the US there
Speaker 1: was a fire that broke out on the Lego warehouse
Speaker 1: and the company lost pretty much all of their inventory
Speaker 1: of wooden toys. So it really kind of rushed a
Speaker 1: decision they probably would have come to anyway, and they
Speaker 1: just decided to close the books on the wooden toys
Speaker 1: and really place all their bets on the future of
Speaker 1: these plastic toys. That's pretty well so I know, Godfrey
Speaker 1: took over after old Kirk's passing, and he definitely took
Speaker 1: care of his father's legacy, like he helped the company
Speaker 1: find a core product with that new style of bricks,
Speaker 1: and the design was such a sound one that it
Speaker 1: stayed exactly the same for sixty years now. So you
Speaker 1: can actually go out and buy a Lego set today
Speaker 1: and the bricks would all interlock perfectly with the ones
Speaker 1: released or any years since then. And this connected quote
Speaker 1: system of play as they call it. You know, it
Speaker 1: was really revolutionary and it's still the driving force behind,
Speaker 1: you know, the appeal of Lego products, not to mention
Speaker 1: the retail success, and it's hard to think of any
Speaker 1: other company that had been creating products, you know, fifties
Speaker 1: sixty years ago, oh that would still be usable in
Speaker 1: any way with something that they're making now. So it's
Speaker 1: pretty remarkable. But you know, apart from being in a
Speaker 1: related there, there's another big appeal of Lego bricks, and
Speaker 1: that's their durability, because it turns out that a typical
Speaker 1: two by four Lego brick can be put together and
Speaker 1: taken apart more than thirty seven thousand times before they
Speaker 1: lose that clutch that we talked about before, But we
Speaker 1: know this thanks to a software developer named Philippe Canton.
Speaker 1: So a few years back, he built this stress test
Speaker 1: machine that would continuously assemble and disassemble to Lego bricks,
Speaker 1: and this happened for ten days straight. Then finally, after
Speaker 1: thirty seven thousand, one and twelve rounds of this, Canton
Speaker 1: found that the bricks, studs, and tubes had become so
Speaker 1: worn out that they no longer held together. So it
Speaker 1: is possible to wear out your Lego bricks, but unless
Speaker 1: you have a really bizarre sense of fun, I don't
Speaker 1: think it's going to happen anytime soon. So I definitely
Speaker 1: hadn't heard about that experiment before, but I did come
Speaker 1: across this other stunt test where this group of engineer
Speaker 1: is trying to figure out exactly how much weight a
Speaker 1: two by two Lego brick can endure before it finally breaks,
Speaker 1: which obviously sounds like a very worthy endeavor for these engineers,
Speaker 1: But they basically took this hydraulic ram and used it
Speaker 1: to apply different levels of force to the brick, and
Speaker 1: in the end, a single two by two Lego brick
Speaker 1: was able to withstand a staggering four thousand, two hundred
Speaker 1: forty Newton's of force, which is equal to about nine
Speaker 1: hundred fifty pounds. It's not astounding, But the coolest part
Speaker 1: is that once the team had that figured out, they
Speaker 1: were able to work out the number of Lego bricks
Speaker 1: you could safely stack before they just collapse under their
Speaker 1: own weight. And when you do the math, it turns
Speaker 1: out that a single Lego bricks should be able to
Speaker 1: support a whopping three hundred seventy five thousand other bricks.
Speaker 1: And if you somehow managed to stack that many bricks
Speaker 1: straight up, you'd wind up with a tower that's over
Speaker 1: two miles tall. You know, look at Tristan's face right now.
Speaker 1: It seemed like he'd been ignoring us this whole time,
Speaker 1: working on his kaj mahal. But once he hears this,
Speaker 1: I know this is going to be his next challenge.
Speaker 1: That is little miles you are. But you know, I
Speaker 1: do think that now we've talked about just how much
Speaker 1: abuse Lego bricks can handle, it, it feels only fair
Speaker 1: to mention the kind of punishment they can dole out,
Speaker 1: especially when they're you know, strown across the floor of
Speaker 1: a darkened bedroom, as we both know this experience of
Speaker 1: parents of of of younger children. Yeah, I mean, it
Speaker 1: definitely sounds like you've got a story there, and I
Speaker 1: want to hear it. But before we do that, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break. You're listening to Part Time Genius
Speaker 1: and we're talking about Lego now, Mango. If playing with
Speaker 1: Lego bricks is a rite of passage for kids, then
Speaker 1: stepping on Lego bricks is probably the equivalent for parents,
Speaker 1: wouldn't you think, Yeah, definitely. I mean, forget first steps,
Speaker 1: forget first words. I feel like the real parental milestone
Speaker 1: is the first time you use the bathroom in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night and you wind up with little
Speaker 1: plastic cube just lodged into your barefoot. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: your kids get to hear some of those first words
Speaker 1: with your first steps on those Lego toys. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's a special kind of pain. I feel like
Speaker 1: it's just so much worse than these other minor injuries
Speaker 1: like stubbing your toe or something like that. And actually,
Speaker 1: it turns out there's actually a scientific explanation for why
Speaker 1: stepping on Lego pieces tends to hurt so badly. Now,
Speaker 1: part of it comes down to our own biology. I mean,
Speaker 1: we have tons of nerve endings and the soles of
Speaker 1: our feet to help keep us balanced, and this makes
Speaker 1: the bottom of our feet so incredibly sensitive. But lego
Speaker 1: pieces are especially aggravating for a couple of reasons. So
Speaker 1: the first is, you know, they obviously have these sharp
Speaker 1: corners and race studs, which are painful enough in themselves.
Speaker 1: But the second one, and this goes back to what
Speaker 1: we were talking about before about their strength and their
Speaker 1: ability to withstand nine fifty pounds of pressure. So when
Speaker 1: you step on one of these lego pieces, you simply
Speaker 1: don't weigh enough to compress it, so it's out of
Speaker 1: the force of your step being absorbed by the piece,
Speaker 1: it actually transmits that force right back into the soles
Speaker 1: of your feet, and all those delicate nerve endings that
Speaker 1: are there really feel that pain intense. So I guess
Speaker 1: all that durability is kind of a double edged sword, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's a pretty well known one at that because
Speaker 1: I had not known about this previously. But in two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen, the company even released their own branded slippers
Speaker 1: with extra padding to help deal with the problem, which
Speaker 1: seems a little bit absurved. I'm not sure why you
Speaker 1: could just get some other slippers, and you know, only
Speaker 1: about fifteen hundred pairs were produced. I guess we'll have
Speaker 1: to have to make our own. Yeah, But now that
Speaker 1: we've given the brickets, do I do want to shift
Speaker 1: gears and talk about the other Lego milestone for this year,
Speaker 1: which is the birth of the Lego Mini figure. And
Speaker 1: we are so used to seeing these little yellow guys
Speaker 1: at the company's marketing and in just about all the
Speaker 1: sets they produced that it's tough to imagine the brand
Speaker 1: without them. But in reality, the mini figures we know
Speaker 1: didn't exist until so for twenty years, I mean, the
Speaker 1: company had been building these you know, houses and cars
Speaker 1: and all of this stuff, but no characters to put
Speaker 1: inside them. It feels like a pretty long running oversight,
Speaker 1: don't you think. Yeah. So, the company had tried making
Speaker 1: Lego people once before in the early seventies, and this
Speaker 1: is when they rolled out a line of homemaker sets
Speaker 1: and it let the kids build rooms and furnishings for
Speaker 1: their own Lego houses. But these proto mini figures, they
Speaker 1: were designed to be built with existing Lego pieces, which
Speaker 1: meant they lacked like proper arms, feet, and as a result,
Speaker 1: they just looked like pretty abstract I guess, and they
Speaker 1: certainly weren't that fun to play with. Okay, well that
Speaker 1: makes sense, So so how did the change come about?
Speaker 1: It was actually the idea of this designer who pretty
Speaker 1: much took on the task singlehandedly. He went through more
Speaker 1: than I think fifty different versions until he finally landed
Speaker 1: on what he considered to be the perfect blend of
Speaker 1: blocky aesthetics and human like interactions. So, for example, his
Speaker 1: figures had movable arms and legs, as well as the
Speaker 1: hands to grip these other lego accessories, but they also
Speaker 1: had holes in their eat so they could be attached
Speaker 1: to a brick. And The first of these newly designed
Speaker 1: mini figures to hit the market was a police Officer.
Speaker 1: It was released in nineteen seventy eight. But this is
Speaker 1: the strange part. Despite the redesign and the fact that
Speaker 1: the figure came packaged with a buildable police car, there
Speaker 1: was still no way to actually put the figure inside
Speaker 1: the car. But thankfully, over the next few years the
Speaker 1: company refined the concept. They eventually got the hang of
Speaker 1: how to scale the figures and vehicles so that they
Speaker 1: all worked together. It seems like a smart move. And
Speaker 1: actually this is also kind of random, but I read
Speaker 1: that since nineteen seventy eight, more than four billion Lego
Speaker 1: Mini figures have been produced. That's pretty wild. So if
Speaker 1: you if you wrangled all those many figures together, gave
Speaker 1: them their own nation, they would actually constitute the largest
Speaker 1: population in the whole world Mango, I mean, if they
Speaker 1: were humans. Let's let's not get hung up on technicalities.
Speaker 1: It's a big number, but are you know the one
Speaker 1: thing I always wondered about these Lego Mini figures is
Speaker 1: why they're yellow? Mass has always been the rule, and
Speaker 1: is there a reason why they went with yellow in
Speaker 1: the first place. Yellow is the default for Lego people
Speaker 1: even before the mini figure design was finalized, and according
Speaker 1: to the company, there's a good reason for that. So
Speaker 1: the designers wanted the figures to appeal to as many
Speaker 1: children as possible, and they didn't want the kid's imaginations
Speaker 1: to be limited by perceptions of the figures race. So
Speaker 1: early on, the team decided that yellow was the most
Speaker 1: racially neutral color to use for a skin tone, and
Speaker 1: that's what they had stuck with ever since, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, until the companies started getting into the licensing game.
Speaker 1: This was in the early two thousands, and once characters
Speaker 1: from franchises like Star Wars or Harry Potter's started getting
Speaker 1: the mini figure treatment, the company kind of relaxed their
Speaker 1: stance and they started using the real world skin tones
Speaker 1: to better match the source material. Yeah, and I feel
Speaker 1: like I remember this being somewhat controversial when they decided
Speaker 1: to make this shift. But I mean, unless they're based
Speaker 1: on real people, all the mini figures are still yellow,
Speaker 1: So I'm not I'm not sure what the big deal is. Well,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the people just objected to
Speaker 1: seeing Lego partnering with these outside brands, like they were purists.
Speaker 1: They worried that the company was losing sight of what
Speaker 1: made it so special in the first And if you
Speaker 1: think about it, like the company's specialty had always been
Speaker 1: these blank canvas products that kids could use to dream
Speaker 1: up whatever stories they wanted. But once these floodgates were
Speaker 1: open to things like Star Wars or SpongeBob or Batman, like,
Speaker 1: suddenly Lego sets came with these stories and characters that
Speaker 1: were already pre baked into the properties. Okay, well, so
Speaker 1: it was kind of seen as a loss of innocence
Speaker 1: type thing for the company, I guess. But now that's
Speaker 1: been a decade or so since that licensing began. What
Speaker 1: would you say is the consensus now because the moves
Speaker 1: still seen as the company selling its soul, or has
Speaker 1: it turned out to be not that big of a
Speaker 1: deal or what? Yeah, it depends on. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: that kind of license sets that we've been talking about
Speaker 1: have made Lego really successful. In two thousands seventeen, the
Speaker 1: company report the highest earnings in its eighty six year history,
Speaker 1: and it's currently valued at nearly eight billion dollars. But
Speaker 1: then you've got other people who say that success is
Speaker 1: kind of cost the company a lot of its credibility.
Speaker 1: Lego products are often held up as these wonderful educational
Speaker 1: tools and and these great examples of stem or steam toys,
Speaker 1: and there's no doubt that they are in a lot
Speaker 1: of cases. But as licensed properties become more and more
Speaker 1: of the company's output, you have to wonder how much
Speaker 1: longer that public goodwill is going to last. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it does seem like it's a pretty tricky balancing act
Speaker 1: at this stage in the company's history, and it'll be
Speaker 1: interesting to see how all of this evolves. But there
Speaker 1: is no denying that over the years, Lego toys have
Speaker 1: proven a fantastic way for educators and their students to
Speaker 1: get involved in everything from math to engineering. And you know,
Speaker 1: I know we were talking about this before the show here,
Speaker 1: but there's a specialty line called Lego mind Storms, and
Speaker 1: it's basically a way to combine Lego bricks with sensors
Speaker 1: and motors and micro processors and all sorts of cool
Speaker 1: stuff like that, so that you know, kids can build
Speaker 1: everything from like a simple conveyor bell to you know,
Speaker 1: seeing photos of a walking robot, tricerah tops and they
Speaker 1: can do this even if they don't know anything about
Speaker 1: computer programming. Yeah, mind Storms are pretty awesome. It was
Speaker 1: developed in partnership with m I T Media Lab. And
Speaker 1: this isn't the late eighties. It's really taken off since
Speaker 1: launching in the early nineties. Like there's this whole online
Speaker 1: community of makers now, and and schools even have these
Speaker 1: tournaments where students compete to design and build and program
Speaker 1: their own Lego robots. And it really isn't niche either.
Speaker 1: I I read this article in Smithsonian that said, uh,
Speaker 1: half of all middle schools in America and about a
Speaker 1: quarter of elementary schools and high schools have worked with
Speaker 1: mind storms and kind of put them into the curriculum
Speaker 1: in one way or another. And I feel like that's
Speaker 1: a pretty amazing achievement for a toy line. Oh definitely.
Speaker 1: And those kinds of school programs are really just the
Speaker 1: tip of the iceberg when it comes to the impact
Speaker 1: Lego products have had on the world of academics. And
Speaker 1: you know, even see plenty of adults and steam fields
Speaker 1: that have found some really interesting ways to use Lego bricks,
Speaker 1: and I want to make sure that we highlight at
Speaker 1: least a few of those before we call it a day.
Speaker 1: What do you say, Well, I'm definitely for that, But
Speaker 1: let's take another break. First, welcome back to Part Time
Speaker 1: Genius where we're talking Lego. So will I know you
Speaker 1: want to showcase some of the more inspired ways to
Speaker 1: use Lego products, and I think I have the perfect example. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, have you ever heard of the superhero
Speaker 1: Cyborg camp? I have not, but it sounds pretty awesome
Speaker 1: just with those words. Yeah. So it's this week long
Speaker 1: design education event that's organized by San Francisco nonprofit called
Speaker 1: kid Mob and they've been doing it every year since
Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve, so I guess now it's called
Speaker 1: the Superhero Boost Body Mod Workshop. And anyway, it still
Speaker 1: sounds awesome. But ideas for kids who are dealing with
Speaker 1: different forms of upper limb loss to come to this
Speaker 1: camp and learn a bunch of new design skills and
Speaker 1: then they can put what they've learned to use and
Speaker 1: actually design and build a new arm with its own
Speaker 1: set of superpowers. Oh that does sound really cool. So
Speaker 1: are you're about to tell me that someone actually built
Speaker 1: a prosthetic arm out of Lego bricks? So not exactly,
Speaker 1: but people have paired Lego X with these servo motors
Speaker 1: to create press like arms as well as legs, and
Speaker 1: it's super impressive to see them in action. But in
Speaker 1: this case, this nine year old named Aiden Robinson made
Speaker 1: a different kind of Lego hand. So while attending the
Speaker 1: Superhero Camp in two thousand thirteen, Aiden used old toys
Speaker 1: and spare parts from a hardware store to fashion a
Speaker 1: threaded metal rod into which you could attach different parts. So,
Speaker 1: for example, one attachment had a we remote built into
Speaker 1: it and another one had to built in fork. But
Speaker 1: the coolest one by far was this life sized version
Speaker 1: of the yellow claw like hands you could find on
Speaker 1: a Lego mini figure. I don't know how practical that
Speaker 1: is exactly, but it would definitely be a fun way
Speaker 1: for holding burritos and corrects, I guess, just burritos. I mean,
Speaker 1: I do like the idea of having all these different
Speaker 1: attachments that you can swap around, including the a few
Speaker 1: that would just be for fun, like that yellow claw hand,
Speaker 1: but I mean, honestly, like, why not do that exactly?
Speaker 1: And one of the best parts is that one of
Speaker 1: the artists at the camp was so impressed with Aiden's
Speaker 1: creation that he actually helped him refine the concept and
Speaker 1: build a working version later that year. And not only that,
Speaker 1: the two of them also brain storing these other specialty arms,
Speaker 1: Like there was one with this bow attachment so Aiden
Speaker 1: could actually play the violin in his school orchestra, and
Speaker 1: they built one with a super socer arm, which is
Speaker 1: just so awesome. I mean, you really want me over
Speaker 1: once you've said this about the super soaker, I could
Speaker 1: have definitely used one of those this past summer. But
Speaker 1: all right, Well, here's another example of how Lego pieces
Speaker 1: have been making people's lives easier. Back in two thousand fifteen,
Speaker 1: the Natural History Museum in London took up a really
Speaker 1: unique and honestly daunting challenge that over the course of
Speaker 1: the next five years, they wanted to digitize their entire
Speaker 1: collection of more than twenty million pins specimens. Now, to
Speaker 1: do this, they would need to take pictures of every
Speaker 1: kind of insect imaginable, and of course they wanted to
Speaker 1: be able to capture the fine details of each of
Speaker 1: these things, like leg hairs and wing tips, and so
Speaker 1: the photos would need to be taken from all different angles.
Speaker 1: This is easier said than done because some of these
Speaker 1: specimens are over three hundred years old and incredibly fragile.
Speaker 1: Anytime you're picking up one of these things, you're definitely
Speaker 1: running the risk of breaking off an antenna or a
Speaker 1: leg or some other truly fragile part of these So
Speaker 1: I am curious how lego figures into this, because I mean,
Speaker 1: it does seem like entomologists have been handling pinned insects
Speaker 1: for centuries and photographing them, So don't they have their
Speaker 1: own like specialty tools that exist already, Like why use legos? Well,
Speaker 1: that's the thing I mean those kinds of devices do exist,
Speaker 1: but most of them are pretty unwieldy and and actually
Speaker 1: really expensive too, And that's why one of the museum's entomologists,
Speaker 1: this Danish guy named Steen DuPont, he started looking for
Speaker 1: an alternative solution. I was looking at this article in
Speaker 1: The Atlantic about this, and as they described it, DuPont
Speaker 1: wanted something quote cheap, portable, and customizable so that he
Speaker 1: could observe the wings of his moths easier. And since
Speaker 1: he'd been born and raised in Denmark, he naturally thought
Speaker 1: that his favorite childhood toy might be the right tool
Speaker 1: for the job, and he was right. So I used
Speaker 1: a bunch of those black and gray building blocks and
Speaker 1: a handful of connector pieces, and in doing this he
Speaker 1: was able to fashion, you know, several of these insect
Speaker 1: manipulators that can easily position and even rotate these pen specimens.
Speaker 1: And so the devices range in size from like thirty pieces,
Speaker 1: some of them have more than a hundred and fifty pieces.
Speaker 1: But even the biggest of these designs only takes about
Speaker 1: ten minutes to build, and all of them cost less
Speaker 1: than twenty bucks, which you know, is a lot less
Speaker 1: expensive than most of the scientific equipment people would have
Speaker 1: been using. But the best part is that Dupump put
Speaker 1: all the designs and building instructions up online for free,
Speaker 1: so professional and amateur entomologists across the globe can now
Speaker 1: piece together their very own insect manipulators. I mean, the
Speaker 1: crazy thing is it's not even the first time I've
Speaker 1: heard of museum workers using lego bricks to jerry rake
Speaker 1: these solutions. Like, uh, there was this other museum in
Speaker 1: England that had this three thousand year old sarcophagus. But
Speaker 1: the as the air is so damp and chili there,
Speaker 1: the relics face and the chest eventually caved in on
Speaker 1: itself and the museum just stuck the whole thing in
Speaker 1: the basement for decades. So why couldn't they just repair
Speaker 1: it them? Museums restore artifacts all the time, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: But because the sarcophagus was made from this paper mache
Speaker 1: like material, repairing it would involve wetting the case so
Speaker 1: they could be reshaped. But there's a strong chance the
Speaker 1: relic would have gotten even more damage in that process.
Speaker 1: But thankfully this Cambridge grad the student named David Knowles,
Speaker 1: came up with this pretty clever workaround. He built these
Speaker 1: six adjustable Lego platforms, or mummy jacks as he called them,
Speaker 1: and they basically propped up the collapsing parts of the
Speaker 1: sarcophagus and this liminated that concern, you know, over these
Speaker 1: further cave ins, and it allowed the team to get
Speaker 1: in there. They moistened and reshaped the Mommy back into
Speaker 1: this original shafe and it was really simple and low
Speaker 1: tech and perfect for what was this really complex problem.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like that kind of sums up
Speaker 1: Lego toys pretty perfectly, don't you think. I mean, you've
Speaker 1: got the toy that's deceptively simple on the surface, just
Speaker 1: a bunch of plastic blocks that snapped together, and they're
Speaker 1: not super detail. There's no elaborate backstory or eye catching
Speaker 1: gimmick to this, and it with just a handful of
Speaker 1: these bricks, you can create literally anything you can think of. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're absolutely right that a handful of bricks is
Speaker 1: really all it takes. And in fact, there's this mathematician
Speaker 1: named sar And Eilers, and he helped Lego group determine
Speaker 1: exactly how many possible structures you could make from just
Speaker 1: six standard Lego bricks. Wow, and what kind of piece
Speaker 1: was he using for this, Uh, he was using a
Speaker 1: four by tube brick, which you know is rectangular. And
Speaker 1: after writing this computer program that modeled every possible combination
Speaker 1: of six of these bricks, Tilers ended up with a
Speaker 1: truly massive number because it turns out that with just
Speaker 1: six of these bricks you can make over nine million
Speaker 1: different combinations. Oh wow. I mean, maybe that's not an
Speaker 1: endless area possibilities, but that's pretty That's a big number.
Speaker 1: And I would have to imagine though, like as you
Speaker 1: continued adding bricks, that number of combinations would just spiral
Speaker 1: out of control pretty quickly. Yeah. I under said that
Speaker 1: if you wanted his program to calculate nine or ten
Speaker 1: bricks like it would probably take years and maybe even
Speaker 1: hundreds of years. Sometimes math just doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: I don't notice that. It's just we're heard. Well, let's
Speaker 1: leave that challenge for the next generation of lego maniacs
Speaker 1: to take up, and I'm sure there won't be any
Speaker 1: shortage of them in the future. But in the meantime,
Speaker 1: what do you say we pieced together a few of
Speaker 1: the stray facts we couldn't fit in today's episode, and
Speaker 1: maybe see what kind of fact off, we can build
Speaker 1: with him, sounds good to me. Well, you may have
Speaker 1: seen this story, but sometime last year in Fort Worth, Texas,
Speaker 1: there was an off duty police officer that was visiting
Speaker 1: a children's hospital there and he would go there pretty regularly.
Speaker 1: He would dress up as certain superheroes. On this day,
Speaker 1: he was dressed as Batman, and obviously there to try
Speaker 1: to put smiles on the kid's face, says, and it's
Speaker 1: just pretty neat that he does this. But after one
Speaker 1: of his visits, he was in a local walmart and
Speaker 1: he noticed the man's shoplifting. It turns out one of
Speaker 1: the movies this guy was shoplifting was Lego Batman. He
Speaker 1: was a big fan of both Batman and Lego, and
Speaker 1: so he was probably a little thrown off when you know,
Speaker 1: this surreal experience happened of Batman coming up and threatening
Speaker 1: to arrest him, and he apologized, of course, but then
Speaker 1: asked to take a selfie with Batman. That is bold.
Speaker 1: So I think we might have shared this at some point,
Speaker 1: but I still think it's funny that the world's largest
Speaker 1: tire manufacturer is not Michelin or Goodyear or Firestone, but Lego,
Speaker 1: who produces nearly four billion units. It's pretty unbelieve. I
Speaker 1: don't think any of those other competitors, I guess you
Speaker 1: could say, going to catch them anytime soon. My son
Speaker 1: William and I spent lots of time checking out the
Speaker 1: photos on NASA's Juno probe that they would send back
Speaker 1: from its trips around Jupiter. But one of the I
Speaker 1: thought was fun was that there were a few Lego
Speaker 1: mini figures along for the ride. And that's because they
Speaker 1: were thinking back to its history of the exploration and
Speaker 1: and kind of observation of Jupiter, and looking back to
Speaker 1: the time when Galileo was the first to observe and
Speaker 1: report on Jupiter's four largest moons. This was way back
Speaker 1: in sixteen ten. So the team who planned the mission
Speaker 1: felt it was appropriate to allow Galileo to finally make
Speaker 1: the trip to Jupiter as a Lego figure at least.
Speaker 1: And he was made of aluminum, you know, to protect
Speaker 1: him from the radiation from Jupiter. And he was joined
Speaker 1: by two other figures, the mini Juno Queen of the
Speaker 1: Gods and the god Jupiter. I like that they sent
Speaker 1: this crew up there, like Galileo and who was killed
Speaker 1: of heresy, right, And so you remember from the Lego
Speaker 1: movie that there was lots to talk about master builders,
Speaker 1: and Wild Style of course was the coolest. But there
Speaker 1: are actually master builders who work at Lego. The company
Speaker 1: employees about fifty of him, and they call him Master
Speaker 1: model Builders, and they actually get paid to build with Legos.
Speaker 1: So if you've ever been to a Lego Land location,
Speaker 1: these are the people who build all the incredible mini
Speaker 1: worlds and sculptures that you see all over the park.
Speaker 1: And I was reading an interview with one of the
Speaker 1: master builders and he explained that to get the job,
Speaker 1: obviously you've got to share your incredible portfolio of all
Speaker 1: the things you've already built, but they also have this
Speaker 1: test while you're there, and applicants get an hour to
Speaker 1: build something that represents themselves. Wow, that's pretty cool. Well,
Speaker 1: given that Lego bricks are made of plastic and that
Speaker 1: they are literally billions of them in existence, I know
Speaker 1: many of us have wondered whether the company would eventually
Speaker 1: find a way to produce more sustainable pieces, and it
Speaker 1: turns out the company does have a goal to make
Speaker 1: all of its bricks from sustainable materials. This is not
Speaker 1: until twenty thirty that they hope to realize this goal
Speaker 1: in full. And so they've invested in a sustainability center
Speaker 1: at their headquarters in Denmark and have hired dozens of
Speaker 1: employees to focus on this. And we're talking about chemical
Speaker 1: engineers and product designers and there to asked with trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how to make these incredibly durable pieces
Speaker 1: out of more sustainable material So it definitely won't be
Speaker 1: uneasy task. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty fascinating. So I like reading the answers that
Speaker 1: the company actually provides to fans who submit questions about
Speaker 1: the future plans for the company, And one of them
Speaker 1: that comes up fairly regularly is are there any plans
Speaker 1: to sell real life brick sized Lego pieces? Because I
Speaker 1: want to build an actual house, And the company replied,
Speaker 1: we have no plans at this time to sell real
Speaker 1: life brick sized lego pieces. You'll just have to build
Speaker 1: your home from normal materials at the time being. But actually,
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine, men in Great Britain actually did
Speaker 1: build the world's first full sized lego house. It took
Speaker 1: him three point three million bricks and it had a
Speaker 1: working toilet and a bed, and it was all mid
Speaker 1: a Lego, and there was talk for a while of
Speaker 1: Lego Land actually helping to move the house to the
Speaker 1: nearest theme park, but it proved too expensive, and so
Speaker 1: it's kind of sad, you know, it ended the way
Speaker 1: most Lego creative and ended with the whole thing getting demolished.
Speaker 1: Oh man, three point three million bricks worth of work
Speaker 1: all demolished. That is pretty sad. All right, Well, did
Speaker 1: you know that Lego used to celebrate employees who had
Speaker 1: worked for twenty five years with the company by giving
Speaker 1: them a gold Lego brick. It was just a solid
Speaker 1: two by four gold Lego piece that was worth about
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand dollars at the time. Actually, that's really sweet.
Speaker 1: I like the But if you look over there, it
Speaker 1: looks like Tristan just put the final block on his
Speaker 1: taj Mahalan. He's got what is it like half the
Speaker 1: office end ground and patting him on the back. It's
Speaker 1: pretty impressive. I'm actually a little bit worried he might
Speaker 1: have forgotten to hit record because he's been so distracted.
Speaker 1: But by the off chance that he did manage to
Speaker 1: record this episode, I feel like Tristan deserves the trophy today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm good with that and listeners, we'd love to hear
Speaker 1: stories about Lego, the most incredible things you've built or
Speaker 1: seen build, or any other facts you want to share
Speaker 1: with us. You can send those two part Time Genius
Speaker 1: at how stuff Works dot com, where always you can
Speaker 1: hit us up at Facebook or Twitter. But from Will gave, Tristan,
Speaker 1: Me and the rest of the gang at Farttime Genius.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Fartime
Speaker 1: Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and wouldn't
Speaker 1: be possible without several brilliant people who do the important
Speaker 1: things we couldn't even begin to understand. Tristan McNeil does
Speaker 1: the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and
Speaker 1: does the MIXI mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the
Speaker 1: exact producer thing. Gave Bluesier is our lead researcher, with
Speaker 1: support from the research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown
Speaker 1: and Lucas Adams and Eve. Jeff Cook gets the show
Speaker 1: to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like what
Speaker 1: you heard, we hope you'll subscribe, And if you really
Speaker 1: really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave a
Speaker 1: good review for US. Do we do we forget Jason?
Speaker 1: Jason who