LEGO

This article was written by Dustyn

(  * Editor's note: Now we would like to let everyone know that this is Dustyn's very first full credited article with us and we are very happy to have Dustyn on board with us and yes as everyone know's this is a family run magazine and Dustyn is family and he is also the first male to write for us in either BC Beat or BC Beat Kids magazine ).

Lego is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a

privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company’s flagship product, Lego,

consists of variously coloured interlocking plastic bricks accompanying an array of gears,

figurines called minifigures, and various other parts. Lego pieces can be assembled and

connected in many ways to construct objects, including vehicles, buildings, and working

robots. Anything constructed can be taken apart again, and the pieces reused to make new

things. The Lego Group began manufacturing the interlocking toy bricks in 1949. Movies,

games competitions, and six Legoland amusement parks have been developed under the

brand. As of July 2015, 600 billion Lego parts had been produced. In February 2015, Lego

replaced Ferrari as Brand Finance’s ‘’world’s most powerful brand’’. At certain points,

investing in Lego sets was more valuable than investing in gold.

 History

The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen (1891-1958), a carpenter

from Billund, Denmark, who began making wooden toys in 1932. In 1932, his company

came to be called ‘’Lego’’, derived from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means ‘’play

well’’. In 1947, Lego expanded to begin producing plastic toys. In 1949 Lego began

producing, among other new products, an early version of the now familiar interlocking

bricks, calling them ‘’ Automatic Binding Bricks’’. These bricks were based on the Kiddicraft

Self-locking bricks, which had been patented in the United Kingdom in 1939 and released in

1947. Lego had received a sample of the Kiddicraft bricks from the supplier of an

injection-molding machine that it purchased. The bricks, originally manufactured from

cellulose acetate, were a development of the traditional stackable wooden blocks of the time.

The Lego Group’s motto, ‘’only the best is good enough’’ was created in 1936. This motto,

which is still used today, was created by Christiansen to encourage his employees never to

skimp on quality, a value he believed in strongly. By 1951 plastic toys accounted for half of

the Lego company’s output, even though the Danish trad magazine Legetøjs-Tidende (‘’Toy

Times’’), visiting the Lego factory in Billund in the early 1950s, felt that plastic would never

be able to replace traditional wooden toys. Although a common sentiment, Lego toys seem

to have become a significant exception to the dislike of plastic in children’s toys, due in part

to the high standards set by Ole Kirk. By 1954, Christiansen’s son, Godtfred,had become the

junior managing director of the Lego Group. It was his conversation with an overseas buyer

that led to the idea of a toy system. Godfred saw the immense potential in Lego bricks to

become a system for creative play, but the bricks still had some problems from a technical

standpoint: their locking ability was limited and they were not versatile. In 1958, the modern

brick design was developed; it took five years to find the right material for it, ABS

(acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) polymer. The modern Lego brick design was patented on 28

January 1958. The Lego Group’s Duplo product line was introduced in 1969 and is a range

of simple blocks whose lengths measure twice the width, height, and depth of standard Lego

blocks and are aimed towards younger children. In 1978, Lego produced the first minifigures,

which have since become a staple in most sets.

In may 2011, Space Shuttle Endeavour mission STS-134 brought 13 Lego kits to the

International Space Station, where astronauts built models to see how they would react in

microgravity, as a part of the Lego Bricks in Space program. In May 2013, the largest model

ever created was displayed in New York City and was made of over 5 million bricks; a 1:1

scale model of an X-wing fighter. Other records include a 112-foot (34 m) tower and a 4 km

(2.5 mi) railway. In February 2015, Lego replaced Ferrari as the ‘’world’s most powerful

brand’’.

 In popular culture

Lego’s popularity is demonstrated by its wide representation and usage in many forms of

cultural works, including books, films and art work. It has even been used in the classroom

as a teaching tool. In the US, Lego Education North America is a joint venture between

Pitsco, Inc. and the educational division of the Lego Group. In 1998, Lego bricks were one of

the original inductees into the National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong in Rochester, New

York.

 Design

Lego pieces of all varieties constitute a universal system. Despite variation in the design and

the purposes of individual pieces over the years,each piece 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 bricks of

2 x 4 studs 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 manufacture Lego bricks have tolerances as small as 10

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, split into three stages. The first stage is to identify market trends and

developments, including contact by the designers directly with the market; some are stationed in

toy shops close to holidays, 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 prototypes

are presented to the entire project team for comment and for testing by parents and children

during the "validation" process. Designs may then be altered in accordance with the results from

the focus groups. Virtual models of completed Lego products are built concurrently with the

writing of the user instructions. Completed CAD models are also used in the wider organisation,

for marketing and packaging. Lego Digital Designer is an official piece of Lego software for Mac

OS X and Windows which allows users to create their own digital Lego designs. The program

once allowed customers to order their custom designs with a service to ship physical models

from Digital Designer to consumers; the service ended in 2012.

 Manufacturing

Since 1963, Lego pieces have been manufactured from a strong, resilient plastic known as

acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). As of September 2008, Lego 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 232 °C

(450 °F) until it reaches a dough-like consistency. It is then injected into the moulds at pressures

between 25 and 150 tonnes, and takes approximately 15 seconds to cool. The moulds are

permitted a tolerance of up to twenty micrometres, to ensure the bricks remain connected.

Human inspectors check the output of the moulds, to eliminate significant variations in color 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. Lego has a self-imposed 2030 deadline to find a

more eco-friendly alternative to the ABS plastic it currently uses in its bricks. Manufacturing of

Lego bricks occurs at several locations around the world. Moulding is done in Billund, Denmark;

Nyiregyhaza, Hungary; Monterrey, Mexico and most recently in Jiaxing, China. Brick decorations

and packaging are done at plants in Denmark, Hungary,Mexico and Kladno in the Czech

Republic. The Lego Group estimates that in five decades it has produced 400 billion Lego blocks.

Annual production of Lego bricks averages approximately 36 billion, or about 1140 elements per

second. According to an article in BusinessWeek in 2006, Lego could be considered the world’s

No.1 tire manufacturer; the factory produces about 306 million small rubber tires a year. The claim was reiterated in 2012.