Nowadays, children have many toys. One of the most common educational games is construction. With the purchase of this entertainment for a child, parents have a new concern. After all, so often a child turns to his father or mother with the question: “What can be built from Lego?” There are many answers to this question. You just need to show your imagination and, perhaps, “fall into childhood” a little. Let's find out what you can build from Lego with your child.
Option one: home
Perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is to build some kind of room. This could be a residential building or apartment, an office or office, a car garage or a carriage depot.
To build a structure you will need insertable windows, doors, roof elements and others additional accessories. The more construction parts you have, the higher and wider the room will be. Think ahead color scheme walls and facade. You may want to build tall and beautiful columns in front of the entrance.
Trees can be placed in front of the building various plants, people and machines, which are also built from this constructor.
Option two: Lego tanks
Mischievous boys love to play war. To do this they will need barricades and tanks. It is quite simple to build a fencing wall from a constructor. You just need to attach one cube to another. This must be done until you get the height you need.
A tank is somewhat more difficult to build. To do this, it is better to involve adults or older siblings. The base of a tracked vehicle is formed quite simply. The size is determined by the amount of available material. In order to make caterpillars, you need to put the cubes in reverse. That is, so that the convex parts are on the outside. You start building the blank from the inside. When one part of the tank is made, it is necessary to form the second one symmetrically. In the same way, construct required amount tracked vehicles.
How to build a car from Lego?
Perhaps, after constructing buildings, this option is the most popular. In order to make transport, you will need wheels. First, think about what size the car will be. Build a multi-piece base with wheels.
After that, make a cab for the driver required size and body. If the car should be a passenger car, then harmoniously secure the cubes and make a hood, roof and trunk. If desired, you can leave large holes in the form of windows. Through them you can seat the driver and passengers in the cabin.
Alternative option
So, what else can you build with Lego? There can be a lot of options. With a large number of parts, you can assemble a giant robot or a tree. Girls will certainly appreciate the following ideas: fruits and vegetables, cakes and other products. You can also make a doll or a castle for your little princess. All furniture can be created from small designer parts.
In addition, you can assemble a real computer or phone. Many children enjoy building farms and animal pens, which are also created using Legos.
It is worth noting that the manufacturer offers to purchase the product in various sizes and shapes. Small details are more suitable for older children. While the larger parts will be appreciated by kids.
If you have absolutely no idea what you can build from Lego, then pay attention to the packaging in which the construction set was sold. The manufacturer always offers several ideas for buildings that are drawn on the box. Most likely, from them you can choose the most suitable option for your children.
How is Lego made?
The history of the world-famous Lego constructors began back in the last century, back in 1949, when the first parts of this wonderful toy were born in the small town of Billund, Denmark. The small plastic blocks were designed in such a way that they could be easily connected to each other due to their special elements. The basis for the entire further variety of components of the designer were small bricks of several sizes, equipped with tongues and grooves that connected the parts to each other.
Gradually, the range of parts expanded, the sets began to include wheels first, then figures of people and animals were added, and then, as technological progress developed, even miniature electric motors and various sensors. Therefore, now you can assemble not only houses from Lego parts, as was originally intended, but also spaceships, airplanes, pirate frigates, cars and even moving robots. True fans of this wonderful designer are interested in knowing literally everything about it. It is for them that we will tell you how Lego is made.
LEGO factories are located in three countries - Denmark, Mexico and the Czech Republic. On these giant factories Every day, about 60 tons of multi-colored thermoplastics are turned into several million cubes. Myself technological process The production of parts is quite simple, there are no special secrets in it.
What and how is Lego made of: the manufacturing process
1. The birth of a new Lego set begins with an idea. The company's developers decide which new set should be put into production based on market conditions - a pirate ship, a robot, or a fire station.
2. When the project is finally approved, design engineers get down to business. They create mock-ups of the necessary parts, and on their basis, special metal matrices are made - molds into which the thermoplastic will be poured. There is no need to make matrices of all parts every time, because most of the blocks are standard. They have been used in all sets since the sixties of the last century. Therefore, it is only necessary to create again the molds for the exclusive parts that are unique to the new set. It is worth noting that Lego molds are very expensive. We are talking about amounts of tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Therefore, all matrices, even those no longer used at the present time, are carefully stored in the factory warehouse, because who knows, maybe they will still be needed.
3. The finished matrices are transferred to the factory, and the next designer is put into production. Its basis is modern injection molding machines, which under large; Pressure and at temperatures above 200 degrees, parts are stamped from molten multi-colored plastic.
4. High-quality acrylonitrile-based plastic arrives at the plant in the form of granules - transparent or red. The granules are stored in a special bunker, from where they are fed into molding machines. There the plastic melts, mixes with the necessary dyes and under high pressure literally injected into matrix forms.
5. After water cooling, the molds open and the finished bricks fall onto the conveyor belt.
6. The process of creating parts is almost completely automated and does not require human presence. The robot collects Lego fragments from the conveyor, packs them into bags and weighs them. The robot even attaches heads and arms to the figures and draws facial features and costume details for them.
7. After this, the finished parts of the designer are sent to the packaging department. Boxes for the sets are designed by high-class designers. They feature colorful designs that match the theme of the set and the Lego logo. A special machine takes the printing blank, bends it in specified directions and glues the box together. Then the robot places a set of parts sealed in a bag into it. The next machine closes the lid and seals it.
8. Now all that remains is to pack the bright, elegant boxes with construction sets, six pieces each, into large cardboard boxes, tighten them plastic film, and fresh Lego will be ready to ship.
Now that you know how Lego is made, it's time to open a new set, pour bright pieces onto the table and immerse yourself in an exciting game!
The modern multifunctional construction set is especially popular among boys and girls today. Lego. With the help of this amazing construction set, your child will be able to create the most incredible buildings, and even entire worlds.
A Lego constructor of any series can become a great gift for a child on his birthday or New Year. It is important when choosing the theme of the designer to take into account the gender of the child, because there is great amount Lego themed construction sets 8terminal .
For example, boys will be interested in such series of Lego constructors as Lego City (the opportunity to build a real city), Lego Train (what boy doesn’t dream of creating and then driving a real train), Star Wars (the series is based on the popular science fiction saga) and etc.
Girls will be interested in such series of Lego constructors as a cozy cafe, a fairy-tale castle for a princess, a mysterious house on the seashore, a spa for pets, a restaurant or a pizzeria.
Each Lego constructor contains in its kit a set of necessary parts, understandable and detailed instructions assembly, as well as small figures of Lego men that have appearance according to the theme of the designer you have chosen.
What makes the Lego constructor convenient and multifunctional is that even after your child has played with it a lot, you don’t have to throw it in the trash or give it to the neighbor kids. You will ask why? Yes, because using Lego parts, you can easily create the most incredible and useful items for your home.
In this article, the News Portal “site” decided to share with you the simplest but most impressive crafts that each of you can make at home.
So let's get started...
Lego vase
To make a stylish and fashionable vase from Lego, you will need a tall glass or old vase and design details. It is advisable to have a Lego base, then the vase can be easily moved from place to place without the risk of losing the glass glass of water that is inside.
So, the Lego base will be the bottom of the future vase. Now using various parts, build a tall box so that it completely covers the glass that will be inside.
To be on the safe side, you can lubricate the parts with glue during assembly.
Liquid soap with Lego parts
Does your child hate washing their hands? Then you will like this idea. Make something bright and original like this liquid soap, which will not only decorate the bathroom interior, but also an excellent motivator for maintaining cleanliness.
Next time you go to the store for liquid soap, choose liquid soap that comes in a clear bottle. At home, carefully remove unnecessary stickers from the bottle, and pour Lego parts inside the jar.
Lego wreath
Such a bright and funny wreath can become a magnificent decoration for the door that leads to a children's room.
Cut a circle from a sheet of thick cardboard, cover it with foam rubber and drape any beautiful fabric.
Decorate the wreath with Lego pieces, attaching them with glue in a chaotic manner.
Lego key holder
Such an original thing would be very appropriate in the hallway, especially in those families where a large number of They spend time looking for keys.
To make a key holder you will need the base of the constructor and small parts.
From multi-colored parts, make bright keychains with which the keys will be attached to the key holder.
Lego night light
A bright and magical night light can be made from transparent Lego parts. Fold the parts into a small box, and place a socket with a light bulb inside it.
Enjoy the soft and subdued light that the wonderful Lego night light will give you.
Lego jewelry
This idea will definitely appeal to young fashionistas.
Make holes in the Lego pieces and thread a tight rope through them. You will get bright summer beads or necklaces.
Use parts from the designer to create unusual pendants for rings and earrings.
DIY Lego flash drive:
DIY Lego Christmas toys:
The news portal “site” will be happy to post photographs of your unusual Lego crafts on the site. Send your work with a description to our email address -
Each new Lego set is a joy from a gift, enthusiastic play, free time for parents and a holiday for several days. And then everyday life begins - tears from an accidentally destroyed building and small bricks all over the floor that painfully dig into the heel. Practical considerations suggest that an expensive designer has not yet earned its value. The game must go on, but how? Tatyana Novikova, author of the Lego Buyers Club website, shares tips on how to set up Lego construction at home.
How to organize Lego construction? Searching for an answer on the Internet reveals a lot of advertisements for children's clubs. The details are not specified - you need to bring your child to the circle to find out. It seems that construction is a secret accessible only to selected teachers. But you have so many details - it’s time to open your own circle!
Children love to build with Lego, you just need to create the conditions. If you look at it, there are no obstacles for a child to engage in Lego creativity at home. No investment or huge effort required. A home design club is open to everyone.
The tips listed below are not step by step guide. Quicker, important techniques to get around the difficulties that arise. A child loses interest for many reasons and at different stages of playing with Lego. Fortunately, there are recommendations from Lego designers and experienced parents.
Lego - instead of Montessori classes for children and meditation for adults
What do you think about an adult who makes architectural structures from small Lego parts? He seems to spend a lot of time sorting parts and building. He probably doesn't do anything else.
Nothing like this! Tom Alfin has also written a book about Lego architecture and runs a blog. But this is just part of his life. Tom is a programmer and user interface manager at Microsoft. He is also a traveler and photographer. It’s just amazing, where does he get so much energy and where does he find the time?
This is one of many cases where a Lego fan is successful in other areas.
Lego blocks are not enemies, but friends of parents. You can do a lot of useful things with Lego and even create a learning environment at home that runs on autopilot. Lego bricks can replace expensive textbooks and teach mathematics, reading and music.
It has been noticed that children who are seriously interested in Lego construction easily overcome difficulties such as “delay speech development" Fine motor skills training helps you quickly master mathematics and writing, understand solfeggio and play your first pieces on the musical instruments. They pass psychological testing more successfully in kindergarten or at school. Little Lego fans are calm and balanced, tests show high level feelings of happiness.
A child’s passion for Lego is worthy of encouragement and support. But adults also notice that, having started their home construction club with reluctance, they get involved and begin to have fun. Sorting parts, assembling, searching for ideas together - this frees you for a while from endless adult worries and gives you energy in your main work.
It is difficult for a modern person to understand what meditation is. “Sitting like an idol” - what does this give? But a hobby that requires concentration and attention relieves the burden of uncontrolled work of the mind. For a time, you become completely immersed in the present moment. This activity heals better than any medicine and gives a powerful influx of energy.
And you should start with the simplest thing: find time in your diary to sort the bricks...
Lego storage and construction table
The biggest obstacle to successful creativity is toy boxes in which everything is piled up, including Lego. It is impossible to build in such conditions. The children do not understand what to do with this mass.
Organizing bricks by size into storage containers is the first step parents usually start with. At the same time as sorting this way, it is convenient to build something according to the instructions. The son gives orders for the part - the mother looks for it and issues it. Makes for some fun sorting! It immediately becomes clear which parts are most in demand and which ones should be kept separately.
Not a bad start. But later it turns out that the containers are not quite suitable, the place for them is not very well chosen, and such a system does not look very neat. Do not stop. Read on to create the best one available systems Lego storage.
- Sort by color. At first glance, this is illogical. But this is exactly how designers recommend sorting parts. The big drawback of Lego is the noise that the colorful bricks create. No, we are not talking about audio noise, but about visual noise. Even when placed in containers according to size, the cubes do not look very attractive. And children love it when it’s beautiful. They love it when their crafts look neat and stylish.
Megan Rothrock (Lego Group designer and author of Lego Adventure) noticed that while the pieces are in one colorful pile, children do not know what to do with them. When they are arranged by color, interest and ideas arise. Sorting by color inspires creativity, so it's important. It is convenient to use wide and flat transparent containers. All the details are on the surface and easy to find.
To keep things simple, it’s enough to sort by the most common colors: black, white, dark gray, light gray, yellow, blue, red, beige. Leave the others in a common container.
- Should I sort by part type? Design experience shows that sorting by size and type makes sense. That's just... from Lego constructors about 4000 types of parts. Each piece is available in several colors. If each type of part is sorted by color and type, it’s scary to imagine how many thousands of containers would be needed.
It is convenient to store small, frequently encountered bricks separately. Tom Alfin, who we mentioned above, has made a guide to the most common small parts and even lists the most common colors (at the bottom of the page). Use it as your storage assistant.
- Storage system for a child. He must be able to maintain order on his own. Too much a complex system storage, a lot of effort to maintain order kills motivation. Who would want to build if it’s so difficult to clean up afterwards?
Independent creativity will be a joy if construction material accessible at arm's length. This can be organized using a special gaming table.
3 in 1 solution: gaming table, temporary stand for ready-made models, organizer for storing parts. Here everything you need is at hand. At his table the child builds and thinks.
To organize one, you need a suitable table (for example, from IKEA) and Lego building boards. Construction boards are attached to the table with superglue or double tape. Velcro textile fastener is also suitable. Ikea tables are so varied that there is a solution for any design and size of a child’s room. Storage organizers can be built into them.
There may be more parts than the desk organizers can accommodate. Then you need to keep the most popular ones on hand.
Take photographs of finished models
Many children refuse to dismantle finished buildings and are painfully worried about accidental destruction. But change cannot be avoided. Structures are fragile because creativity is a process. Not to get attached, to be calm about change - this is one of the wise lessons of Lego. To preserve the building, it is not necessary to turn the apartment into a dusty museum. Designers recommend that parents keep a photo album for their buildings. So you can return to them at any time. Models that move can be filmed.
Photo source: www.imgur.com
Instructions for Lego: why store it and where to find it?
Once the parts are sorted, creativity kicks into high gear. Usually a child cannot be stopped - he really wants to assemble something grandiose. He tries to come up with something himself, but it doesn’t turn out as beautifully as he would like. Until the design techniques have been perfected, instructions are needed.
- Save old instructions for Lego sets in file folders. The new is the well-forgotten old. If you saved instructions from designers, you will always find great ideas for design.
- Download instructions from the manufacturer's website. You can select by model number or by your favorite series.
- Find ideas and DIY tutorials on Pinterest.com.
In children's Lego construction clubs they not only build, but also make up fairy tales. Try the same. Choose songs that inspire you role-playing games and making up stories. And then move on to the next step.
How to assemble Lego without instructions
The Lego company recommends trying regular pictures instead of instructions. What is your child's favorite topic? Houses, robots, animals and cartoon characters - everything can be assembled from Lego. Assembly without instructions is the next step. For this you need to master the basic techniques. If a child has collected a lot according to instructions, he is ready for independent creativity. Lego bricks are a treasure trove of interesting tricks and tricks.
The house can be opened like a book to see what's inside
Photo source:
What is your relationship with Lego constructors? Tell us in the comments, do you design from old bricks? How do you store bricks? What design tricks do you know? Thanks for your feedback!
The Lego company has been producing children's construction sets with the same name for many years. For the first time this company patented its plastic products back in 1958. The set includes plastic parts of different sizes, each of which can be quite easily attached to another part using pins located in its upper part. Over the years, the models of these sets have been improved, and many have become interested in the question - what can be made from Lego?
Today, the range of these construction sets is very wide: on store shelves you can often find a variety of additional parts for such a construction set: figures of people, birds, animals, as well as coins, trees and other attributes. In addition, the designers themselves may belong to a specific theme, for example: wizards, pirates, etc. characters and everything that accompanies them. But the most popular model is a city or Lego city.
Before you start making anything from this construction set, you, of course, need to purchase it. A standard set will do. In order to assemble a machine gun, pistol or other weapon, you need to start with small parts. By the way, another advantage of this construction set is that even a one-year-old baby can play with it, because its parts are not so small as to penetrate the child’s respiratory organs. But for the most part, the vast majority of sets are recommended for children aged 5 years and older.
Any Lego comes with instructions for making a particular element (robot, machine, etc.). After reading it carefully, you can special effort and labor to assemble the constructor. The main difference between such instructions is the most clear description of the assembly stages, and the color pictures will make the assembly process clear even to a small child.
With Lego City, the situation is somewhat different: to build it, most likely, you will need more than 1 set, because here you will have to construct buildings and structures, as well as other elements of urban or rural use. This toy will captivate not only children, but also adults!
By the way, for the details of this designer there is 1 more little unusual application, namely, household. For example, such products can become excellent ice cube trays! To do this, simply fill them with water and place them in the freezer, and then use a knife to remove the contents from them. In addition, you can use Lego to make refrigerator magnets, candles, soap molds, or other useful household items.
Now the company is actively releasing new sets with which you can create figures not only from simple details, but also from gears, chains, various connecting elements and even a programming block.
The company does not forget about its many fans. In this regard, she opened a number of amusement parks, which are somewhat similar to Disneyland, located in Paris. These parks are called Legoland and Legosity. In them, kids and adults can look at unusual buildings, ride on attractions and even create structures and entire cities on their own!
DIY Lego crafts: options
Lego constructors are an exciting educational game that children especially like because of their bright colors and colorful design. But its main advantage is the many various variations assembly of parts. Anyone can collect what they like best: from weapons like a pistol or machine gun, to cars, robots and even buildings!
But before you start assembling the construction set, you need to unpack it and look at the manual - instructions, where the work options will be indicated. This guide is step-by-step, so you won’t have to think long about how to properly assemble this or that structure.
If you have already tried all the assembly options suggested in the instructions, then you can create a special model or design using, for example, video tutorials.
But a situation may arise when you do not have any the required part, then it will be necessary to purchase 1 more set of the designer. But you can immediately buy Lego “Freestyle”, thereby complementing the original constructor big amount various parts.
The Lego Technic set is very useful for child development, but first the baby should be taught how to fasten the main parts together, and then you can give free rein to his imagination. By the way, this Lego set includes, in addition to the main parts, quite specific ones, for example: motors, gears and chains. Therefore, you need to carefully monitor your small child while he is busy constructing so that he cannot swallow small parts.
Work on complex structures sometimes it takes quite a long time, so if your son or daughter is under 7 years old, it can get boring very quickly. To search necessary scheme took the shortest possible time, you can search on the Internet.
But you need to know that different sets have, respectively, different sizes. For example, when purchasing Lego Duplo, next time it is better to purchase a construction set from the same series if your plans include expanding the parts. There are also sets for older children, and also for those who like to rack their brains, such as Lego Mindstorms. Here you will find software modules, many small and connecting parts and even electronic sensors with which you can special labor assemble a robot or a car!
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