Most tinkering toddlers are introduced to legos at a young age. We first start with the big blocks, then move on to more complex shapes as we age. At some point in our childhood, we stop playing with legos and start writing papers (or blogs) instead. The brave souls who continue to make a professional career out of playing with legos are known today as engineers.
Fact: Most engineering colleges (yes including Colorado School of Mines) use legos in their senior design / Capstone courses. The late great Prof. Steele of CSM Robotics terms legos as 'prototyping tools'. Lego even has an advanced lineup of models that can be programmed via the computer.
I've never used Legos for a demonstration, but I did use Kinetics. It worked great, since I need moving parts.
ReplyDeleteThis is great. I like that you point out the different uses of Legos.
ReplyDeleteHope to see more content from you soon, along with multimedia, links, and connections to conversations/debates ongoing with legos/technology.
Legos rule, although personally I have always like K'nex more. You can't build a feris wheel out of Lego's to my knowledge (at least not as efficiently with K'nex). I can proudly say that I have taken Dr. Steele's robotic class last semester. Best class I've taken at Mines. I had a Lego Mindstorm kit when I was younger, so it was cool to actually write the code that controlled the robot instead of just dragging and dropping the commands into a window. I am interested to see what topics you discuss in your blog.
ReplyDeleteLegos are at the heart of every good engineer's childhood. They were definately a part of my childhood and look where I ended up! It is always amazing to see the collasal structures that people actually do build with legos. I see the giant Hagrid statue in the Colorado Mills mall nearly everytime I'm there. An Ohio State professor recently just completed an exact replica of their football stadium at a 1:100 scale!
ReplyDeleteJust an fyi we also use legos in machine design!
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