Little Coloured Bricks

So you think you are Lego’s no. 1 fan? If you think you are, you should go to the website of the Danish bricks and take the quiz. The quiz is a fun way to see how well you know your LEGO City, your Lego blocks and all the things included in it. You can choose from three main categories if you want to take the quiz or if you do not feel like taking the quiz, you can just browse what is in it. For those who love fire trucks, you can take the Fire Emergency quiz. For those fond of airplanes and airports you can take the Airport quiz. There is another category and it will ask you random things about LEGO City. Once you have chosen which category you would like to have a quiz on, you will be directed to the exam questions. Do not worry though this is not a rigid exam. In fact, you do not even have to choose between A to D, you only have to take a look at the pictures and click on your answer. Easy isn’t it? Well, it is not only easy, it is fun as well.

If you have children, have them take the quiz, it will not only teach them about LEGO City but will teach them practical stuff such as which types of vehicles have a hose, which ones have a special lift, which one is used by the police and which one is an ambulance. These are very basic questions that are made for children. For adults who love the little coloured bricks –this website and the building blocks, you can take the quiz as well.

Aside from determining which types of vehicles are used for what, children can also practice their color association skills i.e. what color are firemen uniforms usually are, etc.

Lego is everywhere, from toy stores to videogames and now they have hit high fashion houses as well. In 2008, designer Marc Jacobs used Lego bricks for brooch details, buckles, and headband details for his Spring show.

The appearance of Lego in the runway is not an isolated case though because Marc Jacobs is not the only designer who has incorporated the infamous building blocks to his couture. Kasi Made, a budding designer and an online entrepreneur caught onto the fashion craze as well. Legomania, apparently is not just prevalent in kiddie world or in Legoland. Somehow it has reached the accessory department.

Kasi Made makes accessories out of the world famous bricks and her brand sells earrings, necklaces, barrettes, and bracelets. The Danish toys are number one nowadays for accessory designers and Made’s sales skyrocketed and some of her items are now sold out.
Jean-Charles de Castelbajac more popularly known as JC/DC even designed a four minute runway show for Lego, well not really for Lego but the whole show was made out of the Danish building blocks.

Whimsical and cute they may seem but the four minute runway show is a straight faced fashion show. It just happens that the models are Lego minifigs.

The audiences are posh as well and are clapping every time they like a certain design. One of the male models was wearing a “Smells Like Teen Spirit” ensemble while other models wore “street” and “rock” inspired outfits. The project was of course supported by the LEGO group.

JCDC Versus LEGO from Four H on Vimeo.

We love our Legos and this generation loves Sudoku as well –no matter how puzzling it may be. When Hans Andersson, a Swedish programmer bought the futuristic Lego Mindstorms for his two beloved daughters, he began tinkering with the toy himself. After days of working on the do-it-yourself robots, Andersson created one that can solve Sudoku in just minutes.

Now that is amazing yet as mind boggling as your regular Sudoku. Andersson calls his creation The Sudoku Solver. It solves Sudoku puzzles by scanning the entirety of the puzzle with a built in light sensor. It then identifies the missing numbers located in the blank squares through image processing and algorithm. Whatever the math Andersson did to make this work, it sure is a fun yet very intelligent Lego robot.

The Swedish programmer seemed to have enjoyed the DIY robots more than his daughters and when asked about the algorithm applied in the system of The Sudoku Solver he said, “….since the Mindstorms processor is rather slow, and since it doesn’t allow for recursive functions, it took some care to optimize it…”

Well whichever the case, Andersson’s robot can still solve Sudoko faster than I can and that is the magic of it. Andersson could not shake off his fascination with Lego Mindstorms though, after The Sudoku Solver he created “Tilted Twister” yet another interesting robot toy. Tilted Twister can solve and figure out the ins and outs of a rubic’s cube in a matter of six minutes. Imagine the dread of solving it in days on end and this little robot does it in minutes! Now that is like instant coffee.

Don’t you just love robots! They are here and they are invading our playtime and in the near future they will be part of the more physical aspects of games –a game of soccer maybe? Who knows?

Just few weeks age Lego has introduced a new game called Minotaurus. This is a board game wherein you and your opponent move your three Lego warriors and reach the middle of the board first. Both of you should do your best not to encounter either the resident or the Minotaur or else you will be sent back to the starting point.

Since the game is a Lego, you initially have to assemble the board game before you can actually start. You might encounter some difficulties in building the board – that is putting walls in the maze. However, Lego has included a die and a board template to help you put the pieces in their proper places.

Lego has included a three-page instruction which clearly states the rules of the game. The instructions show some pictures to illustrate the mechanics of the game. Just like any Lego, Minotaurus basically allows you to make your rules and have them uploaded in the Lego website. Minotaurus resembles the other game called Ludo. Your aim is to move your warriors first to the middle of the board. You move your warriors according to the number of spaces showed when you roll the chunky die. However, you have to observe some exemptions to when rolling the die.

The first exemption states that if you roll the black tiles, you are allowed to move the Minotaur eight spaces. But if it encounters a player during the move, your warrior has to go back to the starting point. The second exemption denotes that when you roll the grey tile, you are allowed to get one grey wall piece and place it anywhere in the maze. This actually serves as a technique to hinder your opponent from getting to the middle first.

Lego Minotaurus is easy to play. Plus, the chubby pieces and the bright colors give it a nice and pleasing feature. You won’t get bored playing Lego Minotaurus because there are always conflicts every round.

Do you want to know what’s a-buzzing in the Lego Universe these days? The Lego world has been talking about the August 8 update for the Mindstorms competition since, well, August 8. The X Prize Foundation, Lego Systems, Wired’s Geekdad, National Instruments and Google Ink announced the the “MoonBots: A Google Lunar X Prize Lego Mindstorms Challenge”. The said contest is a challenge for small teams composed of children and parents to build and design robots that can perform moon surface simulations.

Senior director of the X Prize Foundation William Pomerantz said “We want students and their parents to understand that they can tackle difficult engineering problems and generate important new ideas regardless of their age or their background—and that they can have fun doing so. This contest is quite accessible for even very young children, but still demands creativity, intelligence, and hard work. It’s a perfect starting point for the next generation of rocket scientists!”

The contest is not just some other kiddie contest because it paves the way for future rocket scientists. The competition, according to the latest press release, will encourage the ones who join the competition to use free software tools from Lego’s Digital Designer, LabView from National Instruments, Google’ SketchUp and YouTube platform on how their robot will be constructed and how the whole team will function. A select group will be hand-picked from the platforms submitted. The chosen participants will be given free Lego components so that the groups can construct a moonscape that will be the contest’s “playing field”. The chosen finalists will then go on ahead and construct and program their robots. Now that’s a leap in kiddie science!