Teaching with Toys: A Look at LEGOs

Join CR4 for an appreciative review at LEGOs! This week HUSH covers the ways constructionist toys shape our educations, and next week SwissMiss takes a thorough look at just how the tiny blocks earn their shape.

Decades ago, I would spend the earliest days of autumn plotting my Christmas list. Reaching exorbitant levels of childish greed, not only would I have my wish list completed by Veteran's Day (November 11 here in the U.S.), but I carefully constructed my list to emphasize what my parents were most likely to purchase. Red herrings were common; I was fully aware the rhinoceros, mini bike, and BB gun were unlikely to come on Christmas morning. Other toys, no matter the price tag, were an easier 'yes' afterwards.

And while army men and snow sleds came as well, LEGOs were without a doubt at the top of my list. I recall an entire childhood of green, red, blue and yellow 2 x 2s, 2 x 4s, 4 x 8s and so on. Erector and K'Nex sets were in my toy chest as well, but my mother swears to a fortune drained in plastic components, as well as one or two foot injuries.

Well what once was child's play has developed into serious fun. Since LEGO's introduction of Mindstorms in 1998, LEGOs have become the go-to source for rudimentary robotics. Getting children playing with these toys can be viewed as an early way to initiate designing and assembly, but university classes based on these toys prove there is an everlasting lesson in these playthings.

The Lego Group estimates that it has produced some 400 billion pieces in the last 50 years, and in 2011 they made 381 million model-sized rubber tires, more than twice the number of leading full-size tire manufacturer Bridgestone. A common complaint is the cost of a LEGO set, but a variety of reasons lead to the price. Petroleum prices directly affect the cost of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), the synthetic monomer from which LEGO pieces are made. The average cost of manufacture per piece is 12 cents and this includes the diligence with which each piece is crafted. Since each piece must interconnect with every other LEGO ever made, tolerances for construction are extremely slim, just two micrometers. LEGO also has to pay licensing fees for some of its most popular designs, like Batman, Harry Potter, and Star Wars. Click the video on the right for a look at NatGeo's coverage of professional LEGO-ers are work.

Research has shown that some children gravitate towards toys that can indicate career preferences. Based upon constructionist psychological theory, such research states that learners begin to view the world through whichever lens helps them filter knowledge and order. Children who use construction toys like LEGO are more likely to become architects or engineers. (Check out the life-sized LEGO house on the left.) Recently, a building toy called GoldieBlox was introduced to encourage girls to be more interested in science and engineering-related fields and this blogging dad attests LEGO was the reason he became an engineer. Other toys-to-career links help advance this hypothesis: nurses and teachers often played with dolls and figures; bankers and accountants enjoyed board games and puzzles; marketers and advertisers enjoyed doing crafts; and IT workers liked computer and console games.

This tangible link between construction toys and STEM careers has birthed a series of college courses on using LEGOs to develop elementary software programming and mechanical design skills. Java programming often accompanies lectures, and the students must analyze and problem-solve through the use of small, LEGO-powered robots. At UNC Chapel Hill, Professor Anselmo Lastra noted that once students learn to deconstruct problems in steps, they are able to provide meaningful solutions. The results are small robots to compete in races, mazes, or other events designed to test the model's efficiency. Here is a small look at UNC's Lego seminar.

University courses often rely upon the LEGO Mindstorms educational pack to build models of embedded systems. While retail versions contained a Mac or Windows software interface to program the models, educational variants relied upon the ROBOLAB programming software. ROBOLAB could be replaced with Java and C languages. The first Mindstorms release contained 32K of RAM, as well as three input and three output ports. Input was provided by light, sound, and touch sensors, while outputs were typically motors and actuators. Since the first Mindstorms release, more than 17,000 replicable designs have been shared, ranging from toilet flushers to bumper cars.

Though there was an improved version released in 2006, 2013 will see the most advanced Mindstorms release yet. While not cheap at the MSRP of $350, the 600 piece set will offer budding electrical engineers a creative outlet. Included in that set will be a 300 MHz processor, 64 MB of RAM, and 16 MB of storage. This new set will also include an IR proximity sensor and an add-on gyroscope. The three motors included in the base package will be faster than their incumbent equivalents, making the robot's performance much more robust. Tech upgrades will allow the robot to be controlled by phone apps from around the world, and daisy-chaining multiple processors will allow more complex, uninhibited machines to be erected.

Does this mean you should be shoving LEGOs in your kid's face as soon as they're born? Probably not; buying them one or two sets and letting them explore their imaginations is probably the way to go. Does this provide a completely legitimate reason for you to travel down the toy aisle next time you're shopping? Yes, yes it does.

Resources

(Images credits: Linda Thompson; Toy Detectives; Geeky Gadgets; John Harvey Photo)

Wikipedia LEGO; Constructivism; Lego Mindstorms;

LEGO - More Than Child's Play...

UNC - First Year Seminar: Robotics with LEGO