Why The Technical Sites Are Obsessed With Legos.
If you check out the technical news sites regularly, you might well be baffled at the updates they frequently have about Legos. Legos, for those not in the know, are small plastic building toys used to create buildings, vehicles and other structures and devices using standardized plugs and sockets. Legos first hit the market in 1949 and have grown steadily over the decades since. They are a children’s toy, one that many adults may not have considered for years.
Why, then, are Legos so prominently featured on so many of the technical sites?
In recent years, Legos have exploded with popularity again. During the brand’s last major lull, the Lego Company expanded their influence by licensing Legos with major niche franchises. As a result, Lego capitalized on the popularity of other brands, like Star Wars, Pirates Of The Caribbean, and Spider-man, by creating corresponding Lego sets of places, vehicles and characters from those franchises. That gambit worked for the business model, but it also gave an entire subculture – the AFOLs – the opportunity to “come out.” AFOLs are Adult Fans Of Legos and the largest AFOL site on the Internet has four thousand members!
By rebranding and licensing, Lego tapped into an almost timeless and limitless market. The Star Wars Lego line has become one of Legos most popular and profitable toy lines in decades. Like most of its other license-specific lines, the Star Wars Legos feature custom pieces used for very limited functions, like wings for specific Star Wars space ships. But while that type of toy may have limited appeal for children using Legos for creative play, it has immense popularity with adults who want to recreate their favorite Star Wars ships through less time-consuming means than assembling a model kit.
But even more than that, engineers and other scientists have found that using Legos for making models and mock-prototypes allows them to engage their senses and imagination. By being able to manipulate a physical object, like a Lego model, they are often able to solve design problems in devices they are inventing that they might never fix using computer models. While computer models can be constructed to allow engineers to see their devices from all angles, they cannot allow them the tactile experience of manipulating the object they have conceived. Legos allows them to do that. Moreover, constructing a Lego model from the ground up can inform designers on how the device they want to make may actually be constructed.
The variety of Lego pieces that allow intellectuals in the scientific communities and engineering field to creatively build virtually anything, combined with the markets of adults who want a more respectable keepsake from their favorite genre movies, have built a respectable adult market for Legos. Because so many technical sites appeal to the same markets, the leading technical news sites frequently keep their readers updated on forthcoming Lego products!
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