1/22/2014 Lego - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego 1/13

Lego

Type Construction set

Inventor Ole Kirk Christiansen

Company Lego Group

Country Denmark

Availability 1949–present

Official website (http://www.lego.com/)

LegoFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lego[a] is a popular line of construction toys manufacturedby The Lego Group, a privately held company based inBillund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego,consists of colourful interlocking plastic bricks and anaccompanying array of gears, minifigures and various otherparts. Lego bricks can be assembled and connected in manyways, to construct such objects as vehicles, buildings, andeven working robots. Anything constructed can then be takenapart again, and the pieces used to make other objects.

Lego began manufacturing interlocking toy bricks in 1949.Since then a global Lego subculture has developed,supporting movies, games, competitions, and six themedamusement parks. As of 2013, around 560 billion Lego parts

had been produced.[2]

Contents

1 History

2 Sets

3 Design

4 Manufacture

4.1 Licensed themes4.2 Robotics sets

4.3 Clones of Lego

5 Related products and services

5.1 Video games

5.2 Official website

5.3 Business consultancy

5.4 Theme parks

5.5 Retail stores5.6 Children's clothes

5.7 Board games

5.8 Films and television

5.9 Books and magazines

6 In popular culture

7 Notes

8 References

9 Further reading

10 External links

1/22/2014 Lego - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego 2/13

Lego bricks

History

Main articles: History of Lego and Lego timeline

The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen (born7 April 1891), a carpenter from Billund, Denmark, who began making

wooden toys in 1932.[3] In 1934, his company came to be called "Lego",from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means "play well". It expanded

to producing plastic toys in 1947.[3] In 1949 Lego began producing,among other new products, an early version of the now famousinterlocking bricks, calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks". Thesebricks were based in part on the Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks, which

were patented in the United Kingdom in 1939[4] and then there releasedin 1947. Lego modified the design of the Kiddicraft brick after examining

a sample given to it by the British supplier of an injection-molding machine that the company had purchased.[5] The

bricks, originally manufactured from cellulose acetate,[5] were a development of traditional stackable woodenblocks that locked together by means of several round studs on top and a hollow rectangular bottom. The blockssnapped together, but not so tightly that they required extraordinary effort to be separated.

The Lego Group's motto is det bedste er ikke for godt which means roughly "only the best is the best" (more

literally "the best is never too good").[3] This motto was created by Ole Kirk to encourage his employees never to

skimp on quality, a value he believed in strongly.[3] The motto is still used within the company today. By 1951plastic toys accounted for half of the Lego Company’s output, although Danish trade magazine Legetøjs-Tidende("Toy-Times"), visiting the Lego factory in Billund in the early 1950s, felt that plastic would never be able to replacetraditional wooden toys. Although a common sentiment, Lego toys seem to have become a significant exception to

the dislike of plastic in children's toys, due in part to the high standards set by Ole Kirk.[6]

By 1954, Christiansen's son, Godtfred, had become the junior managing director of the Lego Group. It was hisconversation with an overseas buyer that led to the idea of a toy system. Godtfred saw the immense potential inLego bricks to become a system for creative play, but the bricks still had some problems from a technicalstandpoint: their locking ability was limited and they were not very versatile. In 1958, the modern brick design wasdeveloped, and it took another five years to find the right material for it, ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene)

polymer.[5] The modern Lego brick was patented on 28 January 1958,[7] and bricks from that year are stillcompatible with current bricks.

The Lego Group's Duplo product line, introduced in 1969, is a range of simple blocks which measure twice thewidth, height and depth of standard Lego blocks, and are aimed at younger children.

In 1978, Lego produced the first minifigures, which have since become a staple in most sets. New elements areoften released along with new sets. There are also Lego sets designed to appeal to young girls such as the Belvilleand Clikits lines which consist of small interlocking parts that are meant to encourage creativity and arts and crafts,much like regular Lego bricks. Belville and Clikit pieces can interlock with regular Lego bricks as decorativeelements.

Lego Fabuland ran from 1979 to 1989. The more advanced Lego Technic was launched in 1977. Lego Primo is aline of blocks by the Lego Group for very young children that ran between 2004 and 2006. In 1995 Lego Babywas launched for babies.

1/22/2014 Lego - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego 3/13

Lego building at NASA's KSC.

In May 2011, Space Shuttle Endeavour mission STS-134 brought 13 Lego kits to the International Space Station,where astronauts will build models and see how they react in microgravity, as part of the Lego Bricks in Space

program. The results will be shared with schools as part of an educational project.[8][9]

In May 2013, the largest model ever created was displayed in New York, made of over 5 million bricks; a 1:1

scale model of an X-Wing.[10]

Sets

Since the 1960s, the Lego Group has released thousands of sets with a variety of themes, including town and city,space, robots, pirates, trains, Vikings, castle, dinosaurs, undersea exploration, and wild west.

While there are sets which can be seen to have a military theme – such asStar Wars, the German and Russian soldiers in the Indiana Jones sets,the Toy Story green soldiers and Lego Castle – there are no directlymilitary-themed sets in any line. This is following Ole Kirk Christiansen'spolicy of not wanting to make war seem like child's play.

The Lego range has expanded to encompass accessory motors, gears,lights, sensors, and cameras designed to be used with Lego components.Motors, battery packs, lights and switches are sold under the namePower Functions. The Technic line utilises newer types of interlockingconnections that are still compatible with the older brick typeconnections. The Technic line can often be motorised with PowerFunctions.

Bionicle is a line of toys by the Lego Group that was marketed towardsthose in the 7–16 year-old age range. The line was launched in January2001 in Europe and June/July 2001 in the United States. The Bionicleidea originated from the earlier toy lines Slizers (also known asThrowbots) and the short-lived RoboRiders. Both of these lines hadsimilar throwing disks and characters based on classical elements. Thesets in the Bionicle line have increased in size and flexibility through the years. Bionicle was discontinued andreplaced with Hero Factory in 2010. Along with Hero Factory,another similar set has been made such as theBionicle type Lego Legends of Chima, which use the same structure for the minifigures.

One of the largest Lego sets ever commercially produced is a minifig-scaled edition of the Star Wars MillenniumFalcon. Designed by Jens Kronvold Fredericksen, it was released in 2007 and has 5,195 pieces. It was surpassed,

though, by a 5,922-piece Taj Mahal.[11]

Design

Lego pieces of all varieties constitute a universal system. Despite variation in the design and purpose of individualpieces over the years, each remains compatible in some way with existing pieces. Lego bricks from 1958 stillinterlock with those made in the current time, and Lego sets for young children are compatible with those made forteenagers.

1/22/2014 Lego - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego 4/13

A model of Trafalgar Square, London

in Legoland Windsor

Dimensions of some standard Lego bricks and

plates.[13][14]

A Lego City

Each Lego piece must be manufactured to an exacting degree of precision. When two pieces are engaged theymust fit firmly, yet be easily disassembled. The machines that make Lego bricks have tolerances as small as 2

micrometres.[12]

Primary concept and development work takes place at the Billund headquarters, where the company employsapproximately 120designers. Thecompany also hassmaller design officesin the UK, Spain,Germany, and Japan,which are taskedwith developingproducts aimedspecifically at thesemarkets. Theaverage development

period for a new product is around twelve months, in three stages. The first stage is to identify market trends anddevelopments, including contact by the designers directly with the market; some are stationed in toy shops close toholiday periods, while others interview children. The second stage is the design and development of the productbased upon the results of the first stage. As of September 2008 the design teams use 3D modelling software togenerate CAD drawings from initial design sketches. The designs are then prototyped using an in-housestereolithography machine. These are presented to the entire project team for comment and for testing by parentsand children during the "validation" process. Designs may then be altered in accordance with the results from thefocus groups. Virtual models of completed Lego products are built concurrently with the writing of the userinstructions. Completed CAD models are also used in the wider organisation, such as for marketing and

packaging.[15]

Manufacture

Since 1963, Lego pieces have been manufactured from a strong, resilient

plastic known as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS).[16] As ofSeptember 2008, the engineers use the NX CAD/CAM/CAE PLMsoftware suite to model the elements. The software allows the parts to beoptimised by way of mould flow and stress analysis. Prototype mouldsare sometimes built before the design is committed to mass production.The ABS plastic is heated to 232 °C (450 °F) until at a dough-likeconsistency. It is then injected into the moulds at pressures between 25and 150 tons, and takes approximately 15 seconds to cool. The mouldsare permitted a tolerance of up to two micrometres, to ensure the bricks

remain connected.[15] Human inspectors check the output of the moulds,to eliminate significant variations in colour or thickness. According to the Lego Group, about eighteen bricks out of

every million fail to meet the standard required.[17] Lego factories recycle all but about 1 percent of their plasticwaste from the manufacturing process. If the plastic cannot be re-used in Lego bricks, it is processed and sold on

to industries that can make use of it.[18][19]

1/22/2014 Lego - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego 5/13

Manufacturing of Lego bricks occurs at a number of locations around the world. Moulding is done in Billund,Denmark; Nyíregyháza, Hungary; and Monterrey, Mexico. Brick decorations and packaging is done at plants inDenmark, Hungary, Mexico and Kladno in the Czech Republic. The Lego Group estimates that in the course of

five decades it has produced some 400 billion Lego blocks.[20] Annual production of Lego bricks averagesapproximately 36 billion per year, or about 1140 elements per second. If all the Lego bricks ever produced were

to be divided equally among a world population of six billion, each person would have 62 Lego bricks.[21]

According to an article in BusinessWeek in 2006, Lego could be considered the world's No. 1 tire manufacturer;

the factory produces about 306 million small rubber tires a year.[22]

In December 2012, the BBC's More or Less programme asked the Open University's engineering department to

determine "how many Lego bricks, stacked one on top of the other, it would take to destroy the bottom brick?"[23]

Using a hydraulic testing machine, the engineering department determined the average maximum force a 2×2 Legobrick can stand is 4,240 newtons; since an average 2×2 Lego brick has a mass of 1.152 grams (0.0406 oz),according to their calculations it would take a stack of 375,000 bricks to cause the bottom brick to collapse, which

represents a stack 3,591 metres (11,781 ft) in height.[23]

Licensed themes

Further information: List of Lego themes

Over the years, Lego has licensed themes from numerous cartoon and film franchises. These include Avatar: TheLast Airbender, Batman, Ben 10, Bob the Builder, Cars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings,Pirates of the Caribbean, Prince of Persia, Speed Racer, Spider-Man, SpongeBob SquarePants, Star Wars,Super Heroes, Thomas the Tank Engine, Toy Story, The Lone Ranger, and The Hobbit.

Although some of the licensed themes, such as Lego Star Wars and Lego Indiana Jones, have had highly successfulsales, Lego has expressed a desire to rely more upon their own characters and classic themes, and less upon

licensed themes related to movie releases.[24] Several of the themes have been discontinued.

Robotics sets

Main articles: Lego Mindstorms, Lego Mindstorms NXT, Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0, and Lego

Mindstorms EV3

Lego initiated a robotics line of toys called 'Mindstorms' in 1999, and has continued to expand and update thisrange ever since. The roots of the product originate from a programmable brick developed at the MIT Media Lab,and the name is taken from a paper by Seymour Papert, a computer scientist and educator who developed theeducational theory of constructionism, and whose research was at times funded by the Lego Group.

The programmable Lego brick which is at the heart of these robotics sets has undergone several updates andredesigned, with the latest being called the 'EV3' brick, being sold under the brand name of Lego Mindstorms EV3.The set includes sensors that detect touch, light, sound and ultrasonic waves, with several others being soldseparately, including an RFID reader.

The intelligent brick can be programmed using official software available for Windows and Mac computers, and isdownloaded onto the brick via Bluetooth or a USB cable. There are also several unofficial programs andcompatible programming languages that have been made to work with the brick, and many books have beenwritten to support this community.

1/22/2014 Lego - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego 6/13

There are several robotics competitions which use the Lego robotics sets. The earliest is Botball, a national U.S.middle- and high-school competition stemming from the MIT 6.270 Lego robotics tournament. Other Legorobotics competitions include Junior FIRST LEGO League (Jr.FLL) for students ages 6–9, FIRST Lego League(FLL) for students ages 9–14, and FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) for high school students. Jr.FLL FLL, and FTCoffer real-world engineering challenges to participants. FLL uses Lego-based robots to complete tasks. Jr.FLLparticipants build models out of Lego elements. FTC uses the NXT Intelligent brick and its pieces along withanother building platform called TETRIX. In its 2010 season, there were 16,070 FLL teams in over 55 countries.In its 2010 season, there were 2,147 Jr.FLL teams with 12,882 total student participants in the United States and

Canada.[25] The international RoboCup Junior football competition involves extensive use of Lego Mindstormsequipment which is often pushed to its extreme limits.

Clones of Lego

Main article: Lego clone

The definitive shape of the Lego bricks, with the inner tubes, was patented by the Lego Group in 1958. Severalcompetitors have attempted to take advantage of Lego's popularity by producing blocks of similar dimensions, andadvertising them as being compatible with Lego bricks.

In 2002, Lego sued the CoCo Toy Company in Beijing for copyright infringement over its "Coko bricks" product.

CoCo was ordered to cease manufacture of the products, publish a formal apology and pay damages.[26]

The English company Best-Lock Construction Toys was sued by Lego in German courts in 2004,[27] and 2009.[28]

but the Federal Patent Court of Germany denied Lego trademark protection for the shape of its bricks.[29] TheCanadian company Mega Bloks were sued by Lego in 2005 for trademark violation, but the Supreme Court of

Canada upheld Mega Bloks rights to sell their product.[30] In 2010, the European Court of Justice ruled that theeight-peg design of the original Lego brick "merely performs a technical function [and] cannot be registered as a

trademark."[31]

Related products and services

The Lego Group has used the Lego toy system to branch out into a number of other areas.

Video games

Main article: List of Lego video games

Lego has branched out into the video game market since 1997, beginning with games such as Lego Island andLego Creator. Popular titles include the 1999 game Lego Racers and the 2001 game Lego Racers 2. Morerecent licensed games include Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Batman, and many more.

Lego Harry Potter: Years 1–4 was released in June 2010, and Lego Rock Band was released in November2009. Another game announced is Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues including Indiana Jonesand the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and total remakes of the other movie's levels was released in 2009. MoreLego video games are Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, based on the first and second seasons of The CloneWars and Lego Battles: Ninjago based on the short video clips on the website. An addition to the Lego videogame series is Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game, where you can play all four movies including

1/22/2014 Lego - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego 7/13

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. Released in 2012, Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes was asequel to the popular Lego Batman video game. This game added new characters, including Superman, WonderWoman, the Flash, etc. and included an open world of Gotham to explore. The next game was Lego The Lord ofthe Rings which follows the events based on the The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Like Lego Batman 2, the gamefeatured dialogue spoken through the mouths of the minfigures except they are taken directly from all three filmsplus an entirely new over-world of Middle-Earth included. Then came Lego City Undercover, which let you playas cop Chase McCain and even had a prequel launched for the Nintendo 3DS. The newest game is Lego Legendsof Chima: Laval's Journey, which was released only for handhelds.

Lego Digital Designer is an official piece of Lego software for Mac OS X and Windows which allows users to buildwith Lego bricks on their computers. Users can then publish their creations online on the Lego Design by Mewebsite, or purchase the physical bricks to build them. Lego Digital Designer includes some Lego products whichonly exist online, including models for the children's television programs TUGS, Thomas and Friends and SpeedRacer.

Official website

Main article: Lego.com

First launched in 1996, the Lego website has developed over the years, and provides many extra services beyond ashop and product catalogue. There are moderated message boards, founded in 2001. Since then the messageboards had a complete overhaul in 2012, and the design was made neat,and contained many tools, and variousimprovements on design features from 2001.

Before My Lego Network, there was Lego Club Pages, which essentially held the same purpose, although thedesign lacked complex interaction,all you could do was add friends, it was also pretty basic in what you could do,so the company developed the improvement on Lego Club Pages and called it My Lego Network.

My Lego Network is a social networking site that involves items, blueprints, ranks, badges which are earned forcompleting certain tasks, trading and trophies called masterpieces which allow users to progress to go to the nextrank. The website has a built in inbox which allows users to send prewritten messages to one another. The LegoNetwork includes automated non-player characters within called "Networkers", who are able to do things whichnormal users cannot do, such as sending custom messages, and selling masterpieces and blueprints. The site alsohas modules which are set up on the user's page to 'grow' certain things, for showing picture compositions or both.The site includes instructions booklets for all Lego sets dating back to 2002.

Business consultancy

Main article: Lego Serious Play

Since around 2000, the Lego Group has been promoting "Lego Serious Play", a form of business consultancyfostering creative thinking, in which team members build metaphors of their organizational identities and experiencesusing Lego bricks. Participants work through imaginary scenarios using visual three-dimensional Lego constructions,imaginatively exploring possibilities in a serious form of play.

Theme parks

Main article: Legoland

1/22/2014 Lego - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego 8/13

A Lego store in Canada

Merlin Entertainments operates six Legoland amusement parks, the original in Billund, Denmark, the second inWindsor, England, the third in Günzburg, Germany, the fourth in Carlsbad, California, the fifth in Winter Haven,Florida, and the sixth in Nusajaya, Malaysia. On 13 July 2005, the control of 70% of the Legoland parks was soldfor $460 million to the Blackstone Group of New York while the remaining 30% is still held by Lego Group. Thereare also eight Legoland Discovery Centres, two in Germany, four in the United States, one in Japan and one in theUnited Kingdom. Two new Legoland Discovery Centres are scheduled to open in 2013: one at the Westchester

Ridge Hill shopping complex in Yonkers, NY and one at the Vaughan Mills in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada.[32]

Another will open at the Meadowlands complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey in 2014.

Retail stores

Lego operates 90 retail stores (68 in the United States, 13 in the UnitedKingdom, 9 in Germany, 6 in Canada, 2 in France, 1 in Austria, 1 in

Belgium, and 1 in Denmark.[33]). There are also ones at the DowntownDisney shopping complexes at Disneyland and Walt Disney WorldResorts as well as in Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. On 24

November 2010, a Lego retail store was opened in Lima, Peru,[34] at

Jockey Plaza Shopping Center.[35] The opening of each store iscelebrated with weekend-long event in which a Master Model Buildercreates, with the help of volunteers—most of whom are children—alarger-than-life Lego statue, which is then displayed at the new store for

several weeks.[36]

Children's clothes

Since 1993 LEGOwear Clothes have been produced and marketed by a Danish company called Kabooki underlicense from Lego Group. The clothes are for boys and girls from 0–12 years old and the partnership also ties inwith other Lego products such as 'Ninjago', 'Hero Factory' and the new 'Friends' theme for girls.

Board games

Main article: Lego board games

Lego Games launched in 2009–2010, and is a series of Lego-themed board games designed by Cephas Howard

and Reiner Knizia[37][38] in which the players usually build the playing board out of Lego bricks and then play withLego-style players. Some of the games are Race 3000, Wild Wool, Minotaurus, Magikus, Monster 4, LavaDragon, Pirate Code, Ramses Pyramid, Atlantis Treasure, Robo Champ, Ninjago Spinners, Orient Bazaar, andCreationary. Like many board games, the games utilize dice. However, in Lego Games, the dice are Lego, withLego squares with symbols on Lego studs on the dice. The games vary from simple to complex, some are similar to"traditional" board games, while others are completely different.

Films and television

Main articles: List of Lego films and The Lego Movie

1/22/2014 Lego - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego 9/13

In the past, Lego has turned down approaches from Hollywood to make a feature-length film based on the toy.However, this stance has since softened. A number of straight-to-DVD computer animated Bionicle and HeroFactory movies have been produced. A movie called LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers was released onDVD in February 2010. This was a completely computer-animated film made by Tinseltown Toons. It is a

crossover movie comprising many Lego themes.[39]

A feature film adaptation of the Lego world is in production, and has been slotted by Warner Bros. for release in

February 2014.[40] In August 2012, Morgan Freeman and Elizabeth Banks joined a cast already including ChrisPratt in the lead role and Will Arnett as Batman. It was also reported the studio hoped to sign Channing Tatum to

the film in the role of Superman.[41] The film's release date was moved up to 7 February 2014 in October 2012,[42]

and a contest was established for contestants to submit designs for vehicles to be used in the film.[43] By November

2012, the cast expanded with Liam Neeson, Alison Brie, Will Ferrell and Nick Offerman signing on for roles.[44]

In June 2013, it was reported that Warner Bros was developing a feature film adaptation of Lego Ninjago.Brothers Dan Hageman and Kevin Hageman were attached to write the adaptation, while Dan Lin and Roy Lee,

along with Phil Lord and Chris Miller, were announced as producers.[45]

A computer-generated animated series based on Lego Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu began in 2011, and anotherbased around Lego Legends of Chima began in 2013. A television series of Lego City has also been announced.

Books and magazines

Lego has an ongoing deal with publisher Dorling Kindersley (DK), who are producing a series of illustratedhardback books looking at different aspects of the construction toy. The first was "The Ultimate Lego Book",published in 1999. More recently, in 2009, the same publisher produced The LEGO Book, which was sold withina slipcase along with Standing Small: A celebration of 30 years of the LEGO minifigure, a smaller bookfocused on the minifigure; in 2012 a revised edition was published. Also in 2009, DK also published books onLego Star Wars (Lego Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary) and a range of Lego-based sticker books.

Although no longer being published in the United States by Scholastic, books covering events in the BIONICLEstoryline are written by Greg Farshtey. They are still being published in Europe by AMEET. BIONICLE comics,

also written by Farshtey, are compiled into graphic novels and were released by Papercutz.[46] This series ended in2009, after nine years.

There is also the Lego Club and Brickmaster magazine, the latter discontinued in 2011.

In popular culture

Main article: Lego in popular culture

Lego's popularity is demonstrated by its wide representation and usage in many forms of cultural works, including

books, films and art work. It has even been used in the classroom as a teaching tool.[47] In the USA, Lego

Education North America is a joint venture between Pitsco, Inc. and the educational division of the Lego Group.[48]

In 1998, Lego bricks were one of the original inductees into the National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong inRochester, New York.

1/22/2014 Lego - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego 10/13

Notes

a. ^ Also stylised and trademarked in capitals as LEGO.[1]

References

1. ^ "Lego.com About Us - The LEGO Brand" (http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/lego-group/the_lego_brand/). The LegoGroup. Retrieved 14 February 2013.

2. ^ Alexander, Bryan (23 October 2013). "'The Lego Movie' hopes to cement a built-in fan base"(http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2013/10/23/lego-movie-peek-will-ferrell/2918385/). USA Today.Retrieved 24 October 2013. "Given that iconic Danish toy company Lego has made 560 billion parts since 1958,there were a lot of characters to choose from when sketching out the script starring the plastic bricks."

3. ̂a b c d Lipkowitz, Daniel (2009) [2009]. The LEGO Book. London: Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 9781405341691.

4. ^ "Improvements in toy building blocks, patent GB529580 of 25 November 1940 by Harry Fisher Page ofKiddicraft" (http://v3.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=GB&NR=529580&KC=&FT=E).espacenet.com. 17 July 2010. Retrieved 17 July 2010.

5. ̂a b c May, James (2009) [2009]. James May's Toy Stories. London: Conway. ISBN 978-1-84486-107-1.

6. ^ Lauwaert, M. (2008). Playing outside the box - on LEGO toys and the changing world of construction play.History & Technology, 24(3), 221-237

7. ^ "Lego Celebrates 50 Years of Building" (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1707379,00.html).TIME. 28 January 2008. Retrieved 28 January 2008.

8. ^ Banks, Dave (28 April 2011). "Space Shuttle Endeavour Launches Tomorrow With a Special Payload"(http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/04/space-shuttle-endeavor-launches-tomorrow-with-a-special-payload/).Wired News. Retrieved 2 May 2011.

9. ^ Eaton, Kit (29 April 2011). "Space Shuttle Endeavour: Made Of Spare Parts"(http://www.fastcompany.com/1750642/space-shuttle-endeavour-the-spare-parts-spaceship). Fast Company.Retrieved 2 May 2011.

10. ^ Diaz, Jesus (23 May 2013). "This Incredible Full Scale Lego X-Wing Is the Largest Model In History"(http://gizmodo.com/this-incredible-full-scale-lego-x-wing-is-the-largest-m-509484787). Gizmodo. Retrieved 24May 2013.

11. ^ Meno, George (7 June 2008). "Designing General Grievous"(http://web.archive.org/web/20080614024128re_/brickjournal.com/news/2008/6/7/interview-with-lego-designer).brickjournal.com. Archived from the original (http://www.brickjournal.com/news/2008/6/7/interview-with-lego-designer) on 14 June 2008. Retrieved 6 September 2008.

12. ^ "Company Profile An Introduction to the LEGO Group 2010"(http://cache.lego.com/upload/contentTemplating/AboutUsFactsAndFiguresContent/otherfiles/download98E142631E71927FDD52304C1C0F1685.pdf) (PDF). The Lego Group. 2010. p. 20. Retrieved 21 May 2011.

13. ^ "Lego Specifications" (http://orionrobots.co.uk/Lego+Specifications). Orionrobots.co.uk. 26 February 2011.Retrieved 3 October 2011.

14. ^ Dimensions Guide (13 December 2010). "Dimensions of a Standard Lego Brick"(http://www.dimensionsguide.com/dimensions-of-a-standard-lego-brick). Dimensionsguide.com. Retrieved 3October 2011.

15. ̂a b Frances Corbet (September 2008). "Child's Play". Develop 3D (X3DMedia): 25–27.

16. ^ "Page 18 of the Lego company profile document"(http://www.lego.com/info/pdf/LEGO_company_profile_UK.pdf). lego.com. Retrieved 12 May 2007.

17. ^ "Company Profile An Introduction to the LEGO Group 2010"(http://cache.lego.com/upload/contentTemplating/AboutUsFactsAndFiguresContent/otherfiles/download98E142631E71927FDD52304C1C0F1685.pdf) (PDF). The Lego Group. 2011. p. 8. Retrieved 21 May 2011.

18. ^ "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lego" (http://gizmodo.com/5019797/everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-lego). Gizmodo.com. 26 June 2008. Retrieved 29 May 2010.

^ "How Lego Bricks Work" (http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/lego.htm). HowStuffWorks.com. Retrieved

1/22/2014 Lego - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego 11/13

19. ^ "How Lego Bricks Work" (http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/lego.htm). HowStuffWorks.com. Retrieved13 May 2007.

20. ^ Cendrowicz, Leo (28 January 2008). "Lego Celebrates 50 Years of Building"(http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1707379,00.html). TIME. Retrieved 26 September 2010.

21. ^ "Lego Group to outsource major parts of its production to Flextronics"(http://www.lego.com/eng/info/default.asp?page=pressdetail&contentid=20727&countrycode=2057&yearcode=2006&archive=true). lego.com. Retrieved 12May 2007.

22. ^ "The Making of…a LEGO"(http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/nov2006/db20061127_153826.htm). BloombergBusinessWeek. 29 November 2006. Retrieved 28 July 2010.

23. ̂a b Alexander, Ruth (3 December 2012). "How tall can a Lego tower get?"(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20578627). BBC News. Retrieved 4 December 2012. "The averagemaximum force the bricks can stand is 4,240N. That's equivalent to a mass of 432kg (950lbs). If you divide thatby the mass of a single brick, which is 1.152g, then you get the grand total of bricks a single piece of Lego couldsupport: 375,000. So, 375,000 bricks towering 3.5km (2.17 miles) high is what it would take to break a Legobrick."

24. ^ "MINDSTORMStm and Harry Potter will continue" (http://www.lego.com/eng/info/default.asp?page=pressdetail&contentid=3423) (Press release). Lego Group. 14 January 2004. Retrieved 12 January 2009.

25. ^ "USFIRST.org" (http://www.usfirst.org). USFIRST.org. Retrieved 3 October 2011.

26. ^ "News" (http://www.ccpit-patent.com.cn/News/2003041001.htm). Ccpit-patent.com.cn. Retrieved 20 August2013.

27. ^ [1] (http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-130921934.html)

28. ^ von RA Dennis Breuer. "Pressemitteilung des BGH Nr. 158/2009: Legostein als Marke gelöscht - markenmagazin| markenmagazin" (http://www.markenmagazin.de/pressemitteilung-des-bgh-nr-1582009-legostein-als-marke-geloescht/). Markenmagazin.de. Retrieved 20 August 2013.

29. ^ Judgement of the German Federal Court (press release 147/2004) (http://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/document.py?Gericht=bgh&Art=en&Datum=Aktuell&nr=32168&linked=pm)

30. ^ Mega Bloks' Appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada(http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2005/2005scc65/2005scc65.html) via CanLII.org

31. ^ Montreal Gazette summary of euro court case decision(http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Mega+Brands+triumphant+after+Lego+loses+trademark+challenge/3527508/story.html)

32. ^ "Legoland Discovery Centre" (http://www.legolanddiscoverycenter.com/default.aspx).Legolanddiscoverycenter.com. Retrieved 29 May 2010.

33. ^ "LEGO.com: LEGO Stores Home - All Stores" (http://stores.lego.com/en-us/stores). Stores.lego.com. Retrieved2014-01-01.

34. ^ "New Lego Store opens in Lima at Jockey Plaza Shopping Center (in Spanish)"(http://elcomercio.pe/lima/677813/noticia-primera-tienda-lego-peru-tiene-como-emblema-tumi-armable-bloques). ElComercio. 1 December 2010.

35. ^ "Jockey Plaza Shopping Center website" (http://www.jockey-plaza.com.pe/). Jockey-plaza.com.pe. Retrieved 3October 2011.

36. ^ "Grown-up lives in LEGO Land" (http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/1539233.html). News andObserver. 24 May 2009.

37. ^ Gilbert, Brett J. (12 July 2009). "LEGO Board Games: Interview with Cephas Howard"(http://www.brettspiel.co.uk/2009/07/lego-board-games-interview-with-cephas.html). BrettSpiel. Retrieved 24August 2009.

38. ^ "LEGO Games" (http://games.lego.com/en-us/default.aspx?domainredir=www.games.lego.com).

39. ^ "LEGO.com LEGO Club : News & Extras" (http://club.lego.com/en-us/news/ExtraDetails.aspx?id=150337).Club.lego.com. 23 February 2010. Retrieved 29 May 2010.

40. ^ Warner Bros. Sets Release Dates for Lego Movie, Jackie Robinson Biopic '42'(http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/lego-movie-jackie-robinson-warner-bros-315119)

41. ^ Morgan Freeman And Elizabeth Banks Join LEGO: THE PIECE OF RESISTANCE

1/22/2014 Lego - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego 12/13

41. ^ Morgan Freeman And Elizabeth Banks Join LEGO: THE PIECE OF RESISTANCE(http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/nailbiter111/news/?a=66394)

42. ^ "LEGO: THE PIECE OF RESISTANCE Moves up to February 7, 2014 | Collider | Page 205471"(http://collider.com/lego-the-piece-of-resistance-moves-up-to-february-7-2014/205471/). Collider. Retrieved 20August 2013.

43. ^ "LEGO: THE PIECE OF RESISTANCE Offers Up Two Design Competitions for Fans | Collider | Page 207141"(http://collider.com/lego-movie-competition/207141/). Collider. 29 October 2012. Retrieved 20 August 2013.

44. ^ Will Ferrell, Liam Neeson Join 'Lego' Animated Film (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/lego-will-ferrell-liam-neeson-388097)

45. ^ Siegel, Tatiana (27 June 2013). "Warner Bros. to Bring Lego's 'Ninjago' to Big Screen (Exclusive)"(http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/warner-bros-bring-legos-ninjago-575738). The HollywoodReporter. Retrieved 10 July 2013.

46. ^ "Bionicle" (http://www.papercutz.com/bionicle/index.html). Papercutz.com. Retrieved 3 October 2011.

47. ^ Chan, Derek. "Lego Educational Resource" (http://legoeducationalresource.blogspot.com). Blogger. Retrieved 3September 2011.

48. ^ "Lego Education (see footnote)" (http://www.legoeducation.us/).

Further reading

Bagnall, Brian. Core LEGO Mindstorms. Prentice-Hall PTR. 2002. ISBN 0-13-009364-5Bagnall, Brian. Maximum LEGO NXT: Building Robots with Java Brains. Variant Press. 2007. ISBN 0-9738649-1-5Bedford, Allan. The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide. San Francisco: No Starch Press, 2005. ISBN 1-59327-054-2.Clague, Kevin, Miguel Agullo, and Lars C. Hassing. LEGO Software Power Tools, With LDraw, MLCad, andLPub. 2003. ISBN 1-931836-76-0Courtney, Tim, Ahui Herrera and Steve Bliss. Virtual LEGO: The Official LDraw.org Guide to LDraw Tools forWindows. San Francisco: No Starch Press, 2003. ISBN 1-886411-94-8.McKee, Jacob H. Getting Started with LEGO Trains. San Francisco: No Starch Press, 2003. ISBN 1-59327-006-2.Ferrari, Mario, Giulio Ferrari, and Ralph Hempel. Building Robots With LEGO Mindstorms: The Ultimate Tool forMindstorms Maniacs. 2001. ISBN 1-928994-67-9.Kristiansen, Kjeld Kirk, foreword. The Ultimate LEGO Book. New York: DK Publishing Book, 1999. ISBN 0-7894-4691-X.Lipkowitz, Daniel. The LEGO Book. London: DK Publishing Book, 2012. ISBN 978-1-40937-660-6.Wiencek, Henry. The World of LEGO Toys. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 1987. ISBN 0-8109-2362-9.Pilegaard, Ulrik, and Dooley, Mike. Forbidden LEGO. San Francisco: No Starch Press, 2007. ISBN 1-59327-137-9

External links

Media related to Lego at Wikimedia CommonsOfficial website (http://www.lego.com/)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lego&oldid=591582543"

Categories: Lego 1949 introductions Construction toys Danish brands Danish design

Toy companies of Denmark Toy train manufacturers Danish inventions Danish Culture Canon

1/22/2014 Lego - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego 13/13

This page was last modified on 20 January 2014 at 16:54.Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.

By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.