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Legos spur creativity for all ages
Wednesday, September 25, 2002
BY DAVE HAGER
KALAMAZOO GAZETTE
Sculptor Auguste Rodin would have loved them.
To artist-inventor Leonardo da Vinci, they could have become his most imagination-inspiring brain food.
And to more than a million of today's kids, they are just plain fun.
Legos, the plastic toy that packs art, creativity, engineering and imagination into one package, is also described by many as an inspiration. And those singing its praises aren't just in elementary or junior high school. Many fans of the plastic bricks that fit together so smoothly are over 30.
"It's mostly older people," Stefan Garcia said about the membership of the Michigan Lego Users Group/Train Club. Garcia, 15, said most of the Lego fans in MichLUG -- the club's nickname -- are in their mid 30s to late 40s. Many of the members also belong to the group's Train Club section, making MichLUG a dual organization.
Garcia, a Kalamazoo Central High School junior, is one of two Kalamazoo area members of the statewide group. The other is Western Michigan University senior David Kohrman, 23.
Kohrman specializes in constructing buildings; Garcia is especially interested in Lego trains, but because of the versatility of the toy, neither are limited in what they can conceive of, create and build.
"You can do anything with Legos," Garcia said.
"It's being creative and meeting the challenge of creating something in your head," Kohrman said.
Kohrman has an interest in historic buildings and recently completed a replica of the old Kalamazoo Academy of Music that once stood on Rose Street across from Bronson Park. In the past, he has used Lego plastic bricks, windows and other building shapes to build models of the Hanselman Building, the skyscraper that once stood on the northwestern corner of Burdick Street and Michigan Avenue and Fireman's Hall or Corporation Hall, Kalamazoo's first City Hall on Burdick between South Street and Michigan. Once he created a four-block section of a Lego "downtown."
Garcia has built a big red replica of an Alco Santa Fe Railroad streamlined diesel locomotive. It is powered by a nine-volt motor and runs on Lego track. He also has built small spaceships and aircraft as well as a number of freight cars to be pulled by the locomotive.
"I've loved Legos ever since I was 3 or 4," Garcia recalled. He said the flexibility of the construction toy and the way it stimulates the imagination have kept him interested through the years.
"You can't reach the end of it," he said. "It's no set thing -- you can build anything you want."
Club members meet regularly at different sites around the state and display their work at major shows throughout southern Michigan, including the Great American Train Show last month in Grand Rapids and science fiction-fantasy conventions.
The next showing for MichLUG will be as part of Trainorama 2002. The event, sponsored by the Redford Model Railroad Club, is set from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 27 in the University of Michigan-Dearborn Field House.
The MichLUG Train Club plans a 25-foot-by-15-foot display. Garcia explained that the club lays down huge Lego mounting plates to hold the models and train tracks. The members set the buildings and the tracks before wiring things up to get the trains moving. In true Lego-flexibility fashion, the display is never the same twice. Members are always adding new pieces or rearranging them.
Shows are popular because Lego builders can display large creations. For example, a highlight of the Grand Rapids show was a huge model of the Chicago skyline.
"The first time I saw a show, it blew me away," Garcia said.
The creations take thousands of bricks and other pieces. "I must have 150,000 bricks or so," Kohrman said.
The patented Lego plastic brick's coupling system has adapted well to other toys produced by the company. When molded in various forms, the purchaser of playsets can put together futuristic spacecraft, dinosaurs, castles, little people, big people, speedboats and race cars. Many of the playsets are themed and have action aspects. Guns shoot, soccer players kick a ball, trains run. Star Wars toys abound, for example, and you can build a Steven Spielberg movie set or even a Harry Potter castle.
A lot of Lego fans collect the sets as new ones come out.
Legos come with a wide range of price tags. A small box of simple bricks might cost $4 to $5 while Harry Potter's huge castle playset weighs in at $90.
But the basics are the same. Even in the themed playsets there is more than one way to put things together. Players can add parts, take away parts, try new combinations.
That must be why the company's motto is:
"Just imagine ..."
Dave Hager can be reached at
388-8417 or dhager@kalamazoogazette.com.
© 2002 Kalamazoo Gazette.
