Iconic toy brand Lego has marked its 90th anniversary this week with a 94,128-piece birthday cake.
Key points:
Lego was founded in 1930 in Denmark by Ole Kirk Kristiansen
The word Lego comes from “Leg Godt”, meaning “Play Well” in Danish
Lego produces roughly 100 billion bricks each year and employs around 24,000 people worldwide
The Danish company unveiled the cake to mark the anniversary and launch a series of events at stores around the world.
The cake, featuring nine layers representing nine decades of Lego play, was built by employees and put on display at the Lego House in Billund — home of the Lego brick.
The family-owned company was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen.
His grandchild Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, born in 1947, often inspired and tested new ideas and appeared in the company’s packaging and marketing.
He went on to become Lego’s chief executive from 1979 to 2004.
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The company name came from “leg godt”, meaning “play well” in Danish.
The company’s core product, the Lego brick, was first produced in its current form in 1958.
“When my great-grandfather founded the company 90 years ago, he recognized that play could change the lives of children,” Thomas Kirk Kristiansen, Lego’s current chairman, said.
Lego produces around 100 billion bricks each year.(ABC News: Ian Cutmore)
“It brings families together and helps children develop skills that can enable them to reach their full potential.
“He only had a small workshop, but he had big ambitions to ensure as many children as possible could experience the benefits that play brings.
“Whether 1932, 2022 or on our 100th anniversary in 2032, we have and will always strive to continue Ole’s legacy by helping all families, wherever they are in the world, to play well.”
Lego produces roughly 100 billion bricks each year and employs around 24,000 people worldwide.
The enduring appeal of Lego comes not from the complexity of the sets, nor the adorable minifigure versions of pop culture icons, but from the build process itself, and turning a box of seemingly random pieces into a completed model. It’s a satisfying experience, and another one that robots might steal from you one daythanks to researchers at Stanford University.
Lego’s instruction manuals are a masterclass in how to visually convey an assembly process to a builder, no matter what their background is, their experience level, or what language they speak. Pay close attention to the required pieces and the differences between one image of the partly-assembled model and the next, and you can figure out where all the pieces need to go before moving on to the next step. Lego has refined and polished the design of its instruction manuals over the years, but as easy as they are for humans to follow, machines are only just learning how to interpret the step-by-step guides.
One of the biggest challenges when it comes to machines learning to build with Lego is interpreting the two-dimensional images of the 3D models in the traditional printed instruction manuals (although, several Lego models can now be assembled through the company’s mobile app, which provides full 3D models of each step that can be rotated and examined from any angle). Humans can look at a picture of a Lego brick and instantly determine its 3D structure in order to find it in a pile of bricks, but for robots to do that, the researchers at Stanford University had to develop a new learning-based framework they call the Manual-to-Executable-Plan Network—or, MEPNet, for short-as detailed in a recently published paper.
Not only does the neural network have to extrapolate the 3D shape, form, and structure of the individual pieces identified in the manual for each step, it also needs to interpret the overall shape of the semi-assembled models featured in every step, no matter their orientation. Depending on where a piece needs to be added, Lego manuals will often provide an image of a semi-assembled model from a completely different perspective than the previous step did. The MEPNet framework has to decipher what it’s seeing, and how it correlates to the 3D model it generated as illustrated in previous steps.
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The framework then needs to determine where the new pieces in each step fit into the previously generated 3D model by comparing the next iteration of the semi-assembled model to previous ones. Lego manuals don’t use arrows to indicate part placement, and at the most will use a slightly different color to indicate where new pieces need to be placed—which may be too subtle to detect from a scanned image of a printed page. The MEPNet framework has to figure this out on its own, but what makes the process slightly easier is a feature unique to Lego bricks: the studs on top, and the anti-studs on the underside that allow them to be securely attached to each other. MEPNet understands the positional limitations of how Lego bricks can actually be stacked and attached based on the location of a piece’s studs, which helps narrow down where on the semi-assembled model they can be attached.
So can you drop a pile of plastic bricks and a manual in front of a robot arm and expect to come back to a completed model in a few hours? Not quite yet. The goal of this research was to simply translate the 2D images of a Lego manual into assembly steps a machine can functionally understand. Teaching a robot to manipulate and assemble Lego bricks is a whole other challenge—this is just the first step—although we’re not sure if there are any Lego fans out there who want to pawn off the actual building process on a machine.
Where this research could have more interesting applications is potentially automatically converting old Lego instruction manuals into the interactive 3D build guides included in the Lego mobile app now. And with a better understanding of translating 2D images into three-dimensional brick-built structures, this framework could potentially be used to develop software that could translate images of any object and spit out instructions on how to turn it into a Lego model.
Joe Dietz has loved trains ever since riding the railways of Europe on family holidays as a child.
As a young man now living in Cairns, he has turned his boyhood passion into a unique career on and off the tracks.
His day job is driving locos during the far north Queensland sugarcane crushing season, which stretches from May to November.
Joe Dietz has been driving cane trains, or locos, in far north Queensland since finishing high school.(Supplied: Joe Dietz)
Mr Dietz, aka TrainGuy 659, says winding his way through the neighborhoods and farmlands on the cane train tracks of far north Queensland is a dream job.
“I’ve just always had a thing for trains,” he says.
“I’ve always wanted to work on the railways.”
Mr Dietz’s family moved to the region when he was in high school.
“I was just lucky that, after graduating, I ended up getting a gig on the cane locos,” he says.
“You get the best of the city life, but you also have the countryside too and making connections with the farmers and the community in those areas is something unique.
“I’m living the best of two worlds.”
Mr Dietz is also living in two worlds when it comes to train driving — the real world and the online world.
Joe Dietz says driving trains is his dream job.(Supplied: Joe Dietz)
During the other half of the year, he drives miniature Lego trains on intricate tracks around his family home, and millions upon millions of people watch him do it.
Seven years ago, I started the YouTube channel TrainGuy 659.
His unique work-life balance has allowed him to build a massive audience and become a professional YouTuber.
“When I first started, I wasn’t getting paid or anything from YouTube, so every season, I go back [to the cane trains],” Mr Dietz says.
“The YouTube audience grows every year because I have that time off, so I’m just lucky to work six months on, six months off.
“The YouTube thing pays the bills but isn’t something I can live off independently… but there is more potential.”
Massive miniature feats of engineering
Mr Dietz became an internet sensation when he began producing his annual Christmas Lego train videos, all of which have attracted audiences in the tens of millions.
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These involve constructing about 120 meters of Lego train track around his parents’ home, across obstacles including the backyard swimming pool, and even through the neighbours’ yard.
Joe Dietz’s train videos involve constructing around 120 meters of Lego train track through various obstacles.(Supplied: Joe Dietz)
Mr Dietz says it is a painstaking process that can be up to a month of work.
“It’s like building an actual railroad but in miniature,” he says.
“It takes three to four weeks to set up. It takes about a week or two to film, and it’s packed up within three days.
“There’s a lot of trial and error, and you do a lot of testing too. There’s a lot of time that goes into it.”
Mr Dietz says there is no shortage of derailments during the shoots, which have resulted in some highly entertaining blooper reels, usually featuring cameo appearances from the family pets.
The Dietz family’s dog, Matilda, has been responsible for numerous Lego train derailments, which appear in the TrainGuy 659 blooper videos.(Supplied: Joe Dietz)
“We’ve got a blue heeler, and you know what cattle dogs are like… they go after the train… [in one video] she’s nipping at it, she’s knocking it over,” he says.
“They actually end up doing better than the main video — everyone loves bloopers.
“There’s one time the train accidentally fell in a pool, which was like, ‘Oh no!'”
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He says the odd, stray Lego piece also poses hazards for his supportive but long-suffering family.
“The amount of sore toes around the house during Christmas and New Year’s, it’s not funny,” Mr Dietz says.
The secret building blocks of internet stardom
Mr Dietz’s YouTube channel has amassed 660,000 subscribers, while his combined views are in the tens of millions.
Joe Dietz is a professional YouTuber having attracted an audience in the tens of millions who watch his Lego train videos online.(Supplied: Joe Dietz)
He’s often asked what the secret is to becoming internet famous. His answer to it is relatively simple.
“Find something that’s unique that hasn’t been done before,” he says.
“And if you’re doing something that’s already out there, find what makes you stand out to make it different to the others.”
In addition to his annual Christmas specials, Mr Dietz began producing a series of Lego train road trip videos.
“I started doing these tunnels with some PVC pipe, the Lego train goes through this, and it’d transition to a different scene,” he says.
“I did this one around Australia, and that really took off.”
loading
The initial concept film in 2019 was well-received, attracting 10 million views, but his grand plans were ultimately derailed by COVID-19.
Now that national and international borders have re-opened, Mr Dietz says he is hoping to get his Lego train road trip dream back on track with plans to take his train set through Europe when the crushing is over next season.
Joe Dietz has loved trains ever since riding the railways of Europe on family holidays as a child.
As a young man now living in Cairns, he has turned his boyhood passion into a unique career on and off the tracks.
His day job is driving locos during the far north Queensland sugarcane crushing season, which stretches from May to November.
Joe Dietz has been driving cane trains, or locos, in far north Queensland since finishing high school.(Supplied: Joe Dietz)
Mr Dietz, aka Lego Joe, says winding his way through the neighborhoods and farmlands on the cane train tracks of far north Queensland is a dream job.
“I’ve just always had a thing for trains,” he says.
“I’ve always wanted to work on the railways.”
Mr Dietz’s family moved to the region when he was in high school.
“I was just lucky that, after graduating, I ended up getting a gig on the cane locos,” he says.
“You get the best of the city life, but you also have the countryside too and making connections with the farmers and the community in those areas is something unique.
“I’m living the best of two worlds.”
Mr Dietz is also living in two worlds when it comes to train driving — the real world and the online world.
Joe Dietz says driving trains is his dream job.(Supplied: Joe Dietz)
During the other half of the year, he drives miniature Lego trains on intricate tracks around his family home, and millions upon millions of people watch him do it.
Seven years ago, I started the YouTube channel TrainGuy 659.
His unique work-life balance has allowed him to build a massive audience and become a professional YouTuber.
“When I first started, I wasn’t getting paid or anything from YouTube, so every season, I go back [to the cane trains],” Mr Dietz says.
“The YouTube audience grows every year because I have that time off, so I’m just lucky to work six months on, six months off.
“The YouTube thing pays the bills but isn’t something I can live off independently… but there is more potential.”
Massive miniature feats of engineering
Mr Dietz became an internet sensation when he began producing his annual Christmas Lego train videos, all of which have attracted audiences in the tens of millions.
loading
These involve constructing about 120 meters of Lego train track around his parents’ home, across obstacles including the backyard swimming pool, and even through the neighbours’ yard.
Joe Dietz’s train videos involve constructing around 120 meters of Lego train track through various obstacles.(Supplied: Joe Dietz)
Mr Dietz says it is a painstaking process that can be up to a month of work.
“It’s like building an actual railroad but in miniature,” he says.
“It takes three to four weeks to set up. It takes about a week or two to film, and it’s packed up within three days.
“There’s a lot of trial and error, and you do a lot of testing too. There’s a lot of time that goes into it.”
Mr Dietz says there is no shortage of derailments during the shoots, which have resulted in some highly entertaining blooper reels, usually featuring cameo appearances from the family pets.
The Dietz family’s dog, Matilda, has been responsible for numerous Lego train derailments, which appear in the TrainGuy 659 blooper videos.(Supplied: Joe Dietz)
“We’ve got a blue heeler, and you know what cattle dogs are like… they go after the train… [in one video] she’s nipping at it, she’s knocking it over,” he says.
“They actually end up doing better than the main video — everyone loves bloopers.
“There’s one time the train accidentally fell in a pool, which was like, ‘Oh no!'”
loading
He says the odd, stray Lego piece also poses hazards for his supportive but long-suffering family.
“The amount of sore toes around the house during Christmas and New Year’s, it’s not funny,” Mr Dietz says.
The secret building blocks of internet stardom
Mr Dietz’s YouTube channel has amassed 660,000 subscribers, while his combined views are in the tens of millions.
Joe Dietz is a professional YouTuber having attracted an audience in the tens of millions who watch his Lego train videos online.(Supplied: Joe Dietz)
He’s often asked what the secret is to becoming internet famous. His answer to it is relatively simple.
“Find something that’s unique that hasn’t been done before,” he says.
“And if you’re doing something that’s already out there, find what makes you stand out to make it different to the others.”
In addition to his annual Christmas specials, Mr Dietz began producing a series of Lego train road trip videos.
“I started doing these tunnels with some PVC pipe, the Lego train goes through this, and it’d transition to a different scene,” he says.
“I did this one around Australia, and that really took off.”
loading
The initial concept film in 2019 was well-received, attracting 10 million views, but his grand plans were ultimately derailed by COVID-19.
Now that national and international borders have re-opened, Mr Dietz says he’s planning to get his Lego train road trip dream back on track with plans to take his train set through Europe during the crushing is over next season.
