From Lego, Java and Mathematica to feature interaction
Harold Thimbleby · 2003
We’re all familiar with construction kits like Lego. A pile of Lego bricks can take you to almost anywhere your imagination wants to go. You can build houses or cars, spaceships or robots. You can either start sticking bricks together and see what happens, or you could sit down and work out what bits you need and how many. It is possible to work out how many bricks you will need for a design before you start, but hardly anybody does — it’s far easier to push things together and see what you can build. Often as you build things, you wonder why Lego isn’t made with a brick shaped like this, so it would fit just here. Perhaps if you had planned your building, you wouldn’t have got to this impasse — but it’s not really a problem as you can easily dismantle part of the model and have another go. Eventually you’ll get something to work that is good enough, and you’ll have had lots of fun. And if the model isn’t good enough you can patch it up with a few reinforcements. What do we learn from this? It’s easier to make than design It’s much easier to test than plan It’s easier to rebuild than build right first time Sometimes the bits don’t fit