The most famous toy maker is Lego. Everyone has heard of Lego. What everyone has probably not heard about though is the history of arguably the greatest toy maker in the world.
The history of Lego can be traced back to its origin in Denmark. In 1916 a carpenter by the name of Kirk Christiansen opened his own woodworking shop. He worked on and built furniture for the people in his town.
Business was not very good for someone who only specialized in furniture and so, in 1932, Kirk Christiansen expanded his product line to include ironing boards, stepladders, and you guessed it, toys made of wood. As Kirk’s business grew, in 1934, he renamed it to “Lego”. There is some speculation as to where Kirk got this name. Some say that he got it from the Danish phrase “leg godt” which means to play well. Others say that it comes from the actual Latin word “Lego” which means “I build” or “I put together”.
Lego continued to grow. For the next 17 years, Lego continued to make wooden toys out of this same old shop until one day in 1960, a fire destroyed Lego’s toy warehouse.
By 1954, Christiansen’s son Godtfred had worked hard and moved up in the company to the position of managing director. Godtfred had to travel to England to meet with a purchasing agent. While they sat on a ferry, they began an in depth discussion about the toy market in both Denmark and England and where the toy market was heading.
Little would he know that from one decision during the Depression, one of the most popular toys in the world would be created, the Lego plastic building blocks.
For some 30 years, Lego continued to grown as its toy section became a bigger and bigger component of the company. Finally, in 1968, Lego became profitable enough to open the equivalent of Disney Land in Billund, Denmark named appropriately “Lego Land”.
Once again, Lego pondered the future of where the toy market was heading and came up with a snap together Lego set that had computer chips. The product they created was the Lego Mindstorms. This incredible robot is built with snap together Legos. But do not make the mistake of thinking this robot is some cheap toy. Berkeley and other cutting edge robotics departments use the Lego Mindstorms in their courses. This incredible robot can even be interfaced with a typical home PC and programmed!
The Lego Mindstorms NXT is a programmable robot with more than 500 snap together pieces to build everything from a sumo robot to a tribot, sensors which let the robot interact with the world around it via touch, sound, light, and ultrasonic waves, 3 servo motors, and even a USB cable to connect the robot with any computer.
The Lego company expanded their production lines to include lights, cameras, sensors, gears and accessory motors that compliment the Lego Mindstorms.
Unfortunately, the Lego company sometimes behaves like a monopoly and often over prices its products, counting on branch loyalty to pull them through. Lego has been losing money in recent years but still controls a large market. The LEGO company patents the stud-and-tube coupling system. This new system makes models much more stable.
Regardless of LEGO’s policies, LEGO has a great line of toys, and the company has done a lot to entertain millions of kids around the world.
May you find this short history of Lego toys interesting. For the lowest prices you can compare on the Lego Mindstorms NXT robot go to LEGO Mindstorms