As an extended toy universe Lego is great but as STEM skills and intuitions catalyst it is a cul de sac of arrested development. There is a weird way it directs your attention away from all the hard problems, which are partly encapsulated away, partly curated out entirely.

Blogger at ribbonfarm.com, running summerofprotocols.com, host of /gloom ☀️

I think there is some engineering intuition it helps build. After tinkering for hours and hours and days and days I built up an intuition something like 'I can build anything, I just have to figure out a series of smaller problems', as well as a joy in building without a goal which imo is essential for good engineering

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If you work at a real engineering job now as an adult, did the intuitions translate well?

And how deep did you go? What was the most complex lego build you did?

Yes the joy and meditative quality is the main value. Legos catalyze poiesis even if it’s sometimes at the expense of praxis. For me the grittier, more realistic Meccano sets struck the right note.

Yes, in fact tinkering with Lego while on a break from college made me realize I should be in engineering vs the path I was on (economics/polisci) - the joy and meditative quality of building/solving was there.

I still build legos actually :) just finished the van gogh one. Never went deep into mindstorms etc though.