LEGO's inexplicable design decisions

[Lyichir]

4 hours ago, Lira_Bricks said:

https://bramlambrecht.com/tmp/jamieberard-brickstress-bf06.pdf page/slide 10. The brick in 41430 is a bit different than the brick used in the slide, but still not enough room. And it certainly does not "click" as a pin should

Pins being inserted into a 1x1 brick with studs on all four sides has been done before without issue. Unlike standard bricks, the version with four side studs allows the pin inside just enough room to expand due to the holes in each stud. It's an unconventional connection, and a loose one, but not an illegal one. One way you can tell that is the way the pin swivels cleanly and without excess friction—if the pin were in compression, it would not move nearly as smoothly.

3 hours ago, Fuppylodders said:

Interesting link there, specifically of note, page 26, where it says 'can one brick be used instead of 5'... Pretty sure they break that all the time 

Usually for good reason. There's plenty of cases where a larger brick can be used instead of a variety of smaller ones, but doing so isn't always the ideal decision. Sometimes using a larger piece instead of smaller ones would make a set harder to disassemble (for example, stacking two 4x4 plates on top of each other instead of four 2x4s stacked perpendicular to one another). Sometimes a stack of three plates instead of a full brick can make it easier to prevent mistakes in the build (such as in the Stranger Things set, where that was done with 1x4 plates to prevent a 1x4 brick from having to be used and potentially confused for the many 1x4 bricks with side studs used in the same section of the build). And sometimes it just comes down to number crunching—if you're up against the budget for a set, it can be cheaper to add another pair of a smaller part that's already being used in the set than a single larger part.

There's a reason why that page lists those considerations as questions rather than imperative "rules". The process of design isn't limited to just clear-cut rules and restrictions, and most decisions instead take the form of judgment calls—considering a variety of options and deciding which works best for the specific needs of a model. And the choice made on one model might not always be the right decision for every other.

Edited December 27, 2020 by Lyichir

[koalayummies]

In addition to the fact that I already told him that the oft cited guide is out of date. Since it was ignored maybe you'll listen to this guy:

Quote

Jamie Berard:“It is important that you know, that is is an old version of the presentation.  We are aware that it is out ‘in the wild’ but it has been updated. That is not the version we use for inhouse presentations anymore. There are a few issues with plates: plates are slightly thicker than tiles. So, even if you take a 2×2 plate with a single stud and finger groove, as was used in the LEGO Games (Ed. that is Design ID 87580), it is just a little thicker, to provide strength in accomodating the studs. Also,the height of a stud is slightly greater than the distance between the edge of the plate and the stud, so it cannot completely fit in place.”

Full read that will be ignored as well:

Stressed by the Elements: Saturn V, Tiles, Plates and the Legality of Connections.

According to Jamie Berard himself, the popular ideas on "illegal" connections are outdated.

[Driver Brandon Grumman]

On 11/28/2020 at 3:42 PM, AmperZand said:

Occasionally, LEGO ends production of a set early or updates one mid-production because it realises it has made a design mistake. And sometimes, especially in Technic sets, an AFOL finds a better way of achieving a technical goal that LEGO has missed. Those situations are not what this post is about. 

But with all due respect, that's what TLG does these kinds of things for - for KFOLs and TFOLs who are less critical of a build than an AFOL and for AFOLs who love to do modifications. I believe Lego does this kind of thing deliberately. I'm going to use the 60258 Tuning Workshop for example. One of the sides has a wall missing. TLG did that for easy playability - which is why the back and top are also exposed for the use of the engine swapping winch. But if you want to add a wall to the other side of the building and maybe even a roof for the mere sake of table towning, Lego gives us that to figure out ourselves. If a build came already built to its full potential - it would really be a fun set. Modulars are done that way because they are made to be displayed. Other sets are made to be played with. The diner from the 60271 Main Square set is another build that you can use for a prime example. Put two of them together and you've got a two way diner. 

[Lira_Bricks]

2 hours ago, koalayummies said:

In addition to the fact that I already told him that the oft cited guide is out of date. Since it was ignored maybe you'll listen to this guy:

Can you keep that aggression for yourself? You talked about the transparent parts being made from different plastic, so I assumed that was the only thing not relevant anymore in the presentation.

Interesting article you linked tho.

I notice a lot of other connections that I would assume would work, not work. Because there are slight differences in the sizes of bricks. Would be nice if the sizes were more kept the same... But now I am going off-topic I think :D

3 hours ago, Lyichir said:

Pins being inserted into a 1x1 brick with studs on all four sides has been done before without issue. Unlike standard bricks, the version with four side studs allows the pin inside just enough room to expand due to the holes in each stud. It's an unconventional connection, and a loose one, but not an illegal one. One way you can tell that is the way the pin swivels cleanly and without excess friction—if the pin were in compression, it would not move nearly as smoothly.

Oh ok, good to know. It is the first time seeing it tho, has this already been done in official sets?

[icm]

It was used in 1998 and 2000 to hold propellers for Adventurers airplanes.

[Lyichir]

24 minutes ago, icm said:

It was used in 1998 and 2000 to hold propellers for Adventurers airplanes.

It was also more recently used for gatling guns in the Exo-Force theme a few times.

[Fuppylodders]

6 hours ago, Lyichir said:

Usually for good reason. There's plenty of cases where a larger brick can be used instead of a variety of smaller ones, but doing so isn't always the ideal decision..........

Oh, I'm aware and I do get that, currently I have the recent Christmas train in mind where two 1x2 black bricks were used on a small side build (the bench) instead of a single 1x4 brick where a single 1x4 brick is used later in the build. Just an observation and something I wish I knew why they did that, but, will never know. 

But I do for the most part understand there are a fair few other factors that may determine extra parts being used where one could suffice. 

6 hours ago, koalayummies said:

In addition to the fact that I already told him that the oft cited guide is out of date. Since it was ignored maybe you'll listen to this guy:

Full read that will be ignored as well:

Stressed by the Elements: Saturn V, Tiles, Plates and the Legality of Connections.

According to Jamie Berard himself, the popular ideas on "illegal" connections are outdated.

That's an interesting read, certainly wasn't aware there were different heights on the top faces of the tile/plate/jumper plate! Also, apologies, didn't notice your comment saying it was out of date, I was skim reading and missed it 

[koalayummies]

11 minutes ago, Fuppylodders said:

That's an interesting read, certainly wasn't aware there were different heights on the top faces of the tile/plate/jumper plate! Also, apologies, didn't notice your comment saying it was out of date, I was skim reading and missed it 

Hey no apologies needed! I should have just added Jamie's later addendum immediately after that link. Only reason I even linked it was because it was brought up with no source.

[Mylenium]

13 hours ago, Lyichir said:

There's plenty of cases where a larger brick can be used instead of a variety of smaller ones, but doing so isn't always the ideal decision. Sometimes using a larger piece instead of smaller ones would make a set harder to disassemble (for example, stacking two 4x4 plates on top of each other instead of four 2x4s stacked perpendicular to one another). Sometimes a stack of three plates instead of a full brick can make it easier to prevent mistakes in the build (such as in the Stranger Things set, where that was done with 1x4 plates to prevent a 1x4 brick from having to be used and potentially confused for the many 1x4 bricks with side studs used in the same section of the build). And sometimes it just comes down to number crunching—if you're up against the budget for a set, it can be cheaper to add another pair of a smaller part that's already being used in the set than a single larger part.

One more critical aspect: pre-determined breaking points/ expansion joints to reduce stress forces/ break force propagation. It's an oft forgotten engineering principle and reminds me about that "built like a tank" post in one of the other recent threads. You don't need to turn models into solid blocks to make them durable. It's also one of the reasons why I'm not too fond of some longer elements as they can mess up an even force distribution when not used carefully.

Mylenium

[Lyichir]

7 hours ago, Mylenium said:

One more critical aspect: pre-determined breaking points/ expansion joints to reduce stress forces/ break force propagation. It's an oft forgotten engineering principle and reminds me about that "built like a tank" post in one of the other recent threads. You don't need to turn models into solid blocks to make them durable. It's also one of the reasons why I'm not too fond of some longer elements as they can mess up an even force distribution when not used carefully.

Mylenium

Yeah. And one other factor I neglected to mention was that you can generally do more with a greater number of smaller parts than with a single larger one. That's especially important in sets like Technic or Creator 3-in-1 sets where the parts need to be used for different things in alternate builds, but even in other sets that don't have "official" alt builds, having, say, two 2x4 bricks instead of a single 2x8 brick gives you way more options when rebuilding (which is still one of the core appeals of Lego).

[Mylenium]

10 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

Yeah. And one other factor I neglected to mention was that you can generally do more with a greater number of smaller parts than with a single larger one.

Definitely. That's one of my pet peeves with Friends sets or other stuff that uses those awful tall bricks and large panels. If they'd use conventional 1 x 2 bricks and so on you could do much more with them and weren't so locked into the pre-determined designs.

Mylenium

[AmperZand]

On 11/28/2020 at 9:08 PM, Hagane87 said:

Initially, I assumed that this was so they could save a bunch of instruction steps/pages by having the same construction twice and then simply adding the thumbs on each side.

However, a lot of the sets that use this design still have them built separately so who knows.

Indeed. I checked the instructions and the two hands are constructed separately, so reducing page count was not the reason. Interesting thought though.

On 11/28/2020 at 9:11 PM, koalayummies said:

Curious as well. Possible hypothetical explanations:

Maybe they already had 4,485,215 on-hand of: And only 177,934 of: and or other sets also in-production were allocated the latter and couldn't use the former due to their construction (whereas Iron mech's hands can despite the aesthetic), or they did it to reduce the number of different bins that pieces must be picked from to assemble these sets.

As others have pointed out, I doubt it's for logistic reasons. LEGO plans production a long time in advance and doesn't have to optimise part production across multiple sets. Or if it does, it wouldn't compromise aesthetics as conspicuously as this.

On 11/29/2020 at 9:03 AM, ReplicaOfLife said:

I could imagine that it is to do with some in-house rule regarding the strength of connections. When using the 2x2 plate with wheel holders, the two 1x2 plates that serve as connection points for the hand/upper arm are clamped inbetween two 2x2 elements. Maybe Lego found that using two 1x2 plates side by side is less stable in extended play or something.

I thought that too, so I tested the connection when making the mod shown on page 1 of this thread. I initially constructed the right hand my way and the left hand LEGO's way. The only weakness I could find was when you remove the round trans light blue tile from the palms and you shake the mech violently by holding the wheel holders, the plate comes off more easily when it's 2x1 than 2x2. But you really have to whip it hard because most of the force is absorbed by the arm's joints. There are much weaker connections used regularly by LEGO, so I doubt connective strength is the reason.

In LEGO's defence, the one thing it does that I didn't is a heat test. It's pretty much what it sounds like. LEGO puts sets into a special oven to simulate them being played with in very hot climates or left on car dashboards in summer. It may be that at high temperature the 2x1 plate isn't strong enough. I don't know and won't be heating my LEGO to find out! I very strongly advise against heating LEGO in a domestic oven.

On 11/30/2020 at 10:27 AM, MAB said:

Maybe they originally intended to have a little finger on there as well using that pin. Then decided against it and didn't bother updating the rest of the hand.

Clever but I don't think the aesthetics work. If you attached an extra digit to represent a little finger, it might look OK when the phalanges were extended, but the articulation is in the wrong place when the finger was bent. Also, if that had been the intention at one stage, I am sure LEGO would have noticed that it looks odd long before it went into production. 

Edited January 10, 2021 by AmperZand

[Aanchir]

On 12/27/2020 at 8:41 AM, Lira_Bricks said:

https://bramlambrecht.com/tmp/jamieberard-brickstress-bf06.pdf page/slide 10. The brick in 41430 is a bit different than the brick used in the slide, but still not enough room. And it certainly does not "click" as a pin should

That's where you're mistaken — the holes in a brick with studs on all sides give the ridges of a pin just enough room to expand. Think of it this way: if you draw a circle inside of a square, the size of the circle will be limited to where it presses up against the center of each side. But if you cut a gap in the center of each side, you have room to make the circle slightly larger.

Plenty of Exo-Force sets also used pins inside of a brick with studs on four sides. It definitely would never be likely to show up on a "load-bearing" part of a model because of how loose a connection it is, but it's never been an illegal connection or one that would cause the parts to become deformed like other "pin-in-antistud" connections.

EDIT: Sorry, I thought I'd read to the end of the thread, but then I realized there was a whole other page of responses where other people (including my own brother) already explained this. So feel free to disregard this post.

Edited January 10, 2021 by Aanchir

[AmperZand]

On 12/27/2020 at 6:21 PM, Brandon Pea said:

But with all due respect, that's what TLG does these kinds of things for - for KFOLs and TFOLs who are less critical of a build than an AFOL and for AFOLs who love to do modifications. I believe Lego does this kind of thing deliberately. I'm going to use the 60258 Tuning Workshop for example. One of the sides has a wall missing. TLG did that for easy playability - which is why the back and top are also exposed for the use of the engine swapping winch. But if you want to add a wall to the other side of the building and maybe even a roof for the mere sake of table towning, Lego gives us that to figure out ourselves. If a build came already built to its full potential - it would really be a fun set. Modulars are done that way because they are made to be displayed. Other sets are made to be played with. The diner from the 60271 Main Square set is another build that you can use for a prime example. Put two of them together and you've got a two way diner. 

When a design decision’s criterion is aesthetic it will, of course, be subjective. So the ‘inexplicable’ ones for the purpose of this discussion are those where the overwhelming consensus among AFOLs including the most watched influencers like Jang questions them. It should not include ones where there is much debate about appearance. 

I very much doubt that LEGO deliberately includes design features it knows or suspects most buyers/recipients would object to. That is an unsound business model even for a product like LEGO that can easily be improved by the user.

Having an open back for playability is not inexplicable; it has been explained.

 

[koalayummies]

I started this off laughing manically...

But now I'm concerned.

[AmperZand]

7 hours ago, koalayummies said:

I started this off laughing manically...

But now I'm concerned.

They look to be connexions LEGO considers ‘illegal’.

Some, such as the clip holding the tile, will stress parts over time. I have had minifigure hands eventually crack from holding things badly.

The only one of your connexions of immediate concern is the trans cone attached to the trans bar (middle of your picture). You may find them hard to separate.

[CopperTablet]

The clip holding the tile is used officially in 76042.   It is not illegal.

[Lyichir]

4 minutes ago, CopperTablet said:

The clip holding the tile is used officially in 76042.   It is not illegal.

That set uses the newer style of clip, which was designed to be able to flex a bit more (like other 1x1 plates with clip) for that exact purpose. This older, reinforced style doesn't have as much "give" to it and as such a connection like that can cause it to develop cracks down the middle over time

[koalayummies]

3 hours ago, CopperTablet said:

The clip holding the tile is used officially in 76042.   It is not illegal.

 

3 hours ago, Lyichir said:

That set uses the newer style of clip, which was designed to be able to flex a bit more (like other 1x1 plates with clip) for that exact purpose. This older, reinforced style doesn't have as much "give" to it and as such a connection like that can cause it to develop cracks down the middle over time

Yep. I specifically used the older style clip as shown in the linked PDF. Design 2555 and not 15712.

[MAB]

15 hours ago, Lyichir said:

 This older, reinforced style doesn't have as much "give" to it and as such a connection like that can cause it to develop cracks down the middle over time

In that case, any use of a 1x1 cheese slope on a stud should be illegal!

[Toastie]

"Illegal" ... oh my.

From the Blues Brothers movie: "Donald: Why not? If the shit fits, wear it."

That is my take.

Best
Thorsten

[Lyichir]

On 1/13/2021 at 5:43 PM, Toastie said:

"Illegal" ... oh my.

From the Blues Brothers movie: "Donald: Why not? If the shit fits, wear it."

That is my take.

Best
Thorsten

"Illegal" connections typically comprise ones that DON'T quite fit—ones that can maybe be forced together but can cause damage to the parts themselves by doing so (much like a shirt that you can just barely wear, so long as you don't raise your arms enough to cause it to come apart at the seams). It's mostly a term used internally by Lego but is nonetheless important when it comes to not designing models that will inevitably result in frustration and disappointment on the part of buyers.