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Hi,

a few days ago I build 8865 together with my kids. It's an old instruction manual, it is in a very bad shape and a few pages are loose. I opened the first page page and I was wondering if this is really the first page!?

After building a lot of new sets over the last year, I didn't really remembered how it was in former times. My first thought was: It can't be the first page of the instructions, there are too many pieces! After searching a while the not existing first page I discovered that all the pieces needed in the first step are in the upper left box of parts to be needed for this step.

I build the car and again wondered that there are only 24 steps! Todays sets have at least double the steps. But each step of the old car involved more parts. I liked building the old Test Car :blush:

Sometimes you have to prepare more than 10 pieces of ONE part. All together sometimes there were more than 50 parts involved! You really had to look where the pieces have to be put. It was challanging :classic:

My first thought was, the kids today are - ehm - more stupid than in my childhood. My second thought was, they hadn't any computer supoorted drawings and so they have to put as many things in one step to keep costs down for the instructions (drawer).

And today, I've printed out the biggest instruction for me till now. B-Model of 8053, the Harbour Crane, 168 pages! (What a waste of paper :sceptic: )

In my good old 8865, the B-Model was included in the 38 pages of instructions!

So I'm asking here what your opinion is on the evolution of the instructions? Is it getting more easy because the kids wouldn't understand the instructions? Or is it getting easier because they can easily create a lot of instruction pages with the help of their CAD program?

PS: 8865 is a great car, but one of my sons said, I have to put a HOG steering to the car, so he can drive it more easy.

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8865-1.jpg8053-1.jpg

The 8865 Test Car set has 909 pieces, so (naturally) it has fewer steps. It is not clear what the target age group is, since it's not written on the box.

The 8053 Mobile Crane/ Harbor Crane set is targeted to 11-16 year olds. It has 1,289 parts, so it will have more steps than the 8865.

The Lego Group (TLG) tests out its building instructions with local Danish kids, to make sure that they can easily build the model. Lego Technic models sometimes has black-on-black parts, which makes it difficult to see if the instructions are printed too small. The closeup shots (showing just a FEW Lego Technic parts per page) is what kids prefer. Adults can handle more complexity.

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OK, I see. It seems better for kids to have less pieces per step. But why have the old instructions so much pieces per step? Was it because the drawing of the instructions was more costly? Or didn't TLG knew this in the past?

[..]

The 8865 Test Car set has 909 pieces, so (naturally) it has fewer steps.

[..]

The 8053 Mobile Crane/ Harbor Crane set is targeted to 11-16 year olds. It has 1,289 parts, so it will have more steps than the 8865.

[..]

Wow, I didn't really noticed that! Without counting parts I would have said that they both must have like equal count of parts. Thanks.

Edited by eMHa

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eMHa, I don't know, but as befits commenting on a forum, I'll give an opinion anyway. I would guess that it is *not* that kids are getting dumber, but that Lego is more accurately targetting their market and providing kid-friendly instructions suitable for a wider age group (parents don't always stick to the age limits on the box) and range of abilities.

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OK, I see. It seems better for kids to have less pieces per step. But why have the old instructions so much pieces per step? Was it because the drawing of the instructions was more costly? Or didn't TLG knew this in the past?

Wow, I didn't really noticed that! Without counting parts I would have said that they both must have like equal count of parts. Thanks.

although, yes.. I'm an experienced builder.. I can't see what's so complex about the first 2 steps in 8865!

  • You have a box telling you all the parts you need to collect for each step
  • It's a symmetrical build
  • It's easy to see how many pegs you need, and where they go (counting holes from the end)
  • The colours are clear - there's no black on black
  • all the axles are numbered with their length

The only thing that could have made it easier, would be a 1:1 side-on picture of the beams and axles.

I do like those, as it makes it quick to check you've got the right size piece, without having to count studs/holes

And I very much doubt a set the size, and price of 8865 would be a childs first technic set.

SURELY they'd get a few smaller ones first!

And if they've played with regular Lego before, studded technic isn't that much of a change

oh.. and sets naturally have a higher piece count these days... since Studless Technic has a bucket-load more friction pegs now, since there's no studs on beams to connect all the parts together!

I do think that recent instructions have gone a little overboard, in the almost '1 piece per step'

If they do insist on doing that, I think they could save paper, by having more steps on a page... maybe cropping/zooming in on the part of the model that you're building on.

RB

Edited by RohanBeckett

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And I very much doubt a set the size, and price of 8865 would be a childs first technic set.

You're right, it was my second!

I can understand the dumbing down of instructions. It could be that attention spans (not necesarily intelligence) are getting shorter or it could be that they are trying to broarden then target groups to include kids with a greater variety of levels of intelligence. I do miss those old instructions, the newer ones with only two or three parts per page are quite tedious and it seems like such a waste of paper (which I am opposed to for cost reasons, not some ignorant eco reasoning!). But this is one thing that's probably more to do with nostalgia, the enemy of forward thinking!

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[..]

It could be that attention spans (not necesarily intelligence) are getting shorter or it could be that they are trying to broarden then target groups to include kids with a greater variety of levels of intelligence.

[..]

My wife also mentioned that it could be to expand the target group. If you're (as a kid) not much motivated to complete building a set, it could be possible to loose interest in LEGO in generally.

The more I think about it the more I can understand from the point of TLG the decision to change instructions.

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Excellent topic, as somebody who has got right back in to Lego Technic again of late and having purchased some new sets I agree it is all very different to what I remember in the past.

Paul

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IMHO i do think the building instruction are so much simpler/easier these days.

Let's for instance take the 8857 Trike (409 pieces from 1993)and the 8051 motorbike(467 pieces from 2010).

The BI on the trike has only 17 buildingsteps whereas the 8051 does take 70 steps to complete.

In comparison: check out how great difference in progress is after step 12 in both models:

80518857.jpg

(Okay it is comparing apples with oranges because Technic has advanced so much in the last 30+ years...)

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In comparison: check out how great difference in progress is after step 12 in both models:

80518857.jpg

But still... seven whole steps just to make that little crankshaft and conrods?

Really.. step 7 could be just ONE step! Look at those parts! If you were given those parts, and told to build the image in step 7 or 8...

There's only one way that you could do it!

The only tricky bit is the hidden-from-view red 2x axle in the middle

Anyway.. maybe that's just me, an AFOL, outside the target audience having a little gripe at the world being too easy for the next generation! ;)

RB

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Yeah I think Building instruction are easy today as ive just finish build an old classic 8860 which was great to relive old memorys but i do think no a day that the newer instruction are better lay out to understand where to fit thing together

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The old instructions are better. Adding 1 part per step doesn't make any sense for me at all. Is it so hard to look a the instructions and see where the parts go? :sceptic: Waste of paper and money for TLG. :thumbdown:

Kids haven't got dumber IMO.

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The old instructions are better. Adding 1 part per step doesn't make any sense for me at all. Is it so hard to look a the instructions and see where the parts go? :sceptic: Waste of paper and money for TLG. :thumbdown:

Kids haven't got dumber IMO.

You would think that the new instructions with down to 1 part pr. step are easier to follow, but I find myself spending an awful lot of time changing pages.

But one must also remember that LEGO didn't have computers in the old day. Steps were drawn manually.

Still:

9150576e-ac77-4c06-ad43-b5f0eabdbab0.jpg

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Well, the older style brick building was primarily square so I would think that steps were easier to follow even if more pieces are involved. Brick building does seem much easier to the new route that Lego has taken.

Also 2 or 3 instruction books for models now explains why they make us download the B model instructions to save money. And I don't know about you guys, but I hate trying to build off of my computer monitor. :thumbdown:

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I don't know about you guys, but I hate trying to build off of my computer monitor. :thumbdown:

I recently made a set from downloaded TLG instructions in LDD, without printing on paper. I don't know if it would have been lighter on paper, but it was next to impossible to tell black apart from dark brown, or even earth orange (regular brown) for that matter when looking on a LCD monitor.

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Well, the older style brick building was primarily square so I would think that steps were easier to follow even if more pieces are involved. Brick building does seem much easier to the new route that Lego has taken.

Exactly and I think this is the main reason. Studded building is simply easier. Studded building like in 8865 is mostly from the bottom up. Studless building like in 8069 is from the inside out. Parts interlock in all thinkable directions and angles. I really think it's nearly impossible to generate clear instructions for 8069 (about 600 parts) in 24 steps without substeps. Studless building is simply a lot more complex.

However, if this were the argument, sets in other themes shouldn't see the trend. But they do. Compare a modern Creator set to a Model Team set and you see the same thing. So it can't just be the complexity of studless building.

I do agree that bigger steps than currently used, are possible, and I do think the decreased attention span of the current generation plays a role here. I saw the same thing at a school I visited today - the electronic calculator destroys mental calculation skills. Similarly I think the computer has destroyed kids' ability to concentrate and motivate themselves on things that are even slightly challenging. With the amount of distractions today's world has, LEGO has a much harder time than previously, to keep the kids' attention. Everything is about serving their needs as quickly and short-term as possible. One drawback while building, and kids are already distracted by Pokémon... :/

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I much prefer the older style of instructions. As a technic enthusiast I find one part steps a joke. I think anyone in their target audience can cope with more than that :thumbup: . I still really enjoy building my older sets, but when I build modern ones my brain just switches off. Much like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WINSvqJK4aU :laugh: (I love that clip).

I kind of guessed this simplification would be happeneing in other themes too. I really do think computers have a lot to do with this, when I help students I do see that they just prefer to google things and get an answer instantly rather than having a go at trying to figure something out themselves, which is good but also bad at the same time. I do not think its intelligence related, just a change of attitude and patience.

I had no problem building the old sets (8880 etc), when I was the target audience age or a little bit younger so why have things changed? None of my friends did either...

On a side note if studless building is generally considered more complex, why have lego gone to it ? :tongue: I love studded technic, and the sets exhibited similar (if not more in some cases) complexity so why did they change? I have no problem with studless, but I just wish Lego would choose a method that suits the build and not force studless only construction all the time.

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I much prefer the older style of instructions. As a technic enthusiast I find one part steps a joke.

I had no problem building the old sets (8880 etc), when I was the target audience age or a little bit younger so why have things changed? None of my friends did either ...

On a side note if studless building is generally considered more complex, why have lego gone to it ?

Hmmm,

I am always thinking along this line but then ...

Google was simply not there when "we" figured things out. Now it is. Do we use it? I do. Every single day. I don't spend ages in the library anymore.

TLC is a globally operating enterprise and there is though competition out there. Take Playmobil: They have every single theme TLC has in their inventory. Their stuff looks slick, clean and there is no single stud in the way. And you almost don't have to think at all how to put things together. The way young folks experience life changes with breathtakingly speed. Everything is in motion. I guess TLC is just adjusting to this change much faster than "we" do. We love the olden days, they always have been better.

I am not saying this is any good. Not at all. But I do know that students at age 14 figure out with a snap of there fingers how a Stirling motor works. And they are bored. When I figured it out way back then, I was thrilled.

Things do change. They have to. TLC goes along and at the same time, PF LEGO trains run on 4.5V track like a charm. I guess they are having an as hard time as we have, but they have to make big money - drawing it mostly from parents. And the kids do know Google pretty well.

Just my thoughts.

Best regards,

Thorsten

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This subject has come up often recently - I can think of at least three topics where the same discussion seems to be happening. See also this one

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However we AFOLs and TFOLs feel about modern Technic instructions, I feel that younger children and others new to the Technic theme have benefited from this change.

A couple of years ago, I helped supervise a Lego building event at my local library. Part of the event was a speed build in which teams of 3 children were given a sealed 8261 Rally Truck and tasked with building (a. the model on the box or (b. MOCing up some sort of vehicle. Whichever team came closest to finishing their creation in 45 minutes would be declared the winner. Now, I had my doubts about whether the contest was a good idea: only one or two of the children present had prior Technic experience, and 40 minutes is an awfully short time for seven and eight year olds to master unfamiliar building techniques.

I needn't have worried, though, since all of the teams that followed the instruction manual either finished within the allotted time or were quite close to doing so. If modern instructions were as complicated as they were in the '80s and '90s, would things have gone so smoothly? Or would some of the young builders have found their first Technic experience frustrating and become discouraged?

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