Article 459 of rec.toys.lego: Path: ornews.intel.com!chnews!ssd.intel.com!news.kei.com!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!newsrelay.iastate.edu!news.iastate.edu!smpeters From: smpeters@iastate.edu (Road Warrior) Newsgroups: rec.toys.lego Subject: Lego articles Date: 31 Jan 1994 02:40:12 GMT Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA Lines: 439 Distribution: usa Message-ID: <2ihr2c$gdh@news.iastate.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: vincent1.iastate.edu Hello fellow Lego-maniacs, I have listed below some articles with Lego mentioned in them. I looked them up at the above mentioned University Library computer search, but I have not actually looked up the articles. Some sound fairly interesting, but I'll let you be the judge. Enjoy. Stephen Peterson AUTHOR(S): Hamilton, Robert A. TITLE: Lego blocks keep building a growing Enfield. SOURCE: New York Times (Late New York Edition) (Sept. 12 '93) p. 9 (Sec 10) OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: LEGO System AS. Enfield (Conn.)--Industries. ABSTRACT: In an otherwise sluggish economy, toys are still big sellers. The Danish company Lego Group, the maker of the famous Lego blocks for kids, is expanding Lego Systems, its manufacturing facility in Enfield, Connecticut. The town has prospered from facilities owned by Hallmark Cards, U.S. Shoe, and Phoenix Home Life. Lego's new expansion will add to Enfield's financial base. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR(S): Peterson, Ivars. TITLE: Gearing up for a robot rodeo. OTHER TITLE(S): organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology SOURCE: Science News v. 144 (July 24 '93) p. 61 OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: Robots--Competitions. ABSTRACT: A competition at the Eleventh National Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Washington, D.C., gave scientists involved in artificial intelligence a chance to test their knowledge and theories and to gain practical experience. Organized by David Miller, Lynn Andrea Stein, and their coworkers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the competition attracted more than 25 teams from colleges, businesses, and other institutions. The participants attended a workshop on the first day to learn the basics of building a robot from LEGO components and to become familia with Interactive C, the computer language used to program the machine's microprocessor. From then on, teams of participants raced to build the robots and program their movements for one or both of the contest's navigation tasks. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TITLE: Lego picks California site for theme park. OTHER TITLE(S): Lego Family Park in Carlsbad, Calif. SOURCE: New York Times (Late New York Edition) (Nov. 20 '93) p. 3 OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: LEGO System A Lego Family Park (Carlsbad, Calif.) ABSTRACT: The Lego Group, which makes Lego plastic blocks, intends build an amusement park for children in Carlsbad, Calif. The Danish company said Nov. 19 that the Lego Family Park would feature miniature buildings and other creations made of Legos. In addition, there will be amusement park rides for young children. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- TITLE: Lego. OTHER TITLE(S): work of model builder F. Berger SOURCE: The New Yorker v. 66 (Jan. 14 '91) p. 24-5 DESCRIPTORS: LEGO System AS. ABSTRACT: Francie Berger, who grew up in Queens, has realized her life's dream: LEGO System has made her the head of a staff of model designers and builders that puts together promotional models made of LEGO building bricks. Berger has been obsessed with LEGO bricks most of her life. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR(S): Miller, Annetta. TITLE: Troubles in Toyland. SOURCE: Newsweek v. 116 (Dec. 24 '90) p. 42-3 OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: Toy and game industry--Marketing. Christmas business. ABSTRACT: An economic downturn, a scarcity of blockbuster products, and a softening of the video game market are creating a bleak Christmas season for U.S. toymakers and retailers. Some toy companies are expected to post sales declines in the millions of dollars for 1990, and retailers are suffering even more than manufacturers. Many are lowering their prices while the holiday season is still in progress, and analysts predict that further reductions will follow. Despite the general trend, certain toys are selling well. Among the season's hits are dolls, Lego products, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures, and Nintendo software. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- TITLE: Spring cleanup at Legoland Park. OTHER TITLE(S): cover story SOURCE: National Geographic World v. 171 (Nov. '89) p. 4-9 OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: Legoland Park (Billund, Denmark) ABSTRACT: Billund, Denmark, is the home of Legoland, a theme park made of some 34 million plastic Lego building blocks. Park visitors are treated to small-scale replicas of real and imaginary towns in Europe, a wildlife safari, and a Wild West town called Legoredo. Three new models were added to the collection this year, including a version of the U.S. Capitol. The park is part of the toy empire created by Billund carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen, who switched from building homes to making toys during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Next year, almost a million people are expected to visit the park, which opened in 1968. A sidebar discusses how Lego plastic blocks are manufactured. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR(S): Collier, Ken. TITLE: Great gifts for kids. OTHER TITLE(S): holiday projects; special section SOURCE: The Family Handyman v. 39 (Nov./Dec. '89) p. 43-52 OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: Christmas projects. Christmas gifts for children. ABSTRACT: A special section on easy-to-build holiday gifts for children includes instructions for making an oak and walnut toy circular saw, a Lego table, a rocking horse, a pine Advent calendar, and a cherry piggy bank. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- TITLE: For a devoted junior builder, this Lego table is the perfect construction site. SOURCE: The Family Handyman v. 39 (Nov./Dec. '89) p. 46-7 OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: Tables. ABSTRACT: Part of a special section on easy-to-build holiday gifts for children. Instructions for making a colorful table with a surface that holds Lego blocks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR(S): Shenker, Israel. TITLE: Playing with blocks can be a fine art at this theme park. OTHER TITLE(S): Legoland Park SOURCE: Smithsonian v. 19 (June '88) p. 120-4+ OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: LEGO System AS. Legoland Park (Billund, Denmark) ABSTRACT: Legoland Park, which celebrates the immensely popular plastic Lego brick, is one of Denmark's biggest tourist attractions. The 25-acre theme park features Lego constructions that include a 50' facsimile of the Mount Rushmore Memorial and a replica of the Port of Copenhagen. It also contains a toy museum, a children's driving school, and a merry-Lego-round. The park is located in the town of Billund, not far from where Lego creator Ole Kirk Christiansen was born. Lego made its first plastic bricks in 1949. In 1958 it arrived at the hugely successful principle for its current design, which hooks studded blocks to the cavities in other studded blocks. Under the direction of Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, Ole Kirk's grandson, the company retains the founder's insistence on perfection and quality, meticulously testing its products and guarding against imitators. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- TITLE: A leg up for Logo robotics. OTHER TITLE(S): Lego control system SOURCE: Science News v. 133 (June 4 '88) p. 364 DESCRIPTORS: Logo (Computer language). Computers--Educational use--Programs. Robots--Educational use. Toys. ABSTRACT: A new, extended version of a computer programming language called Logo enables schoolchildren to program computers to operate machines they have built themselves. Children can use Logo to instruct computers to create and manipulate images on a display screen. Stephen Ocko and Mitchel Resnick of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Laboratory extended the system by developing an interface box that connects machines made with LEGO building pieces to an Apple IIe computer. Resnick demonstrated the system at a recent Human Factors in Computing Systems conference. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR(S): Meeks, Fleming. TITLE: So sue me. SOURCE: Forbes v. 142 (Nov. 28 '88) p. 72+ DESCRIPTORS: Grey, Richard E. Tyco Toys, Inc. ABSTRACT: Richard Grey, the president of Tyco Toys, has made the company very profitable by creating products that are modeled on already successful toys made by other companies. Grey created Super Blocks and Super Dough to compete against the highly successful Lego blocks and Play-Doh. The makers of both toys sued, but Tyco won the legal battles. Nevertheless, the stock market hasn't been impressed with Tyco's record, largely because the children's toy industry is so volatile. In addition, investors have been put off by several questionable deals in which Tyco lent money to and acquired assets from other companies controlled by Benson Selzer, who acquired Tyco in 1981 through his firm, Savoy Industries. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR(S): Gibbs, Nancy R. TITLE: What do you want from Santa?. SOURCE: Time v. 132 (Dec. 12 '88) p. 79-80 OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: Toys. ABSTRACT: The most popular Christmas gifts for children this year are likely to be traditional toys rather than the high-tech, high-priced items that have captured the market in recent years. In the absence of a single blockbuster toy, manufacturers have fallen back on proven winners like Lego blocks, Barbie dolls, and Lionel trains. These toys have an enduring appeal for children because they allow them to use their imagination. Moreover, their familiarity, high quality, and educational value make them popular with the parents and grandparents who purchase them. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR(S): Angiolillo, Paul, Jr. Bluestone, Mimi. TITLE: Now even Lego is going high-tech. OTHER TITLE(S): linkage with Logo to make programmable toys SOURCE: Business Week (Aug. 17 '87) p. 40 OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: Logo (Computer language). Toys. Computers--Educational use--Programs. Robots--Educational use. Papert, Seymour. LEGO System AS. ABSTRACT: Danish toy manufacturer Inter Lego is linking its construction toys to Logo, a computer language for children. The result is Lego TC Logo, a toy that allows children to design thei own machines from Lego blocks and write computer program that make the machines move. The project began three years ago when Inter Lego president Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen read a book by Seymour A. Papert, the creator of Logo. Kristiansen proposed the collaboration, and Papert founded Microworlds Learning to develop the toy. Lego supported the Microworlds effort with product testing in schools. Inter Lego's U.S. subsidiary, Lego Systems, will handle distribution to U.S. schools. Lego hopes to sell 25,000 sets over the next five years. Its biggest challenge may be finding enough money in the educational system to support sales. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- TITLE: Hot this year: yakety dolls and TV guns. OTHER TITLE(S): Christmas toys SOURCE: U.S. News & World Report v. 103 (Nov. 30 '87) p. 66 OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: Toys. ABSTRACT: Tips on toy-buying for the Christmas season. No single blockbuster dominates children's wish lists this year, so parents will not have to stand in line the way they did for Cabbage Patch Dolls. Large stores like K mart and Toys "R" Us will be the best place to look for items that may sell out in places, like some of the new interactive toys. Popular gifts will include Lego building blocks, Barbie dolls, and other low-tech favorites of the past. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- TITLE: Lego wars: a Christmas tale. OTHER TITLE(S): Ohio Art's Zaks vs. Lego construction toys SOURCE: Newsweek v. 110 (Dec. 28 '87) p. 40-1 OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: Toy and game industry--Advertising. LEGO System AS. Ohio Art Company. ABSTRACT: In one of the most profitable years ever for makers of basic toys like construction sets, industry leader Lego Systems is battling Ohio Art for market share. The latter firm has produced a line of colorful interlocking square and triangle shapes called Zaks, inspired by architect Buckminster Fuller's geodesic principles and designed to encourage children to think in three dimensions. Lego officials deny charges by Zaks inventor James Ziegler that recent commercials for Lego featuring a young boy named Zack were designed to confuse children and parents. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ AUTHOR(S): Lottman, Herbert R. TITLE: A bustling Bologna. OTHER TITLE(S): Children's Book Fair SOURCE: Publishers Weekly v. 229 (May 16 '86) p. 26+ OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: Book fairs. ABSTRACT: Business was booming at the Bologna children's book fair, thanks in large part to the declining value of the dollar. Newcomers at Bologna included the Lego toy people, who are entering the book-publishing and television fields. Despite its stated purpose as a children's publishing showcase, Bologna served this year, as in the past, as a site for negotiations concerning the adult market. First and foremost, Bologna is a rights mart, and the Literary Agents Center that was unveiled this year proved to be a real crowd pleaser. The fair provided the opportunity to get a feeling for the overall health of the book-producing industry in various European countries. A number of companies used it as the occasion to launch new ventures. More than 1,100 exhibitors occupied 604 stands; many of the nations represented had collective displays. International political tensions were evident, but there was the usual round of parties and award presentations. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR(S): Kestin, Hesh. TITLE: Nothing like a Dane. SOURCE: Forbes v. 138 (Nov. 3 '86) p. 145+ OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: LEGO System AS. ABSTRACT: Interlego A/S defies the odds by continuing to make a profit from its only product line, Lego construction toys. Interlego, a family-owned Danish firm, enjoys pretax profits of 17 percent. By comparison, the two most profitable American toy makers, Fisher-Price and Hasbro, claim profit margins of 10.5 percent and 8.9 percent respectively. Interlego has charted a strategy of slow, planned growth, restricting long-term debt to just 0.4 percent of equity. The company has staved off threats by rivals in South Korea and Brazil by producing Legos in those countries. All told, the toy is produced in six nations. Legos claim 60 percent of the construction toy market in the United States, which totaled $189 million last year. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR(S): Lurie, Theodora. TITLE: The Danish town that toys built. SOURCE: Maclean's v. 98 (Dec. 2 '85) p. 6-8 OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: LEGO System AS. Legoland Park (Billund, Denmark) ABSTRACT: Billund, Denmark, called The Town that Toys Built, is headquarters for InterLego, a toy company that manufactures and distributes $300 million worth of Lego bricks a year. The bricks, constructed with interlocking pegs and holes, were invented in 1958 by Godtfred Christiansen, whose father, Ole Kirk Christiansen, started the toy factory in Billund during the Depression. The family business employs 3,000 people, half the town's work force. It makes no war toys, and new products must be compatible with existing ones. In the center of town is Legoland, a tourist attraction containing Lego-brick replicas of famous buildings and monuments. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR(S): Thornton, Jeannye. Doan, Michael. TITLE: Christmas toys that top kids' 1985 shopping list. SOURCE: U.S. News & World Report v. 99 (Dec. 9 '85) p. 72+ OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: Toys. ABSTRACT: Toy manufacturers should have a merry Christmas in 1985. They anticipate gross sales of $13.4 billion, a 12 percent increase over 1984. Last year's best-sellers--Transformers, Cabbage Patch Kids, and Masters of the Universe--continue to be hot items, while new favorites include Teddy Ruxpin and Pound Puppies. The demand for action figures, bears, games, and plush dolls is particularly strong. Old favorites Play- Doh and Lego construction sets continue to sell well. The current trend is to produce spin-offs of best-sellers instead of trying to come up with new toys. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR(S): Rosemond, John K., 1947- TITLE: Toys that teach and banish the "nothin' to do" blues. SOURCE: Better Homes and Gardens v. 63 (Dec. '85) p. 50+ OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: Educational toys. ABSTRACT: Descriptions of six toys appropriate to the six major phases of a child's development, from infancy to thirteen years: Fisher Price's Discovery Cottage, Childcraft's Toddler's Gym, Little Tikes' Play House, Playskool's Lincoln Logs, LEGO Systems' 730 Basic Building Set, and Edmund Scientific's Microscope Kit. When shopping for toys, pick ones that can stand hard use, can be used in more than one way, and are suited to your child's level of development. The characteristics of each developmental phase are described. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR(S): Stoddard, Maynard Good. TITLE: The toy that built a town. SOURCE: The Saturday Evening Post v. 256 (Oct. '84) p. 62-5 OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: LEGO System AS. Legoland Park (Billund, Denmark) ABSTRACT: Come to Billund, Denmark, home of the LEGO building brick factory and of the miniature Cosmos, LEGOLAND. LEGOs are tiny bricks that fit together via studs and tubes. The company's founder was a woodworker named Ole Kirk Christiansen who began making toys for his four sons. He named his fledgling toy company LEGO, after the Danish words for "play well." His son Godtfred Kirk Christiansen patented the plastic brick and, in 1968, opened LEGOLAND, now Denmark's second major tourist attraction. Built entirely from LEGO bricks, this vast fantasy world contains amazingly detailed replicas of European villages, castles, and cathedrals; a town in America's old west, Mount Rushmore, and the United States Capitol. Other attractions such as the Traffic School, the doll house collection, and Titania's miniature palace make a day in LEGOLAND fascinating for adults as well as children. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- TITLE: MI kids pick their favorite toys. SOURCE: Mechanix Illustrated v. 80 (Nov. '84) p. 58-61 OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: Toys. ABSTRACT: The editors collected fifteen new toys that they felt were most likely to please children and gave them to their own children for "expert" reactions. The following toys are described: Milton Bradley's Electronic Grand-Master chess game, the Mighty Tonka Loadmaster, Marklin's HO-Gauge electric train set, Tomy robots, Revell's Robotech Changers, Erector construction sets, Suzuki's three-wheel ATV, the Sears Workshop and Project Set, the Lego Expert Builder set, Kodak's Fisher-Price camera, the Capsela Spacelink building set, Milton Bradley's Robotix building set, Ideal's Tri Lab Pak 3-in-1 science set, Johnson & Johnson's Imagin-It building system, and the Maxx Steele programmable robot. A list of prices and manufacturers' addresses accompanies the text. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR(S): Hughes, Larry. TITLE: Object identification in the Lego kernel. SOURCE: Software: Practice & Experience v. 23 (Apr. '93) p. 405-18 OTHER FEATURES: bibl diags. DESCRIPTORS: Distributed operating systems. Message passing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- TITLE: Lego model simplifies chip design. OTHER TITLE(S): Chiprack SOURCE: The Engineer (London, England) v. 276 (Apr. 8 '93) p. 32 OTHER FEATURES: diag. DESCRIPTORS: Multichip module packaging. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 AUTHOR(S): Schneider, Richard T. TITLE: FPS chapter makes learning fun with Lego educational kits. SOURCE: Hydraulics & Pneumatics v. 46 (Oct. '93) p. 6+ OTHER FEATURES: il. DESCRIPTORS: Hydraulic engineering--Study and teaching. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR(S): Mauduit, Nicolas. Duranton, Marc. Gobert, Jean. TITLE: Lneuro 1.0: a piece of hardware LEGO for building neural network systems. SOURCE: IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks v. 3 (May '92) p. 414-22 OTHER FEATURES: bibl il diags. DESCRIPTORS: Parallel architecture. Perceptrons. Neural network architecture. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR(S): Ashton, Peter R. Brown, George R. Isaacs, Neil S. TITLE: Molecular LEGO. Substrate-directed synthesis via stereoregular Diels-Alder oligomerizations. SOURCE: Journal of the American Chemical Society v. 114 (July 29 '92) p. 6330-53 OTHER FEATURES: bibl diags. DESCRIPTORS: Acenes--Synthesis. Diels-Alder reaction--Kinetics. Stereoselective reactions--Kinetics. -- "Believe in all the good things/That money just can't buy/Then you won't get no bellyache/From eatin' humble pie." `Eat the Rich':Aerosmith Stephen Peterson IS smpeters@iastate.edu