Friday, April 18, 2008

How LEGO Bricks Are Made

How LEGO Bricks Are Made

LEGO Bricks are actually an amazing feat of engineering and manufacturing. Each Lego Brick must be made very precisely and to exact specifications so that, when they are snapped together, they have just the right amount of grip. Not to hard to pull apart, but will still stay together. They also have to fit with millions and millions of bricks that were made in the past. Plus people like to collect Lego sets and bricks for years and then hand them down to their kids. Bricks made many years ago need to still fit with bricks made today.

To get these little toy bricks to meet these high standards, Lego bricks are made out of a complex plastic with a big scientific name called "acrylonitrile butadiene styrene". Say that 5 times fast! They also use precision-machined molds that are considered top secret. As a matter of fact, in order to keep these molds secret, Lego puts the used ones into the foundations of buildings so no one else can steal them. That's serious stuff. Also, according to the LEGO Group, the brick manufacturing process is so accurate that only 18 bricks out of every million are rejected. Every brick is inspected by hand as well. It is this accurate manufacturing process that allows bricks from 30 and 40 years ago to still connect to bricks that are built today.

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