Legos!

posted Nov 4, 2014, 6:40 PM by Jon Rumfelt   [ updated Nov 4, 2014, 6:42 PM ]

Ever since I was a very small child, I only remember having one toy consistently.  Legos!  Even some of my earlier photos of me contained at least one Lego in it. As you can see here, this Lego is in my mouth. I've constantly built things, cars, trucks, space ships, even people. And every build I would proudly take to my Mom (not in the picture) and show it off. Now I wouldn't always present my creation at the most appropriate time, usually while Mom was entertaining guests, or very much into a movie on TV that couldn't be paused like today's movies. I didn't care, this creation came from inside my head, and nothing was more important than having the approval of Mom. As I got older, my other toys became less interesting to me. I went through G.I. Joe's, Micro Machines, Transformers ( actually, Go-Bots came out before Transformers, and they were made out of METAL!), also had race tracks, RC cars, even a watch with a video game on it. But I never lost the desire to play with my Legos. My friends wouldn't show interest when I pulled them out, but I would always show interest when one of them pulled out their legos. I remember one school night I had a rare opportunity to spend the night at a friends house. (I suddenly had a desire to look him up on Facebook, and I just found him!) Jason Raitz had this cool Lego Castle, I didn't have any castle stuff, so I was super excited when he said I could build it for him. Well, I stayed up ALL NIGHT LONG building that castle! I was exhausted at school the next day, but the thing that got me through the day was "I built the castle in one night!" Grandma wasn't to happy with me, but it was worth it. In my mind, trading 8 hours of sleep to play Legos was an option I just couldn't pass up. Even in High School, I would set up the Legos on the pool table cover in the basement and have adventures. Most of the time I was home alone, to embarrassed to admit I, a 16 year old boy, would play with such childish toys. I had Legos everywhere in Grandmas house. Like little spies keeping watch, on special assignment. I even had names for the ships, trucks, and some of the people. When I lived in the dorms as an Airman in the Air Force, I STILL played with my Legos! I bought a Space Shuttle kit that had a motor and the bay doors opened, a satelite on a crane emerged and open it's solar panels. Retractable landing gear, movable flaps, and lights on the thrusters. It took me almost a week to put together, but when I finished, I played with it for HOURS. Flash forward to a family and kids, and suddenly I had an excuse to openly play with Legos! What kind of parent would I be if I didn't pass on my knowledge and imagination? Of course, I still played alone, when no one was home, but when the kids played with Legos, I would mosie on in and dump the legos out and build something cool. Michael even made his 100 days of school project out of Legos! Well, when it came time for this year's Fall Family Fun Fest, I couldn't even fathom the idea of building something for kids out of anything BUT Legos. So I jumped down stairs and started building a proof of concept target for a Nerf gun shooting gallery. Playing off an old school gallery seen in fairs. The kind they used to shoot actual guns at! Of course I couldn't use real guns, so the Nerf guns were perfect. The proof of concept worked well, so we moved on to making a prototype. I took the motor from the space shuttle and hooked it up. The first problem was that the RPM's of my motor are 4300RPM! No chance of hitting the target because the targets would fly off. So I quickly built a gear reduction system. Finally, after learning how to make a worm drive gear reduction system, the first prototype was ready for target practice. We put the prototype in the truck and I let the boys shoot at it. Above you can see the far pin wheel black panel will get hit by Michael. The concept was to make it as easy to manage as possible, so I wanted the targets to reset on their own. The motor was doing a great job, but we had some modifications that needed to be done to ensure the system wouldn't fail during the Trunk or Treat event. After all the modifications were done, Michael and I finished up and had to stop ourselves from wanting to improve on it even more. We were almost out of time, and we had to work on the scene. We went with a water theme, or ocean, or lake, whatever! I wanted dolphins and ducks, but since they aren't usually seen together, we opted for ducks and fish. I pushed to make the scene look cartoonish, and Paige added faces to the clouds. It was coming along nicely. Finally, we added the targets. Gabe is here to push one target down, and it resets behind the scenes. I picked up a 30 pack of Nerf Darts the day of the event, and tested every single one. Mike and I shot at the targets from across the room, and everything was working great. I grabbed a few extra pieces for field repairs/mods and we all packed up and headed to the Church. Now, I had every intention of taking photos and video of the kids shooting at it, but this is literally the last 15 seconds before the event started, and the next thing we new, it was almost 8:30pm! We had, at our lowest estimate, over 100 kids at our car. I believe we also had 10 adults take shots! But what was really encouraging to me was the faces of the parents who stared off into their x-ray vision mode to figure out how it worked. I offered to several parents that they can go to the passenger door and take a peak, and not one said "no thanks" but instead everyone wanted to see. What an ego boost for me (even now, I'm sporting a smile just thinking about it!) The kids had tons of fun, the parents had fun, Sarah and I had fun, and the targets held up to the constant deluge of darts. When it was over, I definitely patted myself on the back, and extended a "Great job" to Michael, who helped me out quiet a bit. But what now? What happens to Lego creations that serve one purpose? Do we just take them apart never to be built again? No! I discovered Lego Digital Designer! This program is the Lego geek's dream box of parts. ALL the parts you can imagine, and then when you think you are done, the program makes the instructions for you to build your virtual creation. So tonight I spent a few hours digitizing the target so we can, if ever requested, build it again. Here's our creation. Of course, it's easier to color code when you have every brick in every color! Ours was sporting yellow, white, black, blue, and a few others! enjoy! and PLAY! </rant> Jon