The First Build!!

Welcome to the moment you have been waiting for....... The first build! As I had previously posted Christian, and I concluded on building a group of "Monster Jam" monster trucks which can each be built into two different models which also come with a pullback motor. I had purchased a bonus pack version that included 4 of the 6 figures to get started on.  

The 4 “Monster Jam” trucks include:  

212 piece “Grave Digger” 

230 piece “Max-D” 

247 piece “El Toro Loco” 

260 piece “Megalodon”  

Although Christian really wanted to start off with “Megalodon” because the sharklike look was the coolest! We started with “Grave Digger” because apart from it being one of the original monster trucks in real life, it was the lowest on piece count. Since this would be our first our first build, I wanted to be able to use this as a gage of how difficult and how much time it might take to complete one model. I figured if we could improve the build time moving forward with more complicated models in the future this would be a considered a huge improvement! 

https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/monster-jam-grave-digger-42118

Now for the fun part, the actual building! Seeing that these Lego “Technic” kits use different blocking systems designed to be slightly more difficult I wanted to see how Christian would respond. I got my answer quickly upon dumping contents of the box on the table he looked at me and asked, “Are you sure this is Lego?” We set the timer to 60 minutes, opened the instruction manual and got to work. There were plenty of times he was unsure as to how to connect certain components and I had to find various strategies that would help simplify things for him, such as using the table to click pieces together, and making sure he was following along with the instructions correctly to name a few. But I do believe he had come a long way in just 60 minutes. Although we did not fully complete our first project, I had taken a ton of mental notes on how to improve our time management moving forward! Stay tuned to see our finished “Grave Digger” and start of “Max-D”! 

Lego is Lego Right?

So this week during my genius hour I had to set the ground work moving forward. First I had to make sure my sister and nephew Christian were both on board with my new Lego building venture, this was not a very hard task as my nephew was very overjoyed with the idea. Then came the hard part, decisions on what would we build?

Having not really paid any attention to Lego in many years I didn't realize how many versions of the classic building block toy there was. So Christian and I, sat on on the couch and scrolled through Lego.com looking at various movie/TV show themed sets. We eventually concluded that building vehicles would be the easier to display and more fun to play with later, as an automotive technician I was not going to turn that down! Upon filtering through various vehicles, we realized Lego now has many different levels of difficulty and also various types of block systems. Since Christian has never worked with the Lego "Technic" type of block system and it seems a like a higher difficulty level, we decided to test our limits. In this line up we discovered a group of "Monster Jam" monster trucks which can each be built into two different models and come with a pull back motor, to add even more of a fun factor once we are finished building. This group of trucks consists of 6, with all versions consisting of over 200pcs, so it should fit into my criteria perfectly. I ordered a bonus pack version that included 4 of the 6 figures! But now we wait for next weeks hour to start our building venture.

Stay tunned to see which one we will start off with!

https://www.lego.com/en-us/themes/technic?icmp=HP-SHQL-Standard-TC_QL_42123_HP-TH-TC-F7TJMNSKCR

 

Welcome!

Hello there! My name is Kyle, I am an automotive service technician by trade. Currently I am enrolled in Brock Universities Technical Education Program. This, like many other of my classmates, is my first ever blog post! This blog will follow my genius hour journey for the next 6 weeks, where you will be following along seeing "How many 200+ piece Lego sets can I build with a 6-year-old, only using 60 minutes a week for 6 weeks?".  

Now before you quickly exit the page wondering "Why exactly would I want to know that?" hear me out. I recently read an article for my studies called “Why your teenager can’t use a hammer” by Cynthia Reynolds, published in Mcleans magazine August 25, 2011. It got me thinking about how basic skills are now declining fast in younger generations due to the rise in technology. My nephew, being only 6 years old falls into this demographic. Now although building with Lego toys may seem like simple child's play, there are plenty of basic skills that it helps to develop in children. Those basic skills can be eventually transferred to bigger projects or even future careers in trades.  

The goal of this project, aside from me being able to still spend quality time with my nephew despite a busy schedule of working full-time while attending school, is to see if he can develop organization, time management, and hands-on skills. While learning the importance of following steps in the instruction manual. All those basic skills are what I use daily in my trade, speaking from experience this toy helped me when I was his age. I am looking forward to getting started and showing everyone just how many cool builds, we can produce! 

 

Mcleans (August 25, 2011). Retrieved January 14, 2023, from 

https://www.macleans.ca/society/life/why-your-teenager-cant-use-a-hammer/