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Interlocking Blocks:

Lego, which only appeared in its current form in 1963 is the classic interlocking block. In 1958 Lego introduced their interlocking tube and stud configuration (which they got slightly wrong - a topic for another day) but it was not until 1963 that Lego started to use a modern plastic: ABS. Up until then they used Cellulose Acetate, one of the first 'plastics' but never a very satisfactory one.

In its current form, it has become the canonical construction toy block (just as Tinkertoy is for hub-and-rod and Meccano-Erector is for beam-and-beam) with ~$3B in sales.*

Keys to success for Lego:

• Blocks snap together (change made in 1958)
• Tight tolerances
• Clean design / assembly
• High quality plastic (change to ABS made in 1963)
• Marketing in US (started in 1962)
• Other pluses: very good for solid constructrions.

Problems:

• Snap-together blocks are not by themselves particularly good for open constructions (e.g., Ferris wheels, roller coasters)
• Lego has been getting too far away from spontaneous construction, symptons of which are:
  Overly complicated kit designs with:
  • Too much custom part tooling per kit - driving up Lego's costs.
  • Too many custom parts per kit (approaching model building but without the glue).
    • We've had the experience of opening up a kit and seeing what seems to be 100 different part types with some of them only millimeters on a side.
      • This part-type plethora kills all desire to build the kit.

* Supposedly the first year that Lego ever lost money was in 1998. In 2003 they lost a record, for them, $224M. But Lego is privately held, so everyone takes their results with a grain of salt.

NEXT: Beam and Bolt (think Erector Set)