How To Teach Your Kids The Basics Of Mechanics With LEGO

Mechanics is not something many of us think of deliberately. It’s one of those things we do and happens around us all the time, so we take it for granted. You open your laptop, and you never think: wait, how is that MacBook Air screen opening so effortlessly, yet it doesn’t wobble around every time I type? The hinge acts as a pivot point, while friction and gravity help with the rest. Some you work with, some you work against. And while in this case, you need to fight gravity, there are many cases where gravity is what helps achieve the mechanical solution you’re looking for. Apparently I am not the only one fascinated by this, but so are the teams at LEGO who released not long ago the tiniest LEGO Technic blind boxes ever to hit the shelves, and I think these are the best intros to mechanics that parents can use to teach their kids.

That LEGO is great for kids, and it’s great for teaching has been well-documented over decades now. But something that I found wasn’t at all covered until now, was mechanics for young kids. Sure, we had smaller Technic sets for years, heck my fourth ever LEGO set was a small Technic motorbike, but the focus wasn’t as much on the mechanics as much…