Lego Construction Research Articles

Project Based Learning Learning to Stimulate Symbolic Thinking Abilities in Children Aged 5-6 Years in Kindergarten Negeri Pembina 1 South Wangi-Wangi

This research aims to describe the implementation of Project- Based Learning to stimulate symbolic thinking of 5-6 years old children at Pembina 1 Kindergarten in South Wangi-Wangi. This research used a qualitative research approach with a descriptive type. This research was conducted at Pembina 1 Kindergarten in South Wangi-Wangi. The data source of this research was determined by purposive sampling techniques consisting of the principal, class B teacher, and group B students and supported by document data. The data were collected through interviews, observations, and documentation. The researcher was the main instrument in conducting the research with the help of observation, interviews, and documentation guidelines. The research results show the following findings: (1) project learning planning is carried out by preparing themes and learning topics, lessons plans, teaching modules, and projects reports. (2) The implementation of projects learning is carried out through projects activities to make fruit juice, cooking class, market day, lego construction, drawing and coloring, fruit media, blenders, or kitchen tools such as knives, spoons, and glasses, vegetables ingredients, pots and spoons, money, merchandise products, tables and chairs, legos, blocks, boards/bases, drawings paper/colouring books, pencils, colored pencils, and crayons. In the symbolic projects learning method, children determine learning objectives, project design, pre-project preparation, project implementation, reflection and evaluation, and classroom arrangement.

Better Writing, Brick by Brick: a Student-Centered Writing Exercise Using LEGO.

Supporting student development of clear science communication skills is critically important and incredibly challenging. In this activity, to help students understand the importance of clear written communication, students work in pairs with LEGO bricks. One student with a completed LEGO structure describes a small LEGO construction, directing a second student to build it, sight unseen. This exercise serves three aims. First, it acts as an icebreaker in the beginning of this writing-intensive course; second, it prompts thinking about the features of clear communication; and finally, it highlights challenges in written communication. The exercise is followed by a short debrief and an in-class writing assignment. Most students found the exercise to be enjoyable and useful and advised including it in future course offerings. With modifications, it also runs well in an online format, and is easily adaptable to many other course contexts.

Assessing the impact of LEGO® construction training on spatial and mathematical skills.

Lego construction ability is associated with a variety of spatial skills and mathematical outcomes. However, it is unknown whether these relations are causal. We aimed to establish the causal impact of Lego construction training on: Lego construction ability; a broad range of spatial skills; and on mathematical outcomes in 7-9-year-olds. We also aimed to identify how this causal impact differs for digital versus physical Lego construction training. One-hundred and ninety-eight children took part in a six-week training programme, delivered twice weekly as a school lunch time club. They completed either physical Lego training (N=59), digital Lego training (N=64), or an active control condition (crafts; N=75). All children completed baseline and follow-up measures of spatial skills (disembedding, visuo-spatial working memory, spatial scaling, mental rotation, and performance on a spatial-numerical task, the number line task), mathematical outcomes (geometry, arithmetic, and overall mathematical skills) and Lego construction ability. Exploratory analyses revealed evidence for near transfer (Lego construction ability) and some evidence for far transfer (arithmetic) of Lego training, but overall transfer was limited. Despite this, we identified key areas for further development (explicit focus on spatial strategies, training for teachers, and embedding the programme within a mathematical context). The findings of this study can be used to inform future development of Lego construction training programmes to support mathematics learning.

Associations and indirect effects between LEGO® construction and mathematics performance.

There is a known association between LEGO® construction ability and mathematics achievement, yet the mechanisms which drive this association are largely unknown. This study investigated the spatial mechanisms underlying this association, and whether this differs for concrete versus digital construction. Between January 2020 and July 2021, children aged 7-9 years (N = 358, 189 female, ethnicity not recorded) completed spatial and mathematics tasks, and either a concrete or digital Lego construction task. Mediation analyses examining direct and indirect pathways (through spatial skills) between Lego construction ability and mathematics explained 8.4% to 26.6% of variance in mathematics scores. Exploratory moderated mediation analyses revealed that only the indirect path through mental rotation differed between Lego conditions. Findings are discussed in relation to theories of spatial-numerical associations and the potential of Lego training for mathematics improvement.

Improving Social Interactions for Young Children on the Autism Spectrum Through Parent-Mediated LEGO Play Activities

Given the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on children’s schooling and learning, evidence for interventions implemented by parents is urgently needed. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of a parent-mediated LEGO intervention on the social interactions of four children on the autism spectrum in China. The intervention involved four sets of two parents engaging with their child in collaborative LEGO construction, with each person assigned a role as Engineer, Supplier, or Builder. Using a multiple probe design across the four family triads, the intervention effectively increased spontaneous social initiations and responses in all four children, and these behaviors were maintained for 6 weeks following the intervention. The effect on inappropriate interactions was not detected; parental prompts increased in initial intervention sessions but decreased over time. Parents implemented the intervention at home with high fidelity. Efficacy of the intervention and potential benefits of virtual parent training are discussed.

Augmented reality instructions for construction toys enabled by accurate model registration and realistic object/hand occlusions

BRICKxAR is a novel augmented reality (AR) instruction method for construction toys such as LEGO®. With BRICKxAR, physical LEGO construction is guided by virtual bricks. Compared with the state of the art, accuracy of the virtual–physical model alignment is significantly improved through a new design of marker-based registration, which can achieve an average error less than 1 mm throughout the model. Realistic object occlusion is accomplished to reveal the true spatial relationship between physical and virtual bricks. LEGO players’ hand detection and occlusion are realized to visualize the correct spatial relationship between real hands and virtual bricks, and allow virtual bricks to be “grasped” by real hands. The major finding of the research is that the integration of these features makes AR instructions possible for small parts assembly, validated through a working AR prototype for constructing LEGO Arc de Triomphe and quantitative measures of the accuracies of registration and occlusions. In addition, a heuristic evaluation of BRICKxAR’s features has led to findings that the present method could advance AR instructions in terms of enhancing part visibility, match between mental models and visualization, alignment of physical and virtual parts in perspective views and spatial transformations, tangible user interface, consolidated structural diagrams, virtual cutaway views, among other benefits for guiding construction.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10055-021-00582-7.

A Multi-Phase Search Approach to the LEGO Construction Problem

The task of determining which LEGO bricks to use to construct a volume is known as the LEGO Construction Problem. This is a challenging problem because even small volumes can be constructed in a tremendously large number of ways. As a result, an exhaustive search is impractical, and more nuanced search strategies must be employed to find a good, though not necessarily optimal, solution. This paper describes a multi-phase search approach to the LEGO Construction Problem. Our first search phase uses heuristics to identify a moderate number of candidates for each layer in the model. This is followed by two different search strategies which identify alternative brick arrangements that reduce the number of connected components, undesirable edges, and bricks in the model. A final highly localized search is applied to bricks at the boundaries between the model's connected components if the previous search processes fail to reduce the model to a single connected component. Applying this four-phase search strategy to a diverse selection of models has demonstrated that it normally finds a result that consists of a single connected component when such a solution exists, and that the models are structurally sound when built.

SPL transcription factors prevent inflorescence reversion in rice

Plants show an incredible diversity of forms, dimensions, architectures, structures, and reproductive behaviors. Yet, they can be geometrically described as composed of simple building units called phytomers, which are produced by the shoot apical meristem (SAM). A phytomer is made up of a node bearing a leaf and an axillary meristem, and of an internode connecting the node to the following phytomer. Piling of phytomers creates the plant body, similarly to a LEGO construction made of simple bricks.

Optimisation and Static Equilibrium of Three-Dimensional LEGO Constructions

Combinatorial optimisation can be applied in a multitude of areas, and this article presents its application to the optimisation of LEGO constructions. Building LEGO constructions is an inherently combinatorial problem, with a large but finite number of possible brick combinations. The objective was to make an aesthetically pleasing construction which is cheap and is structurally stable. Through the application of an adaptive large neighbourhood search metaheuristic, in combination with a mixed integer programming model neighbourhood search procedure and a quadratic programming model ensuring static equilibrium, this article demonstrates how to optimise LEGO constructions with up to 77.000 brick positions.

Models and algorithms for optimising two-dimensional LEGO constructions

The LEGO Construction Problem is the problem of deciding which bricks to place where in a predefined LEGO construction. The input consists of coloured voxels that each correspond to the size of a LEGO unit, such that all LEGO bricks are multiples of this LEGO unit. A solution to the LEGO Construction Problem is feasible if all bricks are within the design domain, the bricks do not overlap, the bricks satisfy the colour constraints, and all bricks connect into a stable construction.In this article, we propose an automated approach for optimising LEGO constructions, and in particular, we focus on 2D constructions. We introduce mathematical programming formulations of the problem as well as a fast constructive heuristic algorithm that is very efficient for constructing regular walls. Further, we integrate the models and the heuristic into a matheuristic algorithm, where the heuristic algorithm defines most of the construction, in particular, large elements that require regular patterns, while the mathematical models are used to tackle critical parts of the construction and to ensure the overall stability of the result. The article concludes with computational experiments on regular and irregular constructions showing the efficacy of the proposed algorithm when compared with two recent approaches from the literature.

Examining Human-Autonomy Team Interaction and Explicable Behavior in a Dynamic LEGO Construction Task

Abstract The primary goal of this experiment is to examine and build dynamical systems models which specify the optimum coordination area that enables teams to perform better when they collaborate with an autonomous agent in the context of explicable behavior. In this preliminary study, we examine team coordination dynamics and explicable behavior by using Joint Recurrence Plot (RP) and Joint Recurrence Quantification Analysis (JRQA). In our example, visualizations of the interaction patterns show when explicable behavior happened, notably, during unexpected events, e.g., when there was a missing LEGO brick. Our preliminary data provides some initial findings about team interaction under dynamical changes along with content under uncertainty. Current and future work is focused on additional experimentation with three types of team configurations: all-human, human-agent, and human-multiagent. Through more experimentation, additional insights and examples of other unexpected events will be able to highlight any necessary additional requirements needed for effective teamwork.

Boson-lattice construction for anyon models

Can we find a physical intuitive language to represent the complex mathematical properties of anyon models? Is there a hidden organization in the space of anyon models? Can we systematically construct complex anyon models from other, more simple, anyon models? This work is an attempt to understand and explore the anatomy of the space of anyon models. I develop a construction to systematically generate and interconnect anyon models. The construction is formulated in a very physical, visual, and intuitive manner. The complex mathematical properties of anyon models, usually expressed in the complex language of braided modular tensor categories, are described here using familiar simple physical concepts like bosons in lattices, Fock states, and tunneling Hamiltonians. The construction formalism is conceptually simple and appealing. As in a Lego construction, a set of building block anyon models are assembled to construct towers of other, more complex, anyon models. A principle of assembly is established that dictates how to articulate the building blocks, setting out the global blueprint for the constructed anyon model. By assembling sets of the simple Abelian ${\mathbb{Z}}_{n}$ anyon models, the construction succeeds in generating towers of well known nontrivial anyon models. Moreover, novel anyon models (nontabulated, to my knowledge) arise. Furthermore, by applying the construction principle to other building blocks, such as Ising or Fibonacci, further series of anyon models are generated. In an intriguing connection, the boson-lattice construction unveils an alluring duality between anyon models and curved space geometries. Bosons induce curvature in the lattice geometry. I disclose a geography in the space of anyon models, where one is engendered from another by deforming the geometry of space. Moreover, the potential of the boson-lattice construction can be further explored via the quantum simulation of the corresponding boson-lattice systems in the versatile accessible playground of atomic systems.

Cloud asset-enabled integrated IoT platform for lean prefabricated construction

Prefabricated construction has become increasingly popular over the recent years, given its benefits including higher construction speed, lower cost, and improved quality. To facilitate the operations of prefabricated construction, various technologies have in parallel been introduced. However, due to its project-based feature and the involvement of numerous Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), the adoption of information technologies is insufficient and varies between SMEs, thereby hindering the improvement of the efficiency of prefabricated construction. Considering these issues and aiming at realizing lean prefabricated construction, this paper proposes an integrated cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) platform through exploiting the concept of cloud asset. Its operation model has also been worked out to enable SMEs to adopt IoT technologies economically and flexibly. Besides, to make the platform compatible and scalable on managing diverse physical assets in different companies and scenarios, a unified cloud asset data model is proposed. Furthermore, an IoT service-sharing module is developed to support different levels of service-sharing on the platform. Finally, a real-life prefabricated construction project in Hong Kong and several lab-based LEGO construction models are adopted to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed platform.

Investigating gender and spatial measurements in instructional animation research

Instructional animation research has been extensive but the results are inconsistent. Amongst a number of possible factors to explain these inconclusive results (e.g., the negative influence of transient information), the influence of spatial ability and gender are less explored. This paper reports three experiments that compared the effectiveness of learning a hand-manipulative task (Lego construction) under various conditions with direct examination of the relationship between gender, spatial ability and instructional visualisation. Regression analyses revealed that only one objective measure related to spatial ability (Corsi test) predicted overall test performance, whereas the Card Rotations Test and the Mental Rotations Test did not. However, there was a number of significant gender–spatial ability interactions showing that the spatial ability predictors of male performance were different from those of females. Furthermore a number of subjective measures of spatial ability and experience with instructional animations and static pictures were found to be significant predictors. The results suggest that gender and the type of spatial ability measures used both have a significant impact on gauging the effectiveness of instructional animations. Spatial ability measures should be tailored to gender and the specific nature of the learning domains to yield more consistent research results.

Overshadowing depends on cue and reinforcement sensitivity but not schizotypy

There is evidence for impaired selective learning mechanisms in individuals high in schizotypy. Overshadowing provides a direct test of selective learning based on cue salience and has previously been reported to be impaired in relation to schizotypy scores. The present study tested for overshadowing using food allergy and Lego construction task variants. Both variants used the same number of conditioned stimulus (CS) cues and the same number of learning trials. CS cues were trained in compound pairs or in isolation and overshadowing was subsequently tested on trials followed by negative versus positive outcomes. Participants also completed the O-LIFE to measure schizotypy and BIS-BAS scales to measure reinforcement sensitivity. Learning was demonstrated for both cue variants; however overshadowing emerged only in the Lego variant and only on the trials followed by the negative outcome. Contrary to expectations, there was no evidence for any relationship between overshadowing and O-LIFE scores. However, there was evidence of a positive relationship between overshadowing and BAS-Drive as well as a negative relationship with BIS-Anxiety, for the trials followed by the positive outcome in the food allergy variant. These results suggest that the development of overshadowing depends on cue and reinforcement sensitivity, but not necessarily on schizotypy.

Trails of meaning construction: Symbolic artifacts engage the social brain

Symbolic artifacts present a challenge to theories of neurocognitive processing due to their hybrid nature: they are at the same time physical objects and vehicles of intangible social meanings. While their physical properties can be read of their perceptual appearance, the meaning of symbolic artifacts depends on the perceiver's interpretative attitude and embeddedness in cultural practices. In this study, participants built models of LEGO bricks to illustrate their understanding of abstract concepts. They were then scanned with fMRI while presented to photographs of their own and others' models. When participants attended to the meaning of the models in contrast to their bare physical properties, we observed activations in mPFC and TPJ, areas often associated with social cognition, and IFG, possibly related to semantics. When contrasting own and others' models, we also found activations in precuneus, an area associated with autobiographical memory and agency, while looking at one's own collective models yielded interaction effects in rostral ACC, right IFG and left Insula. Interestingly, variability in the insula was predicted by individual differences in participants' feeling of relatedness to their fellow group members during LEGO construction activity. Our findings support a view of symbolic artifacts as neuro-cognitive trails of human social interactions.

Speech monitoring and repairs in preschool children’s social and private speech

When individuals correct their own speech, it is often assumed they are doing so for the benefit of others’ comprehension. As such, most of the research exploring speech repairs, especially among young children, has been conducted with social speech (between two or more people) and little with private speech (speech directed toward the self). In the present study, we explore social and private speech errors and self-repairs from 27 3- and 4-year-old preschoolers who completed a selective attention task and a Lego construction task with and without an involved experimenter. Timing (immediate, delayed) and relevance to task (irrelevant, relevant, action relevant) of self-repairs were compared, and developmental trends were explored. Findings indicated preschoolers made errors and repairs in both private and social speech, though more so in social than private speech. In social speech, there were nearly equal numbers of delayed and immediate repairs suggesting both pre- and post-production monitoring when speaking for a listener. In private speech, there were significantly higher numbers of immediate repairs than delayed repairs suggesting more pre-production monitoring when speaking for the self. Though fewer in number, the presence of delayed self-repairs in private speech indicated some post-production monitoring of private speech. Delayed private speech self-repairs from 4-year-olds were almost exclusively in task-action-relevant speech, while delayed private speech self-repairs from 3-year-olds were mostly in task-relevant speech. Developmental changes in private speech use and awareness of speech during preschool are discussed as possible explanations for these trends. Implications for practice are also provided.

Agreeing is not enough

Collaborative interaction pervades many everyday practices: work meetings, innovation and product design, education and arts. Previous studies have pointed to the central role of acknowledgement and acceptance for the success of joint action, by creating affiliation and signaling understanding. We argue that various forms of explicit miscommunication are just as critical to challenge, negotiate and integrate individual contributions in collaborative creative activities. Through qualitative microanalysis of spontaneous coordination in collective creative LEGO constructions, we individuate three interactional styles: inclusive, characterized by acknowledgment and praise;instructional, characterized by self-repair; andintegrative, characterized by widespread self- and other-repair. We then investigate how different interaction styles leave distinct material traces in the resulting LEGO models. The inclusive interaction style generally results in concatenations of individual contributions with little coherence and core narrative. The instructional style produces coherent, but largely individually driven models. Finally, the integrative style generates more innovative models, synthesizing individual contributions in shared narratives or schemas.

Conceptual Blending in Children’s Games as a Model for Double-Scope Creativity and New Learning Opportunities

Fauconnier and Turner (2002, pp. 389-396) provide an overview of how blending affects the course of a human life, and more specifically, how young children are engaged in building complex blends in very early stages of their lives. Their detailed analysis shows that only after the young child is able to master culturally recognized blends will s/he be effectively ‘living in the blend’ and prove capable of further achieving other blends with more flexibility. During early childhood, it appears that learning and mental development are intrinsically linked to our human ability to blend and deblend. Besides engaging in direct cultural blends, the young child can operate on conceptual blends that are not physically (biologically) given. For instance, this may happen when their imaginative processes are at work in a wide variety of games or fun activities, starting with Lego construction sets to fictive interactions with imaginary companions. In such games and activities, children manifest an extraordinary capacity for double-scope blending. Therefore, by playing games or getting involved in free activities, young children will bring to mastery mental integrations that are essential for their lives as adults. In this light, the paper examines a set of children-designed games and activities that can all account for cases of fictive or potential reality. That is, the mental spaces created do not refer directly to entities in the outside world. I argue that an analysis of such fantasy mental spaces (with the tools of the mental space theory) can shed new light on learning and human creativity. While playing and blending mental spaces with their counterfactual counterparts, the young subject has to manipulate his/her ‘split self’ (Lakoff & Johnson 1999) or counterfactual self. With the knowledge of early evolution of conceptual blending in children’s games, I propose that educators may apply the results in diverse areas of instruction and learning in order to better deal with the cognitive side of learning, and eventually come to terms with human creativity. Keywords: blends, early childhood, mental development, children-designed games

Culture's building blocks: investigating cultural evolution in a LEGO construction task.

One of the most essential but theoretically vexing issues regarding the notion of culture is that of cultural evolution and transmission: how a group’s accumulated solutions to invariant challenges develop and persevere over time. But at the moment, the notion of applying evolutionary theory to culture remains little more than a suggestive trope. Whereas the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory has provided an encompassing scientific framework for the selection and transmission of biological adaptations, a convincing theory of cultural evolution has yet to emerge. One of the greatest challenges for theorists is identifying the appropriate time scales and units of analysis in order to reduce the intractably large and complex phenomenon of “culture” into its component “building blocks.” In this paper, we present a model for scientifically investigating cultural processes by analyzing the ways people develop conventions in a series of LEGO construction tasks. The data revealed a surprising pattern in the selection of building bricks as well as features of car design across consecutive building sessions. Our findings support a novel methodology for studying the development and transmission of culture through the microcosm of interactive LEGO design and assembly.