Creativity + Rapid Prototyping + Collaboration

I think Jaxson was 2 when The Dark Knight came out…  He watched…  He was hooked.

Fast forward a few years.  Probably a quarter of the 50,000+ Lego, Trio, ‘name your flavor’ building blocks in every corner of our house are superhero themed.  The most re-used over the years has been the Fisher-Price Trio blocks.  I think its the combination of large, easy-snap blocks, combined with the number of semi-assembled car frames, turrets, gates and vehicle chassis.  And like most everything else around here, if there’s a set or collection of something cool available, we have them all… thanks Taron.  And yes, they are all/each organized in large tote buckets and various sized plastic containers in various play rooms around the house.

A while back, Jaxson and Maxsim dumped the Trio bucket out and started building.  I’m sitting there watching the boys build their guns, men, cars, helicopters, missiles and hideouts – with the somewhat competitive, somewhat collaborative banter of “that’s cool”, “i can do that”, “look at this one”.  I told them to stop… new game.  It’s hackathon time.  I explained to them what a hackathon is, gave them the basic parameters and off we went.  I think the first challenge was “build a fork”.

I realized very quickly the parralells with the more “grown-up” version of the hackathons I’ve become accustomed to in startup world.  The most apparent of these parallels was that constraints were  driving creativity – as each new constraint was added, more creativity was required.

The awesome part in this case is that it’s a game, so they don’t see it as constraints nor as adding difficulty. Hence, time-boxing makes it fun, less blocks to choose from on the next challenge makes it more fun and having them both choosing blocks from the same pile makes it a race.

They can normally hack through about 5 challenges before needing to break everything back down to blocks.  I think there’s a good lesson here on non-permanence and re-use as well, as we digitally archive everything. I wish the same could be said for the endless scattering of craft projects throughout the house.

Ingredients…

We use big tote bucket of trio blocks (every batman trio set made).
Normally have 4 or 5 mini hackathons
Added constraint of less blocks to choose from forces more creativity.
Kid hackers, aka Jaxson and Maxsim, present their hack/prototype/product to discuss their thought process, functionality and unique approaches