Ever since Lego was invented in 1958, Lego has made 4 billion minifigures, which equals half of our world population of people! Even crazier is that Lego makes around 36 billion pieces every year…if we divide by 365, that comes to around 100 million pieces a day, or about 5 million every hour. Given that a 1-foot cube can hold about 400 pieces, imagine how fast you could fill your home with Lego!
Wee ones: If you snap together a red Lego brick, a blue brick, a green, a yellow, a white and a black, how many bricks have you snapped together?
Little kids: If a Lego brick has 2 rows with 4 knobs (bumps) each, how many knobs does it have? Bonus: If you snap a 2-knob piece on top, how many knobs from the bottom piece are still showing?
Big kids: To find how many 1-foot cubes a room can hold, you just multiply the length times the width times the height to the ceiling. If your bedroom is 10 feet by 10 feet with an 8-foot ceiling, how many cubic feet of Lego can you fill it with? Bonus: If each cubic foot can hold 400 pieces, can the room hold 1 million Legos? Can it hold the amount made in about an hour? (Hint if needed: What if each cubic foot held only 4 pieces…then try 40 pieces…)
The sky’s the limit: How many different rectangle shapes (number of knobs across and front to back) can a piece with 36 knobs on top have? (Assume that you have at least 2 knobs in either direction, but you don’t have to worry about which way each combo is facing.)
Answers:
Wee ones: 6 bricks.
Little kids: 8 knobs. Bonus: 6 knobs — or 7 if the 2-knob piece is hanging off the edge.
Big kids: 800 cubic feet. Bonus: That room holds 320,000 pieces…so no, it doesn’t hold 1 million…and you’d need more than 15 bedrooms to hold the more than 5 million Legos made in 1 hour!
The sky’s the limit: There are 4 ways: 2 knobs x 18 knobs, 3 x 12, 4 x 9, and 6 x 6.
