LEGO is one of the best toys that promote open-ended play. Children can use the blocks in different ways, and it encourages critical thinking and creativity. I’ll be honest: I don’t always manage to come up with a build idea immediately. (I’m what Daniel Kahneman refers to as a slow thinker: more effortful and rational thinking). So I was very excited when I heard about this new app: Build ideas for LEGO with Brickit.
Described as “the app that scans your Lego bricks and helps to build new creations from them”, Brickit is an iPhone (for now – Android coming soon) app that takes pictures of the LEGO bricks you have and makes recommendations on what to build.
I first tried out the app with a few LEGO pieces that Cara left on her LEGO Tray. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough bricks (the app requires 150 or more) to make any recommendations. So then I carefully curated (basically grabbed the closest box of LEGO and arranged them on a tray) to test out the app properly.
After a very cute in-app tutorial we got started: First, you take a photo of the bricks inside the app. Then it scans the blocks, counts them, and then gives you a list of ideas to choose from. It smartly also indicates the number of bricks you might need extra (in this case called not found):
It then provides you with building instructions (similar to a LEGO catalogue). Something I noted was the app doesn’t necessarily match the blocks’ colour, just the shape. I chose to build the house, and my house ended up looking a little different from the one in the app:
I’m really impressed and can’t wait to test build ideas for LEGO with Brickit out with a bigger selection of blocks (will update the blog when I do). There is very little information available about the team behind this, and this Forbes article also only mentions the app, not the founders. This is a brilliant app, however, and I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.
