Children in Brazil, with a little help from their parents and an industrial crane, have set a new record for the world’s tallest Lego tower.
When I was a youngster, I built little Lego boats to play with in the bathtub. That’s the sort of thing that would probably get me beat up a lot on the mean streets of Sao Paolo, Brazil, where they seem to take their little colored bricks a bit more seriously. Almost 6000 builders, mostly kids, recently got together with a half-million Lego bricks to create a tower reaching more than 102 feet into the sky. The colossus took four days to build and is held in place by several guy wires.
“This is a very interactive event where families take part, schools take part,” explained Roberio Esteves, Lego’s director in Brazil. “We promote teamwork in order to reach our main objective, which is to establish Brazil as the country that holds the record of the Lego tower.”
Brazil’s tower captured the title from Chile, which set the previous record last year with a tower stretching a little over 101 feet. But the competition to create the world’s tallest tower has been going on since the first record was set in the U.K. with a 43-foot spire in 1980. Since then the title has traveled all over the world to countries including Germany, Israel, the U.S., New Zealand, South Korea, Russia, Canada, Norway and Japan.
“I think this is really important to show the world that we also like to play with Lego,” said 13-year-old Gabriel Santos, who thinks the ongoing quest to build the tallest Lego tower will help connect children around the world. Nine-year-old Bruno Mendes had a more visceral reason for taking part, however. “I really like risky things, like going down a huge tower where you can get killed,” he said.
Source: Digtriad.com
Published: Apr 11, 2011 03:37 pm