Greebling

I ran across an interesting term the other day on BrickBlogger called greebling. Greebling is a technique used in the movie industry for adding detail to the surface of a large object to make it appear more complex. Greebles are meant to appear functional, but typically they are just simple geometric shapes added to an otherwise smooth surface. For example, the starfighters in the Star Wars movies often sported additional detailing to give them a more sophisticated, futuristic appearance, when in fact, if they were truly designed to maximize aeronautical performance, they would have smooth bodies with no unnecessary protrusions to cause friction or drag.

As I was looking at my LEGO RAC3 Truck, I came to the conclusion that it has been greebled to death. Isn't that what we should be encouraging our children to do? So I went to work on my truck and removed all extraneous LEGO pieces that served no functional or structural purpose. There were a lot. The new design is much cleaner and easier to build and drives just as smoothly as the old design. Better still, I can have my students build this truck in half the time it took to build the original design, leaving them extra time to do their own greebling. Some students might add color; some might give it eyes or a nose; still others might make it look like a flying machine. The best part is, we've all learned how to build a simple drive train, learned a little about gearing mechanisms, and still left room for creativity. Isn't that what good entrepreneurship is all about?