Hoping to inspire the next generation of waste truck operators, Levi Hasse and his father, Scott, have been working on designing and building a functioning and realistic ASL set, that allows kids to learn about disposal and practice proper sorting at a young age. Levi discusses the project and his ultimate goals.
When did you first become interested in refuse/garbage collection?: Ever since I was little I鈥檝e been fascinated with garbage collection. Tuesdays are collection days in our neighborhood and my dad, brother and I would often wait to watch for our automated side-loading trucks to come and collect our garbage and recycling.
How did you first come up with the idea of the detailed LEGO庐 garbage truck? What was the 鈥渋nspiration鈥�?: In addition to being fascinated with garbage collection, both my dad and I enjoy playing with LEGO bricks, and we鈥檝e done that together since before I can remember. The garbage truck project is a combination of those two interests and when we learned we could submit a design product in the LEGO Ideas platform, we decided to go for it!
How did you get involved in the LEGO Ideas project? What is the process?: When I was 11 years old, I saw an interview by a designer that worked for LEGO and I became interested in maybe doing that for a job. My dad and I did some searching and found the LEGO Ideas program, which lets you see what it would be like to be a LEGO designer. Unfortunately, you have to be at least 13 years old to participate in the LEGO Ideas program.
So, my dad and I decided that we would submit an idea to the program as a team when I turned 13, and we started working together on an automated side-loading truck design over the next year. In a way that was a good thing because that gave us more time to brainstorm and work on the truck design as well as taking the time to figure out how to make good pictures and videos of our idea. Our local public library has a media lab, and we got lots of good advice from them about the video and pictures. You can visit our project page and see the pictures we made, and videos of the truck in action, including a funny video of us 鈥渢esting鈥� the truck in a blender and hydraulic press at https://ideas.lego.com/projects/7d7f4e15-55e7-44c4-bb30-3a66b9cc0598 or https://bit.ly/LegoGarbageTruck.
Most of our videos and design improvements are on the 鈥渦pdates鈥� tab of that site. LEGO only considers making the idea into an actual set if you get 10,000 people to go to the LEGO Ideas site and support the project. There are thousands of ideas submitted, and most don鈥檛 get more than a few hundred supporters. We鈥檙e excited to be almost halfway to 10,000 supporters, but we鈥檝e learned that 10,000 is a lot of people. The reality is we won鈥檛 make it to 10,000 without a lot more support, so if you want LEGO to have a functioning ASL garbage truck set, the best thing you can do is visit our project page, support the project, and share it with your friends and family.
The most recent LEGO garbage truck set released by LEGO (LEGO City Garbage Truck 60220) looks more like a dump truck than a garbage truck! So, my hope is that LEGO has a functional and more realistic ASL set that is fun to play with and can actually help inspire the next generation of truck operators. It would also give current people in the industry a great gift idea for their kids or kids that are interested in the industry.
How many different versions did you go through before getting to the ASL version that you have now? We鈥檙e currently on version 18 of the truck, and we continue to add features and make changes. We just finished designing an automated rear-loading system that works as a replacement tailgate for the truck, and that went through several versions as well. We worked on refining the design for LEGO Ideas for about a year before submitting it, and we鈥檝e continued to make changes and add updates to our project as we鈥檝e gotten feedback.
Although we like our current design, we鈥檙e always open to suggestions and improvements. We collect feedback from comments on our LEGO Ideas project page and from events where people can play with the truck. For instance, our earlier designs didn鈥檛 have a follower plate, so bricks could get stuck behind the compactor ram. From feedback, we added a follower plate as an improvement to the design.
Ultimately, if the project gets 10,000 supporters on the LEGO Ideas page, actual LEGO designers will review and refine the idea, and so we鈥檇 like them to have as many good ideas as possible. Suggestions are always welcome, just put a comment on our LEGO Ideas page!
Were all the pieces that you used available in different Lego sets or did you have to customize some of them?: All of the pieces we use are available from existing LEGO sets, and we鈥檝e built the truck in several different colors using existing pieces we got used from places like bricklink.com.
Since improperly sorting waste causes so many recyclables to end up in landfills, we included different types of waste, different cans and different door tiles for the truck so you can switch collection from garbage to recycling to compost. We hope that this allows kids to learn about and practice proper sorting at a young age.
We made custom stickers for the tiles that go on the truck doors. The designs on those stickers came from the State of Vermont鈥檚 Department of Environmental Conservation. They developed a series of universal recycling symbols and make them freely available to promote more widespread use of common symbols for things like composting.
The LEGO group also has a big foc us on sustainability, with a zero waste by 2025 goal. They have started to use some sustainable bricks in their sets, including the recent LEGO Treehouse set, which also started out as a LEGO Ideas project.
Did you work with any of the local garbage companies to make the truck even more realistic during the design/build process?: Although the truck is not an exact replica of any specific truck model, our own local trucks (Labrie Automizers) did help to inspire the design, as well as Heil, Autocar, McNeilus and other vehicles. We鈥檝e shared the design in person with lots of folks in the industry who gave us helpful tweaks that we were able to incorporate.
Talk about BrickWorld Chicago 2019. What kind of response did you get?: Brickworld Chicago 2019 was an amazing experience unlike anything I鈥檝e ever done before. There are lots of wonderful and huge exhibits of LEGO creations at BrickWorld. Most of them are behind barriers and hands off, so as one of the few exhibits that was hands-on, people were drawn to our table. We had a steady stream of kids and adults dumping LEGO trash bins using the truck鈥檚 bin arm. You can see a time lapse video of people playing with the truck on our LEGO Ideas project鈥檚 updates tab.
We also got to meet quite a few people active in the LEGO Ideas community at Brickworld, including folks who have had their LEGO Ideas project made into actual sets like Jake Sadovich who designed the LEGO Ship in a Bottle and Grant Davis who co-designed the LEGO Pop-Up Book.
We were honored that our truck was nominated for the 鈥淏est Mechanical鈥� award for the show. A committee of LEGO experts nominates projects and attendees vote for the winner.
What is the next step in this project? Are you going to continue to bring awareness to the waste/garbage collection industry through other projects?: Our next step is to make it to 10,000 supporters. We鈥檙e continuing to promote the project in many different ways, with design improvements, attending shows and posting in online communities. The truck project started as a challenging LEGO design problem, became a writing, video and photography project as we submitted our project idea, and now we are learning lots about social media campaigning and marketing to promote the project in hopes of reaching 10,000 supporters.
As one refinement, we designed and shared a more realistic minifig-scale garbage bin with a flipping lid, and lots of folks are already incorporating that design into their LEGO cities. We also recently added an automated rear loading tailgate design to our truck, and shared designs for adding automated rear loading tailgates to two of the current LEGO garbage truck sets. You can see all of those designs, including parts lists and instructions, on our LEGO Ideas page updates tab.
We are also working to see if we can design a cool automated front-loading design for the truck. If so, we would have a 鈥�3 in 1鈥� rear loader, side loader and front loader garbage truck set. However, currently, our biggest goal is to get to 10,000 supporters so that LEGO will then review the design and consider making it into a real set. We won鈥檛 be able to do this without support from people in the industry, and our hope is that 91仓库 readers will visit https://bit.ly/LegoGarbageTruck, support and share our project with family and friends and others in the industry, and by doing so, become a part of making a working LEGO automated side-loading garbage truck set a reality! | WA
For more information, contact Scott Hasse at [email protected]. You can help this project becoming a real LEGO set by supporting it at https://bit.ly/LegoGarbageTruck.