Little did childhood Robb (then Robbie) know but his countless hours playing with LEGO was preparing him for his future career which didn’t even exist yet, at least to the general public.
The knowledge of spatial relations that I would learn from playing with LEGO would mold the way that my mind perceives empty space and the best use for that space. I’m not a psychologist but it’s what I firmly believe.
Being able to understand spatial relations is a fundamental part of being a web design and front end developer. Sure, you’re thinking, “square peg goes in the square hole, how hard can it be?” but it’s a lot more than that. A spatial relation specifies how some object is located in space in relation to some reference object. In web development you’ve got to take into account how a section of a website directly affects those around it – every pixel that an object expands or contracts by changes its relationship with other objects around it.
Playing with LEGO when I was younger helped me develop my ability to understand that relationship. By placing a certain block in a certain area it let me achieve certain goals when I was creating my goliath LEGO creations – knowing how placing blocks in certain places will ultimately affect others was the key to my childhood projects’ successes or failures. Being able to plan ahead and visualize the next few steps helped me develop skills for thinking ahead when planning the structure and framework of my creation – that still applies to development.
Sadly, and much to the annoyance of my wife, this also applies to my grocery shopping. Items are meticulously placed in our shopping cart to use the space as optimally as possible – the same goes for when those items hit the conveyor belt to be rung through. My childhood playing with LEGO, especially starting at a young age, helped me develop the ability to plan ahead and make the best use of the space available.
Being a web developer wasn’t my first pick of jobs when I was leaving high school – I was interested in architecture and at one point planned on studying that in school. It wasn’t until later in life that I started getting interested in the field and I firmly believe that it was my youth playing with LEGO that helped me understand it better.
I recently spent 21 months teaching web development to college students and it was easy to see those that had a grasp of spatial relations versus those that didn’t. Knowing how objects will affect each other in on a website is key to the site’s development and not being able to recognize why Object A was causing Objects B, C and D to shift or move out of place essentially spells doom for your site. It was far too often that I’d see students not grasp the subject – that being said, for every one that didn’t there were two that did and it was fantastic to see.
Being a new father I can definitely say that my daughter will be playing with LEGO as soon as she's old enough to understand that the pieces aren’t to be eaten.
About Robb
Hi, I'm Robb Clarke - a Fredericton, New Brunswick based Web Designer and Developer. I'm currently working with OrangeSprocket as one of their Front End Developers. Please take a look around my site and give the Blog a read (or the Shorts if you're looking for a shorter read about none industry related stuff) or stop by my Portfolio to see what I've been up to lately. Most importantly - don't be a stranger.