Master Lego builder turns hobby into career to educate the young

To me Lego is not just a toy, it is a tool I can use to stimulate my students' creative thinking that leads to brainstorming and problem-solving.” The China Post--Playing with Lego, the popular Denmark-made plastic construction toy, has been part of the collective childhood memories of Taiwanese people for decades.

The colorful interlocking plastic bricks that can be assembled and connected in many ways to become an infinite number of objects such as vehicles, buildings, and even robots, have brought countless joyful moments to many, and added lively and cherished moments to their lives.

Not so many people, however, continue to enjoy the toy after entering their adolescent years, but that is not the case for Reese Hung (洪國書). In 2006 the 29-year-old co-founded a business to teach children how to play with the plastic toy.

Now, six years later, the business is thriving and Hung, better known as Teacher Kao Kao (高高老師) to his students, has five branches in Northern Taiwan, employing a dozen Lego teachers.

His childhood dream has turned into a life-long career.

Lifelong Passion for Lego

“My first encounter with Lego was when I was 4 and one of my relatives gave me my first Lego,” Hung told The China Post during a recent interview.

Hung remembered vividly the set's toy ice cream cart and ice cream seller.

The young Hung immediately fell in love with the small yet versatile toy and saved most of his pocket money to build his collection, managing to buy only one new set every year of the relatively expensive toy.

The lack of new Lego pieces, however, turned out to be blessing in disguise, teaching him to make the most of what he had, pushing him on to create one new toy after another with the same blocks.

“When I think about it, this (lack of new Lego blocks) was in fact great training for me because I have to try my best to assemble and reassemble the limited plastic bricks into something new,” he said. The long-term training since age 4 has now made Hung a renowned Lego model builder, famous for his skills to turn the ordinary plastic bricks into something amazing.

Hung's love for Lego continued to blossom until his college days when he was studying in the Department of Life Sciences.

In his sophomore year, Hung took a course teaching kids how to play a series of Lego games designed to be fun and entertaining as well as highly educational.

“I thought, 'wow, that was so interesting,' and I seriously thought I would have loved to take such lessons when I was a child.”

From a Hobby to a Career

This love of Lego and passion for meeting new people — instead of staying all day in the laboratory doing one after another experiment — Hung decided to devote himself to educating the young about the world that can be created from just imagination and some blocks.

At first, Hung's family cast serious doubt over his decision to leave behind a promising career in science for a professional that very few other Taiwanese have ever taken up.

But the Lego-lover managed to convince his family, because “this is what I really want to do with my life,” Hung said.

After making the huge decision, Hung spent all of his time refining his block-connecting skills and learning the latest news from the Lego world via foreign websites and books.

In 2006, at the age of 23, Hung and a fellow lover of Lego started a small workshop in Taipei to teach children between 5 and 15 how to use the blocks.

The Lego lesson, however, was not as simple as showing children the skills to become a master Lego model builder, Hung said; he was actually using the toy to stimulate children's creativity, problem-solving and teamwork abilities.

For younger children, Hung teaches them how to use Lego to make the images in their minds become reality. For older children, he instructs them to build robots or vehicles made of Lego bricks and powered machines to navigate obstacle courses.

The machines used in Lego toys can also deepen their understanding of how forces affect motion, and explore basic mathematic and scientific concepts, he added.

“In order words, children are learning many important lessons that will be highly useful in the future, which include the most importantly skill: the ability to solve problems,” Hung noted.

Such unique courses Hung and his colleague provide became an immediate hit among parents. The small workshop expanded and has sprouted up five branches across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan.

“To me Lego is not just a toy, it is a tool I can use to stimulate my students' creative thinking that leads to brainstorming and problem-solving.”

As a man who has made his childhood hobby into a life-long career and a tool to educate the young, Hung offered a piece of advice to those who have dreams but have yet to realize them.

Using Lego as a metaphor, Hung said it is good to have something in your mind you want to build, but you have to put these ideas and images into practice by actually building a model.

“If you have something in your mind, you have to put it into practice, or it is just like building a castle in the air,” Hung said.