Duck Tales at SXSW London

Making a duck out of Lego is harder than you'd think, especially when you're a Duplo kinda guy. At least that was my excuse.

The LEGO Foundation ran a session at SXSW London on play-based learning and it was rather lovely.

Within 2 minutes they had all of us building ducks from scratch. QR code, digital bricks, then submit your duck into the pond where you get to see everyone else's paddle around.

No instructions, no picture to work from - just a pile of bricks and the internal panic of realising you have no idea what a duck actually looks like when you have to make one yourself.

Next, a bit of background on their Build for Change programs - where kids at school use Lego to show how they'd reimagine school (yes, you read that correctly).

Then, we had 5 minutes to create our own new wave city from a packet of Lego bricks. Followed by a collaboration with the person siting next to us. Our row bent the rules a bit and built a 5-person mega-structure. Alas, it didn't pass zoning regulations.

This session was delightful for a few reasons:

• It was a talk, yet it had not 1, not 2, but 3 interactive elements
• Ironically, you can go to a talk at an event like this, but don't get a chance to speak to people who are clearly there for a similar reason to you - everyone funnels in and out. Making stuff together changes that
• Talks are good for inspiration and slogans, but the actual application is a whole other thing. 'Tap into your inner child!' feels very different when you have to make a city in 5 mins from a grab-bag of plastic bricks.

Making, collaborating, sharing. Still underrated.

Kids know this already, of course.

Shout out to Lego Foundation's David Pallash and Joana Lenkova for bringing the playful vibes.

P.S. My duck turned out fine (ish). Just can't believe I didn't use the red bit for a beak.