Citations › Citation ID: 82

C82. BOOK: Daniel Konstanski, The Secret Life of LEGO Bricks: The Inside Story of a Design Icon (Unbound, 2022), p. 170.

Out of that need was born the first independent LEGO axle, which ... looked exactly like the modern LEGO Technic cross axle, so named for the shape of its cross section. These elements have remained virtually unchanged, aside from the establishment of rules governing their colours. Both cross axles and snaps – snaps are what designers call the pins that hold LEGO Technic elements together – are now colourcoded based on length or type. ... During the 1980s and 1990s, all cross axles were black, which made it easy for builders to mistakenly place similar lengths in the wrong places. Eventually, cross axles came in four different colours: red, yellow, grey and black. Each increase in length is assigned the next colour of the sequence so that no axle of the same colour is anywhere close to the same size as another that shares its hue.

Color-coding is used for Technic Pins and Axles.