This person clearly didn't actually step on any of these.

#4 is NOT Lego ABS, it is another Lego plastic and is actually quite "soft" and will bend easily.

#5's clips are really too small to be incredibly painful - you need something more like #2.

And if you really want to suffer you will step on something like the off-brand Hubelino Marble Run pieces: https://www.hubelino.com - they, unlike Lego and Duplo, have extremely sharp edges on the blocks, perfectly molded 90° angles. Almost all Lego and Duplo bricks actually have slightly rounded (rounded rect!) corners.

And walking on a entire floor of bricks won't be that bad, as they will move aside like walking on sharpish gravel. The real pain is when you hit a lone brick on a hard floor.

Getting a few in top X list wrong can actually increase "engagement."

> This person clearly didn't actually step on any of these.

Well that’s no fun at all!

I was hoping for human trials of sleep deprived adults, with scoring metrics like “Number of hops” and “Number of shouted obscenities” and a probability likelihood estimate of all visible blocks being tossed into the trash after impact.

When you are a parent, the obscenities are shouted in your head, or into your first when biting it.

I was surprised how efficiently my children picked up the ones I muttered in the middle of the night when stepping on stuff.

I know they they picked them then (and not, say, when hitting something with my small toe) because they were particularly inventive to keep sputtering them while the pain lasted.

Can confirm everything you said from experience, including the remarka on the hubelino marble run. Quite a fun set but clearly not the same quality as real lego

Hubelino is awesome, and in my perfect world Lego would buy them and do the minor changes necessary to make it perfectly Duplo compatible.

Meanwhile we're stuck with the Great Ball Contraption which is amazing, but not exactly the same. https://www.greatballcontraption.com

Obligatory "rounded rect" reference: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_...

Came here to say this, specifically about #4. I stepped on one of those a few weeks ago and the stalks just snapped off.

1960's and 1970's lego wheels had a small embedded metal axle. Depending on orientation these could cause a significant puncture wound:

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=7039

Never had any of these but I suspect this variant would be even worse due to the smaller area at the tip of the axle:

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=7039...

Factually wrong. Real #1: https://brickset.com/parts/4220184/kitten

Source: the scream of my dad about 20 years ago

that is a foot-nightmare-inducing piece, wow

Having stepped on many Legos in my childhood, I would clearly put the classic 2x2 brick, number 6 and 5 from the article in my top 3 most painful ones. Number 4 is soft and deforms when stepping on it, not sure why it made it that high in the ranking...

Because it was written by someone who looked at pictures on pick-a-brick and doesn't have much experience with actual Lego.

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=6064... looks terrifying until you realize it's a softish plastic.

Absolutely.

The 2x2 is the Gold Standard of Pain: ubiquitous, plentiful, and no matter where it connects, it's knee-buckling (vs. say the 2x3s, which I find can be tolerable if it runs lengthwise along the outside lane of your foot.. you can kinda roll with it).

The 2x2 is the bedbug of toys: perfectly engineered for torment.

As a Brit, none of these come even remotely close to the pain of treading on an upturned plug.

Now you can take these plugs out of my cold, dead hands, I love those plugs with a frankly alarming passion, but $deity$ do they hurt to step on.

Tom Scott [1] has all the reasons why.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEfP1OKKz_Q

“Weaponized” custom lego made using nail clippers:

https://ibb.co/2SK2Q4x

This guy made a lego shooting robot that shoots legos where his next step will be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6gpKFjL6_8

My son has a Lego police car that came with literal Lego caltrops. They are intentionally designed to sit with a spike pointing upwards no matter how they fall. I can only assume it is the product of many hours of maniacal laughter over in Denmark somewhere.

The most painful Lego brick to step on is the one you have just stepped on.

It seems that the pre-90's Lego sets were easier underfoot as the bucket adapter and flower stalk are the only ones pictured that existed then. Have Lego sets become more troublesome underfoot?

No, if anything they're less painful now, because the edges of the blocks are always rounded, and the number of pieces is greater, so you're less likely to step on any given type.

Some of the original small windows had pretty sharp edges.

This list was obviously compiled by someone who has never stepped on legos. I mean 4. literally doesn’t even register as having stepped on anything. It just bends.

In my experience, Duplo blocks are worse than any Lego brick. They're not as sharp, but they're pretty solid. They're basically caltrops and they hurt.

When the kids are at that age, better to buy from brands that use softer cheaper plastic and don't share Lego's commitment to precision engineering.

This is hilarious. Some of the flat base pieces are pretty nice to step on for me

Forget Lego bricks. I fight with thumbtacks. Our younger son sometimes tears them off the notice board and then I have to pull them out of my sole. Sometimes they went all in.

None of these compare to four-sided resin dice.

Duplo make the nastiest bricks to step on. The tops of the prongs are not solid - they are cylinders of gouging pain.

That opening is so they are compatible with Lego system though! The pain of backwards compatibility.

I have stepped on so many of those rocker bearings as a kid lol

What psychopath has rocker bearings just bare in their Lego?

I applaud such diligence.