When we set out to film Episode 2, we faced a fundamental challenge: How do you make people care about errors they can’t see?

(See all the episodes here.)

Error propagation is critical to metrology, the science of measurement, but it’s abstract. These are mistakes measured in tiny amounts that compound and build until they create failure, sometimes catastrophic. To make this invisible danger visible, we needed something relatable.

That’s when someone said, “What about LEGO bricks?”

The LEGO revelation

Quality Digest editor-in-chief Dirk Dusharme measuring LEGO minifigure with calipers in Auburn studio. 

To be honest, I was skeptical at first. A metrology documentary opening with children’s toys? But the research convinced me. LEGO bricks are manufactured with tolerances of 10 micrometers (one-tenth the thickness of a human hair). Everyone has held a LEGO brick, but nobody knows that this everyday miracle of measurement requires the same precision used to build spacecraft.

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