Extending “Lego® My Simplex”

Almost 20 years have passed since Pendegraft described his use of Lego® toys to teach students basic modeling skills and linear programming concepts. Since then, many instructors of operations research including the author and their students have benefited from his contribution. In this article, the author describes a series of extensions he has developed since originally implementing Pendegraft's active learning exercise in the introductory operations courses he teaches. Through these extensions, the author integrates the concepts of sensitivity, integer programming, and LP formulation and extends the modeling experience beyond the original exercise.