What the cricket projects demonstrated was that pushing the boundaries doesn't have to be about breaking rules, or defying authority, but rather it can be about putting yourself into a project. Work with cricket projects lets a student apply who they are and how they see the world to their projects. It is this act of letting one's personal voice manifest itself in one's work that can give rise to ideas and inventions that revolutionize the world. What crickets teach is that being a creative, thinking individual is the most valuable thing a person can learn to be. No one else gets to see the world through a student's eyes save for the student, and the more a student tries to project that vision into something tangible that the world can see, the more that student does for his or her field.
Crickets are clearly valuable teaching devices.
However, it is important to mention at this point that everyone needs guidance at some point. A lot of my knowledge about how to build things, and how to use Legos comes from a lot of playtime and personal experience, but there's also a lot of techniques that have been taught to me over the years. Crickets are a wonderful tool for learning, but they must also be seen as wonderful tools for teaching. I love using crickets, but had I not been taught how to use them properly, I would most likely be a frustrated lego-hating fiend by now. Free play must be tempered with the voice of experience, and crickets are no exception.