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Erector Set Turns 100
GospelHead821 writes: "It's been one hundred years since the first
Erector Set was patented in Europe under the name of Meccano (It is sold under this name in Europe to this day). Unfortunately for Erector, the advent of plastic Lego bricks in 1958 spelled misfortune for the more complex, metal frame construction kit. Erector fans should keep an eye out, though! The Brio Corp. may be looking to reintroduce the Erector Set to the United States sometime soon. I remember playing with an old Erector Set when I was a kid, but I haven't seen one in quite a while. Here's hoping it makes a comeback. As versatile as Legos are, there's just something unconvincing about a Martian Destroyer Robot made out of plastic." My ranking is Capsula > Erector > Tinker Toys > Lincoln Logs > Lego.
Oh come one, lincoln logs aren't good for anything. Ohh, I made a log cabin. Big whoop. I made a moving plastic dog that shased my car around with legos.
Mod point free since 2001
Some professor over in Britain blames the decline in British engineering on the steady growth in dominance of Lego over Meccano. I can believe it -- Meccano/Erector makes you figure out how to build it and Lego doesn't.
Lego is like a prefab model kit, Erector is more like the further projects in those 180-in-1 breadboard electronics kits.
-- Old Man Kensey
There's a good web page here which has some plans for some cool models (dinosaurs, airplanes, diggers, etc.), and some photos of some pretty weird things made out of Meccano, too. :)
It's capsella, not capsula, though I guess they could both be right..
a lly-oriented toy store, where they sold all sorts of educational gidgets and gadgets. Erector sets were among the construction toys they had, but no legos. Without putting legos down, I always felt that my capsella and construx sets allowed me more creative flexibility. Especially if I wanted to make things that "did things". A search for construx on google produced some neat pages, as did capsella. I may go to ebay right now and buy all those wonderful toys from my past! (Until I see them selling for 300 bucks, that is.)
I sure loved my capsella sets. The only place I could find them in town was the local independant-slightly-more-expensive-yet-education
I have to say though, I loved ZOIDS best. They weren't multifunction like construction sets, but they were unbelievably cool. I had some of the very small originals, but I remember being amazed at the huge (and expensive!) zoids at the toy store.
Your
Just for the record, here's my ranking of the construction toys I had:
This is not a Fugazi
meccano
you have to view the french pages, al other under contrustion, but you can see some pretty nifty stuff.
disclaimer:I hated erector sets as a kid. I prefered building radios.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Hmm... after seing comments (and reading an article a while ago about Engineering vs. Lego/Erector use by kids in England) I feel that this theory has some confirming data in fUSSR - the popularity of such toys might be among the factor explaining the fact that many more people chose engineering/technical specialties, and that many fUSSR immigrants in USA easily find themselves a career in programming even if they had no previous education/experience in any related field.
All I can say is - my future kid(s) will definitely get to play with Erector set equivalents, be they boys or girls (ok, gotta post quick while wife is not watching - she'd rather see a daughter playing with dolls :)))
Cheers, Daniel
"The right to figure things out for yourself is the only true freedom everyone shares. Go use it"-R.A.Heinlein
What??? Sorry, but Erector Sets really didn't do it for me. Great for static stuff, but not really there for things that actually move. How can anyone who likes programming not enjoy the modularity of a Lego set? And the pneumatic kits kicked some serious butt.
However, my first love was FischerTechnik. They hurt your fingers, they went together in only the most illogical configurations, but they came with enough gears and actuators to keep a young soul busy for years. The frustration of trying to assemble/disassemble the stuff was just part of the fun. So, sell your car immediately and use the proceeds to buy a kit or two!
Thusly: FT > Lego > Capsela (with an E!) > Clay> Dirt> Erector Set.
You forgot Robotix!
Unique features: slotted connectors for cable management, dinosaur jaws, astronaut action figure, weighted piece for adjusting center of gravity, rough terrain wheels
+++
NO CARRIER
...what's good about Lincoln Logs--the taste. Mmmm...creosotey.
chewin' nasty brown logs since 1974
Your mouth is like Columbus Day.
I didnt like them as much as my legos though... the nuts frequently came loose and the contraptions just didnt seem as sturdy as legos.
I was one of the kids who liked building things with legos, then knocking them apart and then rebuilding.
Capsela was okay...got bored with them quickly. I still have a capsela hexagonal piece tied to the end of the light string in my old closet.
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It was sold as Meccano in Canada too. My set included an electric motor and - best Xmas ever - I got a *working* steam engine!
;)
It was amazing. Had a little boiler that held about 150cc's of water with heat supplied by burning rubbing alcohol in a tray under the boiler. Steam pumped out to a little piston that would *really* fly under pressure.
Damn that thing was dangerous! They'd never make a toy like that today! It was really quite powerful, there was always the danger of steam burns and the rubbing alcohol was almost invisible when it burned.
I'm gonna have to find that thing now that I have sons of my own
There are plans for Lego?
When I had my Lego set, I just got a pile of blocks. The only "plans" were those I created. I created spacecraft, forts, lighthouses (with pieces of a flashlight). As I grew older, I used Lego to build frames for motors, apparatus to work with my 100 in 1 kit from Radio Shack (that dates me, considering they are over 200 in 1 now) (really dating myself - my 100-in-1 kit had an "IC" that was nothing but a ceramic substrate with printed film resistors and a transistor on it).
It's like anything else - games, toys, video tapes. When you give the kid a definition of what they are supposed to do, you stunt their imagination. If you give them the tools, and turn them loose, they develop their imagination. Don't buy the "Lego StarFortress", just buy a bunch of Lego. Buy an [erector|mechanno} set, Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, [1-n]00 in one kits. Let the kid read books, not watch Disney. When they are older, get them playing D&D, not Stupid Moron Brothers by NonMindO.
(Of course, my earlier experience with small, modular components might account for my being a big OOP fan. Use at your own risk.)
www.eFax.com are spammers
Both A.C. Gilbert and Meccano of England are defunct, but a company in France bought both names and sells Meccano under both names. The Erector system is dead, except as a collectable.
May I put in another plug for a German engineering toy, Fischer Technik (US distributor) and Fischer Technik (parent company)? No, I don't own their stock or get any kind of bonus, I just think it's a great system that deserves to be more widely known. The picture you see on the US distributor's site is pretty typical of what kids used to build with it: highly functional designs that don't try to imitate looks. It's the ultimate geek toy for the budding engineer.
Lincoln Logs are not Turing complete and are therefore not listed.
Ultimately I prefer a mill, lathe, drill press, and some aluminum stock.
Fully stocked machine shop > Lego Technic > Erector > Capsela > Tinkertoys > Lincoln Logs. (if I wanted to deal with erector, i'd be just at well off machining things from scratch. However, I find Lego Technics are quite good for prototyping mechanisms.)
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