Things aint what they used to be.

May 24, 2014
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At xmas, we bought our oldest grandson a huge technical Meccano kit. The thinking behind it was that as his dad has no practical skills whatsoever, it may encourage him a little, and also teach him design, how to read plans an d apply them to the job in hand, teach some manual dexterity and a few other things. Eight months on, and only two pieces had been fastened together, and they were wrong (his dad).

Last night he was staying over and I said I would build it with him (motorised sports car) to get him started. Well to say it was a nightmare would be an understatement. The plans are so vague its ridiculous, so many washers, rings, donuts and pieces that were almost identical in size and colour, all depicted black on the plans made the job extremely difficult to start with. Almost every bolt had to be measured to get the right one as the plans for these were the same. Six hours into this, we finally fitted the engine, and checking it against the plan it was perfect. The following page of the plans showed the same position as we were at with the engine mounted the other way up. Sound like an obvious decision but trust me, it wasnt. At this point none of it resembled a car anyway so there was simply no reference. I got it right and pushed on. It took 13 hours in total to get to the last part, the gearing. We needed two identical gear cogs to finish the job, and guess what, there was only one in the box. Grandson had given up hours before and gone to bed.

What used to be an exceptional education toy for children is now hopeless in design. No child could have built that car alone as following the plans, I very often had to go back two steps and do it my way. All this box of junk would do is put a boy off engineering for life. Its Scalextric today.
 
Feb 23, 2018
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Meccano production was moved to France in 1981, but was moved to China. I recall that they moved some production back to France (in 2010 it turns out), but no idea what the state is now.

In my own experience LEGO Technic is probably the best way to go for fostering the mindset you're after, but it is a rewarding experience, rather than frustrating (for me anyway).

When I was 9 or 10, I asked for a LEGO Town digger I'd seen in the brochure. What I was bought was 8853 Excavator. I remember my father attempting to build it, as I was too young for Technic, he did what would now be called "Rage Quitting". So that's when I took all apart and started again, completing the tricky build with no real problem.

I'm 40 now, and I still love to build LEGO, and It's being sold specifically to adults. It's not cheap, but is anything that's worth buying?
 
May 24, 2014
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If it would give him more skills than his dad has, any proice is worth while. Honestly, if I told you the stories of his ineptitude, you would think I was exaggerating.
 
Jul 30, 2007
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When I was younger,I had a Triang train set and a scalectrics.
My dad purchased a 8ft x 6ft piece of ply and fixed both of the tracks to it.
When I had finished playing with it in the evenings,he used to stand the board up against the wall ready for next time.
 
May 24, 2014
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I have always worked with animals, at least that is what the rest of the army thought of us ;)

Its a well known fact that we eat our young.
 
Jul 15, 2021
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Not so very long ago I was wanting to work out some engineering thing - ah, where's my old "mechano" parentos ? Well, father produced an old box of bits retrieved from their attic, but unfortunately nothing in the box looked like it came out of the Meccano factory. My younger brother had bent, twisted, cut almost every piece to suit his own needs after me.
To my advantage in the end as he's also "re-making" my old 1960's Howard rotavator right now!! :)
 
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Jun 20, 2005
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Grandson is well into the Lego Technic stuff. Not cheap but keeps him out of mischief.
Thingy I grew up with Airfix and Humbrol paints. Light years behind Lego T.
 
May 24, 2014
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Solvent Sniffers R Us

You speak for yourself :D

As it happens, grandson has temporarily given up on Meccano, it was in truth disappointing, so I had actually thought to try him with Airfix. Later in the summer I have promiised him a trip to HMS Victory and HMS Warrior, plus the Mary Rose et al, so I wondered about doing the full blown Victory kit with him. Its for me really, but dont tell anyone.
 
Jul 18, 2017
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Well my Lego McLaren Senna arrived today for me to start practising. Probably need to enlist the help of the 10 year kid across the road. LOL! :ROFLMAO:McLaren Senna.jpg
 
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Jul 15, 2021
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I've been wondering about this newer Lego-kit direction: the children of some gardening clients of mine have quite a few specific "build a .... " kits. What happens when the kits get dismantled and messed up in a big box of Lego bits ?? Is it like remaking a 1000 piece puzzle of the galaxy ??
 
Jul 18, 2017
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I've been wondering about this newer Lego-kit direction: the children of some gardening clients of mine have quite a few specific "build a .... " kits. What happens when the kits get dismantled and messed up in a big box of Lego bits ?? Is it like remaking a 1000 piece puzzle of the galaxy ??
You would put all the parts back into the same box that it came out of it or use a container only for that kit. It comes with a big book of directions how to assemble. Quite interesting especially when you have arthritis in your hands making picking up small pieces difficult. :D
 

Sam Vimes

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Back in the '50s Isaac Asimov wrote a very short story called ' Insert Knob A into Hole B'. Basically about two engineers on a space station that are fed up trying to assemble the stuff that's shipped up to them because of stupid instructions. So the scientists and engineers on Earth develop a robot that can assemble anything. The robot is shipped up to the space station and when the two guys open the box they find it's all in bits with a piece of paper saying 'Insert Knob A into Hole B'

Personally being a man I can assemble anything without instructions. My training came in the '70s when I got a Black Belt in MFI, which then allowed my to go and train at the Great Ikea Dojo where I became a 2nd Dan - or was it a 1st Olaf. :)

On the lego front my grandson, who is 6, has autism and spd and his passion is cars and lego. He has numerous lego kits which he can assemble with some help from mum - mostly because of dexterity issues - but once assembled he can remember what and where all the bits go. He will take them apart, redesign the vehicles and mix the bits up but he can always put them back to the orginal if he wants.
 
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