Lego - The best toy ever ???

[Crawfie]

I have spent this morning with my granddaughter playing with her Lego . 
With the different colour blocks , different sizes we made a giant slide . 
Great fun and a new model every time .

The best toy ever invented ??

Mind you , I liked my Meccano sets !!

Edited November 2, 2021 by Crawfie

[RobH]

Great fun -  that looks like the big stuff, Duplo. It's OK but just wait till she progresses to Technic......... 

I agree Meccano was the canine's doodahs. I had quite a collection of 'inherited' bits of various shapes, vintages and colours.  Only problem was I used to run out of the nuts and bolts, so had to dismantle previous creations in order to make anything new.   

Edited November 2, 2021 by RobH

[Crawfie]

 

I’m  in the middle of building my Lego Saturn 5 rocket …..

 

[SuzanneH]

https://www.facebook.com/russellhogarth/videos/618224159222025/

[Hamish]

It was meccano for me, dad made me a wooden box with a hinged lid for it all. God knows where that lot went. 
that and an old case full of toy matchbox style cars

that'll look like steptoes scrap yard now after several generation use as it stayed with mum and dad as holiday toys for many generations. 
always ran out of tyres !!

[rcreweread]

27 minutes ago, Hamish said:

It was meccano for me, dad made me a wooden box with a hinged lid for it all. God knows where that lot went. 
that and an old case full of toy matchbox style cars

that'll look like steptoes scrap yard now after several generation use as it stayed with mum and dad as holiday toys for many generations. 
always ran out of tyres !!

Nothing new there, then Hamish! 

Cheers Rich 

[john.r.davies]

+1 for Meccano!    But not for little fingers, or throats!

And Lego really does release their imagination!

Edited November 2, 2021 by john.r.davies

[Crawfie]

My son and his VW camper 

[john.r.davies]

IMHO, Lego has overreached itself!   Their complex, LegoTechnic models are so complicated!   Son had some in his twelves, and would make them but refuse to break them down and make them into something else.   That would never happen with Meccano!        And small, specialised Lego models often contain unique parts, as otherwiase they just cannot look like the thing they are supposed to be.  Those parts cannot be used for anything else. EG, this Star Wars "Millenium Falcon" only has about a dozen parts, two or threeof which are the main body shell:

Mind you, the way they have made a Tie-fighter and an X-wing from standard parts is inspired!

[ianc]

My Uncle had Meccano in the 1920/1930 era and, after the War, he passed his collection to me and I added greatly to it.

Meccano is almost infinitely flexible and, with the help of the Meccano magazine in the 1950s, I was able to understand how a car's rear axle & its differential works.

Foolishly, I did not introduce son Alex to Meccano, but grandson Ben is now 9, and it's probably an opportune time to get him involved.  Will have to be very careful because he has two sisters, one of whom is only 19 months old and Meccano parts - especially the nuts and bolts - are very small.

Ian Cornish

[john.r.davies]

I've discovered the MEL series of science kits.   They are American in origin, but 'non-denominational' in action, and offer both my eldest grandsons what I consider to be an excellent foundation in physics!     They both found the recent edition on Hydraulics, when supplemented with different sized syringes, fascinating.    MEL kits come with comprehensive manuals and online tutorials .   They offer seperate ranges for 5-9 yo's and for older kids.   See: https://melscience.com/GB-en/chemistry/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=GB-search-new-science_kit_oct21&utm_term=science experiment kit&utm_content=548973981017&gclid=Cj0KCQjww4OMBhCUARIsAILndv7bgqT3aaUd4rZBlDGTC0iaOxnI2B_G2axYPaoZsmMiKfvEg7zz6voaArUEEALw_wcB

OK, each kit is only good for the project itself, but can be built and rebuilt, and they really learn from them!

John (no association with MEL, save as satisfied customer)

Edited November 2, 2021 by john.r.davies

[Charlie D]

Who remembers Bayko?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayko

If it was sold today I guess that the picture on the box would have to change.
In the 1950’s it was a picture of a boy, dressed as an estate agent showing off his creation to his sister who was holding a doll.

Today the boy would be a person of colour, wearing a dress, and the girl would have short cropped hair, wearing a boiler suit, and holding a Kango hammer.

Well, I enjoyed Bayko, and I doubt if my parents ever cared what the picture looked like.

[Tim T]

I remember it vividly! Always had to build to the roof shape though, I think.

Early 60s for me.

 My kids got into a toy called K’nex. Early 90s and almost an updated Meccanno without the nuts/bolts, plastic and push fit. You could make some huge structures that worked, Ferris wheels, rollercoasters and some Heath Robinson style things

Cheers 

Tim

Edited November 2, 2021 by Tim T
Speller

[RobH]

In the late 1950's one of my friends had a set which was a bit like Lego but was just for making buildings; the bricks were rubber not hard plastic.  I haven't seen the like since but a web search shows it was called Minibrix :

https://minibrix.com/history.html

 

[james christie]

My brother had a Minibrix set. Disgusting stuff, you had to lick the base of the brick which had lugs, to fit it into the one below. Tasted awful, but we survived

james

Edited November 3, 2021 by james christie

[Charlie D]

Another house building kit we had was called Brickplayer.

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/birmingham-construction-boss-builds-house-10272220

It used proper terracotta bricks and a water based “Cement” that looked a bit like porridge. (From what I remember it didn’t taste like porridge. Well, all 5-year-old kids used to taste things in those days. I used to bite the heads off lead toy soldiers. Never did me any harm…)

When you had enough of playing with the house you had built you just sat it an a bucket of water overnight and it all came unstuck, so you could clean up the bricks and start again.

Charlie.

[Harbottle]

Anyone remember RevRods I think they were called? Dragster car with a plastic toothed strip with a handle you placed behind the large back wheels. give the handle a good yank and let her go straight across the kitchen floor and smashed into the Lego building my twin was making I laughed he cried. He was never really into cars, I did like Lego though but +1 for Meccano.

[ianc]

I remember Brickplayer - another lad living not far from us in Bath had the stuff.

Didn't really interest me as it didn't permit construction of engineering models.  Also, would take quite a long time to construct anything substantial.

Ian Cornish

[john.r.davies]

22 hours ago, Harbottle said:

Anyone remember RevRods I think they were called? Dragster car with a plastic toothed strip with a handle you placed behind the large back wheels. give the handle a good yank and let her go straight across the kitchen floor and smashed into the Lego building my twin was making I laughed he cried. He was never really into cars, I did like Lego though but +1 for Meccano.

A recent MEL kit was about Springs, and consisted of a dragster style car with an upright 'aerial' that was tensioned by a string wound around the rear axle.    Did the same as in Harbottle's memory (can't speak for the brother's Lego though!)

John

[stillp]

I had Bayko as well as Brickplayer. The former was quite dangerous as the 'bricks' had to slide onto a series of piano wire uprights. How no-one lost an eye I don't know. Brickplayer was fun but the range of builds was limited by the availability of the plastic door and window frames. I don't remember why I didn't just make some out of balsa!

Pete

[Crawfie]

On 11/4/2021 at 9:16 AM, stillp said:

I had Bayko as well as Brickplayer. The former was quite dangerous as the 'bricks' had to slide onto a series of piano wire uprights. How no-one lost an eye I don't know. Brickplayer was fun but the range of builds was limited by the availability of the plastic door and window frames. I don't remember why I didn't just make some out of balsa!

Pete

I saw a Bayko set in the imperial war museum (London) today . Those “rods” looked nasty !!

I must say that the IWM was looking a bit tired & stale . The VC exhibition and WW1 was good , but nothing new . Loads of gaps . Surely they must have loads of stuff available ??

[stillp]

21 minutes ago, Crawfie said:

The VC exhibition and WW1 was good , but nothing new . 

New? It is a museum you know! 

Pete

[Crawfie]

7 minutes ago, stillp said:

New? It is a museum you know! 

Pete

Lol !!

Should've worded that a bit better . 

[RobH]

The IWM have got loads of big stuff stored at Wroughton in Wiltshire - hangars full of aircraft, vehicles and the like but you can't visit.   They used to hold occasional open days but they haven't done that for years now.

[Crawfie]

Just now, RobH said:

The IWM have got loads of big stuff stored at Wroughton in Wiltshire - hangars full of aircraft, vehicles and the like but you can't visit.   They used to hold occasional open days but they haven't done that for years now.

That’s a real shame . The stuff on show at London has not changed for years .