Toys and Playthings:in development and remediation
John and Elizabeth Newson
This brings us to a brief consideration of the major constructional toys which are devised as sets of basic units, massively supported by accessory kits which increase the interest and versatility of the system. The most successful forerunner of modern constructional kits in the United Kingdom was Meccano; patented by its designer Frank Hornby as 'Mechanics Made Easy' in 1901, the name changed to the familiar one in 1907, still on the market seventy years later. The great attraction of Meccano as with the systems which have successfully competed with it, Lego and Fischer-Technik, was that it was based on simple units of the nondescript quality that we described in relation to floor-bricks, which with the addition of multiples, halves and corner pieces could be built up into even more complicated structures, merely by increasing the number of units. Accessories such as wheels, cogs, axles and basic battery- powered motors made possible working models of great sophistication. Meccano's uncompromising metal-grider look of heavy engineering, ideal for bridges and cranes but less well suited for domestic structures, was overtaken by Lego's interlocking brick system in ABS plastic, a more versatile and cosy image: the villages and cities built as special Lego displays have something angular coyness of Swiss chalet design, while their more streamlined models of planes and liners manage, with similar units, to seem modern in conception. Fisher-technik owes something to both.
These building systems, along with the less sophisticated first constructional toys in wood or plastic, are interesting for their mixture of the precision and abstraction which we have up to now been contrasting. They cannot be said to be realistic likeness of the objects in the real world which they purport to represent; at the same time because they are essentially made up of predetermined modules, they have an internal precision and accuracy of scale of their own, maintained from one model to the next - and indeed they do not mix comfortably or convincingly with other models on a layout. They are convincing as a total system because they express a powerful idiom or style - the Meccano style, the Lego idiom and so on - within which the child makes a contract to percieve reality; it is just not because the units from different systems dont fit, but because their idioms do not translate, that the child is likely to form an allegiance to one system to the exclusion of the others.
Although the major publicity displays for Lego and Fisher-Technik suggest that these constructional sets are intended for the creation of lay-outs in themselves, not many children will own enough to make more than a few small models or one really large one; it is most likely, therefore, that children will use their sets to build, take apart and re-build, more for the sake of the puzzle of construction than for the use of the finished object; and indeed Lego recognise and capitalise on this in their slogan 'Lego is a new toy everyday'. None the less, the possibility of bigger and better models is always in prospect: if only one had a hundred more bricks - a few more baseplates - a couple of lighting bricks and an articulated joint - what wonders might one not achieve! So the catalogues and building plans are poured over, and pocket money mortgaged weeks in advance. Once again, the acquisitiveness of the collector is as striking as the creatvity of the builder.
John and Elizabeth Newson
This brings us to a brief consideration of the major constructional toys which are devised as sets of basic units, massively supported by accessory kits which increase the interest and versatility of the system. The most successful forerunner of modern constructional kits in the United Kingdom was Meccano; patented by its designer Frank Hornby as 'Mechanics Made Easy' in 1901, the name changed to the familiar one in 1907, still on the market seventy years later. The great attraction of Meccano as with the systems which have successfully competed with it, Lego and Fischer-Technik, was that it was based on simple units of the nondescript quality that we described in relation to floor-bricks, which with the addition of multiples, halves and corner pieces could be built up into even more complicated structures, merely by increasing the number of units. Accessories such as wheels, cogs, axles and basic battery- powered motors made possible working models of great sophistication. Meccano's uncompromising metal-grider look of heavy engineering, ideal for bridges and cranes but less well suited for domestic structures, was overtaken by Lego's interlocking brick system in ABS plastic, a more versatile and cosy image: the villages and cities built as special Lego displays have something angular coyness of Swiss chalet design, while their more streamlined models of planes and liners manage, with similar units, to seem modern in conception. Fisher-technik owes something to both.
These building systems, along with the less sophisticated first constructional toys in wood or plastic, are interesting for their mixture of the precision and abstraction which we have up to now been contrasting. They cannot be said to be realistic likeness of the objects in the real world which they purport to represent; at the same time because they are essentially made up of predetermined modules, they have an internal precision and accuracy of scale of their own, maintained from one model to the next - and indeed they do not mix comfortably or convincingly with other models on a layout. They are convincing as a total system because they express a powerful idiom or style - the Meccano style, the Lego idiom and so on - within which the child makes a contract to percieve reality; it is just not because the units from different systems dont fit, but because their idioms do not translate, that the child is likely to form an allegiance to one system to the exclusion of the others.
Although the major publicity displays for Lego and Fisher-Technik suggest that these constructional sets are intended for the creation of lay-outs in themselves, not many children will own enough to make more than a few small models or one really large one; it is most likely, therefore, that children will use their sets to build, take apart and re-build, more for the sake of the puzzle of construction than for the use of the finished object; and indeed Lego recognise and capitalise on this in their slogan 'Lego is a new toy everyday'. None the less, the possibility of bigger and better models is always in prospect: if only one had a hundred more bricks - a few more baseplates - a couple of lighting bricks and an articulated joint - what wonders might one not achieve! So the catalogues and building plans are poured over, and pocket money mortgaged weeks in advance. Once again, the acquisitiveness of the collector is as striking as the creatvity of the builder.
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