Were you influenced by any of these as a kid...

[JohnRBaker]

http://www.designnews.com/author.as...o,industry_consumer,aid_272744&dfpLayout=blog

When I was in high school, I was a big fan of Heathkits, building a couple SW radios, a tube-tester, VTVM and after college, our first Color-TV set (I've still got the tube-tester and VTVM, both in good working condition). In fact, I started engineering school as a EE, but later switched to ME. Perhaps it was the influence of many of the other items on the above list as I covered most everything, with the exception of model rockets, since we lived in a heavily forested area in Northern Michigan where anything that could be 'shot' into the air was likely to land where there was lots of 'firewood' ;-)

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
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To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[ornerynorsk]

Burstein-Applebee and Greiger's were my Christmas catalogs when I was a kid. Nowadays I can't find the time for either building electronic stuff from scratch or lapidary work. I do remember drooling over the Heathkit offerings, as well, but a little too rich for a 13 year-old's paper-route salary. Good memories.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[SomptingGuy]

I had a chemistry book as a kid. All the experiments done using things from the kitchen, never really occurred to me that I'd find all the best stuff in the garden shed.

My introduction to "mechatronics" was making electric bells with Meccano and then running them off the 18V transformer that came with my Scalextric set.

- Steve

 

[IRstuff]

Most of my EE projects were actually done in junior high:
> Siren -- drove my mom nuts
> Plastic Tiger audio amp -- but didn't work, and we didn't have enough tools in the class to debug it, nor the skill set
> Blinky Owl

College:
> A different audio amp -- damping resistor burst into flames; pretty exciting for a frosh
> Color organ -- you can pretty much guess my age with that. Exploding 741 due to grounding the scope on a hot chassis

TTFN
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[kylesito]

I grew up in the 80's and played with most of these as a kid. Many fond memories!

PE, SE
Eastern United States

"If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death!"
~Code of Hammurabi

 

[msquared48]

6 out of the 10 for me.

Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, Erector Set, Balsa Planes, Lionel Trains (American Flyer too), and the Slot cars.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[ScottyUK]

In the UK in the late 80's and early 90's Maplin Electroncis were the kings of the electronics kit market. Many happy hours spent building amplifiers, then started to branch out into my own designs and realised how difficult good analogue design really is. I learned a lot from a guy called Douglas Self's work on amp design. I don't feel he ever got the wider recognition he deserved.

http://www.douglas-self.com/

I had - and probably still have - an old Heathkit 50V power supply. It had multiple ranges with transformer taps and about 5V of variation within each step. Good bit of design from when semiconductors were expensive and wound components were cheap. Today's switchmode stuff beats it hands down in every respect but I would likely use it if I knew its whereabouts; I have a sentimental attachment to some of the old gear I used when I was a kid. Many times I reach for the 20MHz Hameg scope my parents bought me for my 18th birthday or the little ICL8038-based function generator I built at college rather than the massively more capable 400MHz Tektronix scope and the 200MHz synthesised generator I've acquired in later years. Holding on to memories of happier times I guess.

 

[GregLocock]

I built a steam engine from castings when I should have been revising for my A levels, which is still around somewhere. Earlier than the lathe, meccano was usually scattered over the bedroom floor.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[msquared48]

One thing missing from the list was the small white hollow plastic block building set that looked like CMU units..

I Forget the name. Sent many hours with that...

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[hydrae]

lego?

 

[truckandbus]

Radio Shack 25-in-1, 75-in-1, 150-in-1 electronics kits were interesting until I applied house current for power instead of the 3 V batteries in order to 'increase perfromance'. that is why I am not an electrical engineer. they also had a cool binary computer kit. I remember Black and Decker had mini battery operated circular saws and drills for balsa wood projects.

 

[msquared48]

No. These were larger units than Legos, and prior to them.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[monkeydog]

Rubber band powered airplane, erector set, my brother's chemistry set, and the HO scale race car set. The best part of the HO race cars, is after hours of playing with them, we got to rebuild them with new springs, brushes, tires, are swap parts.

 

[redpicker]

One thing missing from the list was the small white hollow plastic block building set that looked like CMU units..

I Forget the name. Sent many hours with that...

I remember these. Maybe 1/2"H x 3/8"W x 3/4L", a bit taller than wide? Instead of the Lego design with 8 raised circles on each, these had 2, and the underside was completely open.

I haven't seen those things in probably a half century (or close to it)...

rp

 

[msquared48]

You got it...

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[ornerynorsk]

There were "American Bricks", but these were red, about the size and proportion of an average domino, if memory serves.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[IRstuff]

perhaps:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiddicraft

or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minibrix

or Lego makes Lego Duplo, which is 2x the footprint of regular Legos, but can be used together. There was a Lego brick that's roughly double the footprint of Duplo, which can be used by pre-toddlers, supposedly called Quatro, but I don't recall that as the name, or perhaps, I'm thinking of a knockoff.

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[msquared48]

The brick set I remember came in a 6" to 8" diameter cardboard tube, maybe 18 to 20" tall with a metal screw-on lid and a metal bottom. It had full and half-bricks, window lintel sections, and longer base lengths to use as strip footing sections. Also had plastic windows and doors of various sizes.

It was a real good learning tool for me at the time.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[redpicker]

I don't remember the tube, but I had 3 older brothers, so almost all of my toys were hand-me-downs. We keep these in a non-descript cardboard box.

The windows and doors must have not been as durable as the blocks, as I didn't get to play with those. There were the footing strips, maybe 6 or 8 circles long, and the singles. I used to think these were for making Greek and Roman buildings, you know, the ones without a roof, doors, or windows? Just openings for the doors and windows and open roofs (also know as ruins).

Ahh, memories.

 

[msquared48]

Found them on EBay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Blo...t=Vintage_Antique_Toys_US&hash=item58ae89c632

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering