Lego Vs. Meccano & Engineering Knowledge 300
Anonymous In Indy writes "How much of our learning comes from the toys we play with? Nobel prize winner Sir Harry Kroto (Chemistry, 1996) feels that the falling popularity of Meccano and the rise of Lego is inextricably linked to "the demise of British engineering." "Meccano teaches engineering and architectural skills in a way that Lego doesn't. If we had more Meccano, we would have railways that worked. There would be more engineers with better basic understanding." The Sunday Telegraph has the complete story. (USAians note: Meccano = Erector Set."
Technic, anyone? (Score:4)
This is equal to or more advanced than most of my old erector set kits.
Two things forgotten: (Score:3)
Technic was halfway between Lego and Meccano/Erector: It had the standard Lego modular pieces (it's easy to mix Technic and Lego parts in the same item), but it also had elements much more geared towards engineering like gears, shafts, and motors. And then there was the Technic Control Centre. It was the ancestor of Mindstorms, a console that could record and play back sequences of actions involving up to 3 motors. It came with enough parts to build a programmable vector plotter (among other things).
Construx was by Fisher-Price (sadly it seems to be discontinued now), and it was sort of a plastic version of the Erector set minus the annoying nuts and bolts. It was on a much larger scale than most of the toys that have been discussed so far: it was easy to build items several feet tall (aside from structural problems), and the motors were beefier than the ones Technic used.
Lego Taught Me Structual Engineering and Ballistic (Score:3)
My friends and I all got one set for Xmas one year, and we quickly determined a game to play with them. The idea was to build a castle that would withstand a Lego siege. You built a castle, and then you built a catapult, all out of Lego. The only non-Lego part allowed was a rubber band to make the catapult work.
We'd then take turns launching Lego bolders against each other's castles from little Lego catapults, ballistae, and even an attempt at a trebuchet.
It taught us all kinds of things: how to build high walls that don't fall down (hint: buttresses), why walls had to interlock, the virtues of flat vs high missile trajectories, the tradeoffs between missile velocity vs missile mass, basic aiming techniques, and the strength of various household objects when subjected to accidental Lego bombardment (brick wall - high; glass lamp - low)
It was great fun until one of us figured out that a solid, interlocked and buttressed tower was pretty well impervious to anything short of a pellet gun, and then our attentions turned elsewhere - shooting each other with pellet guns, as I recall.
Great fun, and a complete engineering education.
Re:Lego Dumbs It Down (Score:2)
Re:Lego Dumbs It Down (Score:3)
Some of the modern Lego kits have 50 unique Lego pieces, only found in one kit, and only suitable for making one specific model. The result is one extremely realistic model, but where was the fun in building it?
Re:Railtrack is at fault, not Lego! (Score:3)
I'll tell you why the quality of British engineering has declined: because Engineers are treated terribly in the UK. For a start, "Engineer" isn't a protected title, as it is in the US and even in Europe, where it has similar standing to the title of a medical doctor. In the UK, the electrician who installs your cable TV probably calls himself an "Electrical Engineer". If someone asks you what you do for a living and you say "Mechanical Engineer", in the UK they will think you are a car mechanic. (These are of course necessary and worthy jobs, but you don't need a 4-year degree and 4 years of professional experience to do them, as you do to become an Engineer). Also, an Engineer in the UK is unlikely to be well paid, compared to a similarly qualified lawyer or finance professional.
I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering from UCL [ucl.ac.uk], one of the top 3 universities in the UK, and like many of my graduating class, I didn't even apply to engineering firms. We went straight into consulting, banking, software and similar jobs - where our talents would be respected and rewarded.
I believe that these factors are more important than Lego -vs- Meccano. Remember, we all started off *wanting* to be Engineers - it was only when we realised what it was really like that we changed our minds.
Re:Railtrack is at fault, not Lego! (Score:2)
When you're on AmTrack, you want to put your head on the rails in front of an oncoming train, rather than be forced to actually ride on board.
You whiney Brits don't know how good you have it.
The US used to be the greatest rail network in the world. Now, there is only one passenger line, and it's federally funded. Last time I rode, what would have been a 3 hour drive was an 8 hour hellish ordeal via rail. American passenger trains are loud, slow, bumpy, and have crappy seats, and poor service. British trains are smooth, luxurious and quick by comparison. And they actually name the individual engines all these strange names like "The Duke of Wolverton" etc. Just like in Thomas the Tank Engine.
um (Score:2)
Re:Legos = Kids, Meccanos = Older Kids (Score:2)
Re:Well mate, here's a hint (Score:5)
This is simply not true. There is nothing wrong with privatisation per se. The problem comes when you don't have sufficient guards against abuse. That essentially means a regulatory body with the power to act in the best interests of the consumer. Here in the UK, we did the privatisation bit, but forgot to give the regulators enough power to do anything useful. Hence the current mess with trains, phones and half a dozen other utilities. The regulators need to be able to do whatever it takes to protect the consumer, up to and including the financial ruin of the company running the service. Until that happens, things are only going to get worse :-(
Like Fischer Technik in Germany (Score:3)
In other words, Fischer Technik allowed you to build larger and more complex things (after all the first sets were made for industrial models, and that's what it is still used for today). It also pioneered many things that Lego had done only years later: sets for pneumatic, electronic circuits and a programmable computer interface.
Re:Well mate, here's a hint (Score:3)
Compare and contrast the following with particular attention to the continuing absence of pragmatism and rigour in modern political theory:
Hot glue gun and toothpicks (Score:2)
Start with a board as the base, put drops of glue on the corners of a square one toothpick wide, put in 4 toothpicks as verticals, and connect them horizontally to form a cube. Repeat to build box girders, etc. You can add diagonal braces as needed.
Hot glue is about the best thing every made for connecting small wooden structural members - strong, flexible, and it sets almost instantaneously. You can also melt the glue with the point of the glue gun to add additional 'picks to a joint, or to disassemble it.
It can be a little bit too flexible for some things, but if the point is to get some experience with structural design, it's ideal.
Lugnet debate on this (Score:4)
This article also contains links to a longer thread preceeding the letter itself.
Re:The same applies to software (Score:2)
I despair for the world of computer science when atavists from the land of vacuum tubes demand that the curriculum of science be tied forever to a particular technology. Although current computer architecture is a fine realization of Von Neumann's theories, it just doesn't have any useful relation to computer science theory, like algorithmic complexity, decidablilty, graph theory, induction, and all the other math that goes into computer science. Saying asm is foundational to computer science is like saying using a HP calculator is fundamental to mathematics. Dijkstra, one of the gods of computer science, hates computers.
I submit learning asm isn't even terribly useful for programming (except in C), but that's another argument entirely.
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Re:Legos = Kids, Meccanos = Older Kids (Score:2)
Hell no, Legos, Tinker Toys, then Zome [zometool.com].
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This is quite an odd comparison... (Score:2)
With one, you build houses, castles, cities, and the other, you build cars with steering, differentials and gearboxes & cranes.
How can both be mixed?
And you don't play the same with either; with meccano, you have to design subassemblies and make sure they come together the first time. How many times did I have to "redesign" one whole side of an assembly, because one shaft could not go through another one on the same plane?
With Lego, you just stick bricks together; no gears, no shafts, no mechanical subassemblies...
They're like apples and oranges!
However, for having drooled for many years on my granfather's number 10 Meccano set (a 80cm by 40cm by 30 cm wooden chest chock-full of meccano parts (and finally inherited it), Meccano is a fine toy to learn industrial mechanical design, whilst Lego can be a fine architectural toy.
But how can both be mixed???
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Re:The same applies to software (Score:2)
Just like you have to think differently about coding when you do assembly language, you have to think on a different plane when designing Java apps. Object relationships, interfaces, dependencies, etc. are all something you need to put into your design, instead of knowing what's on the stack or what registers are holding what values. These are the things you "hand off" to the Sun developers, worrying about the specifics of your OOP app. It's surely programming, though a different type of programming.
If when coding a Java app I used the assembly (or even C) part of my programming brain I would be doing things wrong in many cases. To take into account registers or memory addresses when designing an OOP app is something you shouldn't need to do, and for good reason. The only case where a C background _really_ helps with Java programming task is when you're dealing with object references, which are analagous to pointers. However, such a concept is easily learned and understood by non-C programmers. Demonstrating CS algorithms is better done in a high level language in most cases, so that's not a good argument either.
An understanding of assembly language and computer architecture is definitely essential to warrant a Computer Science degree, I couldn't agree more. However, to downplay Java as not being "programming" is a ridiculous statement that shows a lack of understanding of the whole point of component based/OO programming.
Re:The same applies to software (Score:2)
Graduating from school lacking knowledge is one thing (and is often not the fault of the person graduating,) but people who are annoyed at their classmates for not spending all their free time learning computer algorithms piss me off.
Re:The same applies to software (Score:2)
And those of you who are so stupid to have to learn algorithms piss me off. You're just bitter that you have to study. Some of undestand with little or no problem.
If all algorithms were easily understood by people with "little or no problem" then we'd have them all from the day the computers were there to perform them. It seems to me that you haven't expanded your algorithm knowledge past the binary tree or the bubble sort, or else you'd realize that you can dedicate years of your life to understanding and building upon a single algorithm.
You've proven you're foolishness immediately by your very first statement. To even make the claim that every student in a class has the intention to learn is ridiculous, apparently you haven't been to school at all.
Yeah, I go to school. I go to Cornell. I go to many CS classes at Cornell. Nobody is in a CS class to fuck around once you get past the first couple weeder classes. If a classmate has no experience with C or a merge sort, I'm not going to jump on them as being inferior because I learned that stuff in my spare time. They have experiences in things outside of my realm of knowledge, and I'd expect the same respect from them.
You are the one who has obviously never been to school, or at least, partook in a competitive academic program where everyone there is taking their education seriously and keeping you on your toes.
You throw it around like it's a dirty word, I'm proud of my ability, and of course I look down on anyone who can't compete.
I think you probably need a reality check, because you're not so superior as you think. I'm pretty sure all of the people I've met at school (largely professors) who I've considered as being truly labeled as being "smart" have never read, or would bother reading, Slashdot. They're too busy doing more important things, like studying and expanding upon those algorithms that you seem to understand with "little or no problem."
Re:The same applies to software (Score:2)
You said what I read as "some of us understand with little or no problems" in reference to algorithms, which implies that you think that all algorithms are alike and understanding them is a skill which you either have or don't have, and is one you have. These things are all not true.
We were talking about the ability to understand computer science, perhaps I was being vague when I mentioned that my professors are the only ones who can be labeled as "smart"
My final point was that your presence on this website almost definitely excludes you from the small sect of people in society who are naturally good at CS, simply because in my experience Slashdot is a pseudo-technical site that in lots of ways lacks any real intellectual discussion or content. Not that I don't enjoy it, but it's surely uninteresting to these smarties I'm talking about.
I have come to the conclusion that you are 15 years old, BTW.
Re:Lego Dumbs It Down (Score:2)
They were always smiling as well. Even after dying heroic deaths in inter-galactic battles. I was convinced they were plotting something, in my lego box under my bed, late at night.
They probably still are, just hidden away in my parents roof, undisturbed for the last 15 years.
Re:Legos don't have sharp edges. (Score:3)
See www.techeducation.com [techeducation.com] for american distributors. They have a cool robot arm kit.
Re:Lego Dumbs It Down (Score:2)
Engineering toys (Score:3)
They also have some "technical" legos with motors and gears, or at least they used to.
To blame the downfall of British engineering on toys is wrong. British engineering is facing increased competition form abroad. To generalize, which is always dangerous, British engineering has been fairly innovative (box bridges, those reflective things on highways.....) but sometimes not as thorough and reliable. Look at the former British car companies for an example to see this problem is far from new..
In general though, through out the world engineers are under paid and under appreciated. (software "engineers" being an exception..)
Anybody remember Rivet.ron? (Score:2)
Anyone else remember a building set called Riveton or Rivetron, from the late 70s? It had a bunch of plastic panels, tubes, and corner joints, all with holes in them, as well as special parts like wheels. You used a special gun to connect the parts together by means of little rubber rivets that were stretched into the holes. Very cool - I made some neat little racing carts and vehicles for my action figures with these. As I recall, the tech was taken off the market after some little kid choked on one of the rubber rivets.
My other favorite building toy (apart from Lego), was my "Girder & Panel" set that could be used to throw down some very cool-looking high rises and similar neubauten. I ended up using this stuff many years later to construct some very cool-looking scenery for SF miniatures gaming (the scale was different, but it still looked great).
I only had a brief run-in with erector sets, and I think I was too young to really appreciate it -- probably about 4-6 -- but from what I remember, I concur with others, that erector sets really do emphasize real-world mechanical skills more than other toys...
Legos = Kids, Meccanos = Older Kids (Score:5)
The failure of the British Rail System is political in nature. Let's not shift the failings of politicians off onto engineers, and let's not get any more of that "you younger generations are causing the decline of civilisation" nonsense. The younger set didn't invent nukes, spread herpes and aids, or listen to Bryan Ferry.
K'nex is comparable to Meccano (Score:2)
The main advantage of K'nex over Meccano is that it does not require all that dexterity to put those tiny bolts and nuts together. A secondary advantage of K'nex over all those others is price. You can buy an awful lot of K'nex for two hundred bucks.
Personally, I don't like the K'nex robot building stuff very much. There is no way to write your own software. Lego Mindstorm stuff is probably much better than the K'nex attempts at intelligent components.
Re:The original quote was: (Score:2)
Re:Well mate, here's a hint (Score:2)
Just a small point.
You may still benefit from the existence of rail travel options even if you don't use them yourself.
Radioaktivo (Score:2)
That's right. The Russians are kicking themselves for not introducing the Radioaktivo [findarticles.com] backyard nuclear reactor kit for kids back in the '50s, after that whole Chernobyl thing.
[OT]Re:www.slashdot.org (Score:2)
[/OT nonsense]
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Why make kids play with the same toys that we had? (Score:2)
Here are a few alternatives:
Zometools [zometool.com] are like a bit like tinker-toys but allow a greater number angles at the hubs and are much better thought out. They also have a large collection of online lesson plans for educators that are free for the downloading. [zometool.com]
Roger's connections [rogersconnection.com] and Mega Magz [naturestapestry.com] take the concept further by using ball barings as hubs and magnetic rods allowing for an even more flexible joint and rod system.
How about having children explore this kind of this cool construction technique [dstoys.com], like the artist Ken Snelson [photopoint.com].
Check out Chuck Hoberman's Expandagon construction toy [hoberman.com] where the parts expand and contract causing the construction to transform from one shape, to
another.
Both had strong points, but... (Score:5)
Although that IS very much how large engineering projects go, it is frustrating for younger people to have to deal with such things.
Legos do involve less thought, but trade that for quicker gratification. By the time I had joined a couple of parts with the erector set, I could have most of whatever I was building built out of legos.
Legos also made one think about structure. It is just in a much different way. Legos are inherently of inferior building structure (from the standpoint of structural integrity). You must there for think of how to build something strong enough that you can play with it afterward, while still making it look like what you want. This meant adding support blocks to various areas.
From the other posts here, I don't buy that the increase in the popularity of Legos is the cause of the decrease in quality of engineering in england. I would attribute it to other factors. I know nothing of the English education system, but if it is anything like the one here in the States, it must be getting pretty dismal.
I would wonder if the decrease in the quality of engineers and scientists in the U.S. matches the increase in schools allowing persecuition of anyone who would choose science, math or any other "geeky" subject over taking the minimum requirments, and goofing off the rest of the time.
Re:The same applies to software (Score:2)
I'm doing some things in Java these days, and I haven't downloaded components from anywhere, dragged or dropped anything, or let someone else's IDE glue anything together for me. I write source code with an editor, feed it to the compiler, and feed the byte-code to the run-time.
Java has the problem that the flash IDEs were developed in a very close time-frame to the language, so you never got the huge base of "real" coders that you did for something like C. (Although not as bad as Visual Basic, where the drag-n-drop, write all the code for me version is all you get.)
Take a look at a recent version of MS VisualC++ (or whatever they're calling it these days). With the "build me an app" wizard you can get a working "do-nothing" skeleton program that produces a standard Windows app, menus, widgets, open / save dialogs, cut-n-paste etc without typing a single line of code - in C++!
It's definitely a programming *environment* issue, more than a programming *language* issue.
Regards,
Tim.
Re:Legos don't have sharp edges. (Score:2)
I remember at school being amazed at how kids didn't know how two gears meshing together would work, why they would turn in different direction, why they would turn at different speeds if they weren't the same size. Why a "worm" could not be turned by a sprocket. How kids didn't know which why to turn a screwdriver to tighten or loosen a bolt.
Meccano's biggest folly I think is that it is hard to make "cute" looking things out of it. Lego is very good at doing that with minimal effort. The latest set designs brought about by a change of ownership to a Japanise toy manufacturer has caused parts to be introduced to make those cute models you can with Lego.
Meccano is certainly a lot more tedious, but then again, perhaps its a better metaphor for life because of it?
I remember my disapointment with lego was that you could build something, say a crane, it would then creak and bend as soon as you tried to pick something up with it... if I built a similar model with my Meccano it would actually work as I had invisioned.
Lego is poor in that its all to easy to break the peices if they get trodden on accidentally.
Both are excelent toys however, I can see the person's point that Meccano teaches more about "Engineering" - certainly all the engineers I know think that Meccano is a far better toy to teach engineering with than Lego ever was to them.
Linking that to a failing infrastructure is a little tenuous though. That is as others have said perhaps more politically induced.
Re:Railtrack is at fault, not Lego! (Score:2)
- - - - -
Re:If Meccano is Britisch Engineering.... (Score:2)
//rdj
Meccano is UGLY (Score:2)
I chose the Lego every time, because somebody had obviously put a lot of thought into it's design - Lego is designed to appeal to kids, Meccano is designed to appeal, well, possibly to British railway engineers?
Meccano's iron material would certainly make for more durable constructions, but the breadth of the Lego offerings - from castles to spaceships, dwarfs Meccano's range.
Lego is not just about encouraging construction skills, it's about encouraging the imagination.
When you build your own spaceship to fly your tiny astronauts to the moon, somehow it's much more real to you than if you were to have been given a ready-made space-ship toy.
And when the engines on your spacecraft fail, and you are forced to make a crash landing on the moon, being able to put your craft back together, perhaps in a new configuration (some parts were too badly damaged by the crash to be repaired) and fly home again is a whole new adventure.
Meccano could arguably supply the same experience, but crashing a meccano ship is just not the same, since they tend not to come apart unless under extreme stress, and then youre looking at permanent damage.
I too lament the recent 'dumbing down' of Lego, going for mechandising tie-ins like with Star Wars instead of creating new designs, but I own the Lego Mindstorms kit, which i plan on giving to my girlfriend's nephew when he's wise enough not to lose all the pieces.
This is a lot of fun to play with (even for a 26-year old software developer like me), and i think it's great that Lego has stepped outside it's traditional market with new and somewhat groundbreaking products.
Meccano vs Lego?
It may be more 'realistic', but there is no way it's more fun.
Re:yes, but they now they are smarting up again (Score:2)
Hey! My Wife bought me a Mindstorm RIS 1.5 set for my birthday
It true that Lego is a bit less "engineering" than mecanos, but with the whole Mindstorm series, they're going into programming and robotics. It a field with much more interesting potential.
Re:The same applies to software (Score:2)
Programmers are supposed to produce solid programs quickly, and clearly it is more efficient to pull from well known and tested components than to rebuild your own wheel every time.
Incidentally, I found that the people who sucked at the assembly classes sucked at all the other classes too. I didn't know anyone who got great scores in one type of programming and scraped thru with a pass in another...
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Lego is more fun (Score:2)
With Meccano, the pieces are so big. If I was building something, I couldn't easily turn that long piece into the short piece I needed. There just wasn't as much fun when you're limited to a small number of greatly varying pieces.
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Re:Lego Dumbs It Down (Score:2)
Re:Well mate, here's a hint (Score:4)
No, but what is wrong is the fetishistic notion that privatisation good per se. We are just emerging from the damage inflicted by ideologists who believed the mere fact of private ownership to be a social good.
When you have private ownership in the context of competition, consumers can vote with their wallets if the goods and services they are receiving are not up to expectation. When you have government in the context of democracy, citizens can simply vote if the ruling party fails to deliver. By placing public goods which form natural monopolies, into private hands, consumers have been put in the position of citizens in states where they have no vote. Here in Australia many of the privatisations carried out (by both sides of politics!) have accomplished both these economic and policial ills.
After centuries of struggle against absolutist government (which some might want to date back to 1215, or more realistically 1649), not only had the common law world established democracy, but by the early 1980s (at least in Australia) an effective body of Administrative Law, by which citizens could challenge the previously inviolable decisions of state bureaucracies. No sooner had this been accomplished, but governments started to 'outsource' (an 80s abomination meaning to contract out) bureaucratic functions, putting the decisions once again beyond the challenge of ordinary citizens, as they are beyond the choice of ordinary consumers.
Quite apart from resurgent neo-fascist parties, what we've been left with is poor service (eg . compare the Post Office with hopeless Post Shops of today), queues, higher prices, queues, inefficiency and queues. Did I mention fees to join queues? To think that we used to laugh at the Soviet Union because they had to queue for everything, and that the ideologists assured us this was from a want of market mechanisms! It's enough to make one change one's sig!!
Re:yes, but they now they are smarting up again (Score:2)
If your girlfriend has a husband, I think you have bigger problems than not getting Legos for Xmas.
Privatising infrastructure doesn't work (Score:2)
The justification usually given for privatising public services is that they can be made more efficient if private companies compete for contracts. Sounds like a good idea, but unfortunately it doesn't work for national infrastructure, because there's no room for competition. National rail and utility networks have to be national. So when you privatise them you have to decide (1) who's going to own the existing network and (2) who's going to stop the new owners from breaking it up or running it into the ground. The usual response to (1) is to create a national infrastructure company (eg Railtrack) and grant it a monopoly. The solution to (2) is to create a regulatory body to supervise the infrastructure company.
At this point you may notice that what we have created is not very different from what we had before (except that there are lots of ministers with lots of shares in the infrastructure company, and none of the assets paid for by the public belong to the public any more). We have a national monopoly controlled by a government department. Where are the benefits of competition going to come from if companies can't compete to run the infrastructure?
The answer is service providers - companies that operate services (train journeys, telephone calls, water) over national infrastructure (tracks, cables, pipes). But they can't compete in the sense of choosing a can of Coke over a can of Pepsi - you can't choose which water provider to use every time you turn on the tap. You have to use the provider that 'operates' the pipes running to your house. Who chooses that provider? The regulator. 'Competition' occurs once every few years when the service contracts come up for renewal; service providers which have performed so badly that they have been fined to the brink of bankruptcy by the regulator might lose their contracts. Note that the service providers are not competing with one another on a day-to-day basis. They are only competing against standards set by a government department. It is only when a company fails to meet those standards for several years running that competition between companies occurs.
For example, I get to work on a train operated by Thameslink. Thameslink has a monopoly on my local line, so I have no choice about which service provider I use. No matter how much Thameslink pisses me off, I'm not going to switch to the competition because the competition doesn't run trains in my area. The only way I can get an improved service is if Thameslink performs so badly that the government takes away its contract. This is not free market competition, it's a command economy. It combines all the bloat and sluggishness of a command economy (the rail regulator is, after all, a government department) with the disadvantages of the private sector (accountability to shareholders rather than customers, long-term investment sacrificed for short-term profit).
Why on earth was this horrible public/private chimera created? Because corrupt ministers realised they were sitting on billions of pounds worth of saleable goods, and there was public support from people like you for the idea of privatisation even in situations where the principles of the market economy cannot be applied.
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Re:Privatising infrastructure doesn't work (Score:2)
The combination of an unfair competitive position and freedom from long-term investment worries may go some way to explaining BT's financial success since privatisation.
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other declining sources of inspiration for kids: (Score:3)
- unconnected computers. (not even to a BBS) Since you can't download games or surf the web, and you can't afford to buy them, you have to make your own, or else try to crack the games you've borrowed for friends.
Bryan
Re:Lego Dumbs It Down (Score:2)
When I started buying Legos for my kids, I was dismayed to find that you couldn't buy just plain blocks from Lego anymore, like when I was a kid in the 60s. No doubt, this is due to the expiration of the patents on the blocks.
But you can get large quantities of the plain blocks from the knockoff companies. We bought a large number of plain blocks from one of the knockoff companies. Plus, of course, my son has dozens of the various Lego-branded project kits that he's gotten on birthdays and XMAS.
You know what? My son (now 7) puts the Lego projects together exactly once, in record time. Then he rips them apart and tosses the pieces into the box of all other Lego parts. Then he builds fabulously complicated things out of the collection of parts that he has. The stuff he dreams up and builds is way beyond what I was building with just the plain parts. He's got all kinds of new pieces to choose from and the possibilities are far greater than ever before.
I think the situation with Lego is way better now than it ever was. There is no dumbing down of Lego that I can see. Just dumb kids and parents that can't see the possibilities. Mostly, its probably compulsive parents that urge their kids not to destroy or alter the intended project in any way. They want little Johnnies bedroom neat and tidy with the Lego projects showcased up on some shelf. This is not Legos problem, this is the anal compulsive behavior forced on middle-age society by the likes of Mr. Clean and Mr. Hoover, and TV shows like My Three Sons and Family Affair.
The damage was done to the parents of today's kids back in the 60s and 70s.
Luckily, I was smoking so much pot back then that the brainwashing did not take. I view the array of Lego parts littering my sons bedroom floor for what it is: the remains of a successful battle between his engineering skills and the creative visions of his mind.
The same applies to software (Score:5)
Have we reached a point in software development where instead of innovating genuinely new software, we just put together libraries other people have written and consider ourselves 'building on the shoulder of giants'?
Workers, throw down your common libaries, your DLLs, your open source! Innovate the way it was meant to happen, in PUTs and POPs! As your key to the revolution, please see the included copy of MASM. May the cpu tick be with you.
Pretty simple really (Score:2)
Re:Well mate, here's a hint (Score:2)
Re:Like Fischer Technik in Germany (Score:2)
The same grooves which accepted studs from other blocks could also accept a steel shaft, acting as a bearing. FT encouraged you to keep one foot in the world of blocks (the Lego world) and one foot in a harder world of shafts, pulleys, wheels, sprockets.
Re:Why make kids play with the same toys that we h (Score:2)
Not with conventional Lego, true. But with Meccano? Seems to me you're overlooking the ability to bend flat steel members. Of course I recognize the disadvantages.
Re:Well mate, here's a hint (Score:2)
(I know nothing about NZ electricity).
The key phrase here appears to be "competition". I live in the UK, and I hate the legacy of Thatcher. Maybe it's all working wonderfully for you guys down under, but we're screwed.
How do you introduce competition in a railway system ? All we've seen are the train companies fighting to get out of each other's way and not compete on any services, a complete failure of the centralised group that maintains the fixed lines, failure of any through timetable, booking, or even ticket issuing services (don't expect to go in one side of London and out the other without queueing at least 3 times). Worst of all, we're now footing the bill for the directors of Railtrack to vote themselves massive pay increases when they've put up a poorer performance at management than the millienium dome.
Maybe privatisation with competition works (good luck to you if it does). The lessons of the UK though are that privatisation with fake competition is a failure, and that privatisation loses what little accountability there was in the first place.
Re:Lego Dumbs It Down (Score:3)
When I was a lad (a not so mere 30 years ago) Lego came in lots of little pieces and we made the same complaint about this "new fangled" stuff just appearing. There were windows that looked like windows, not square bricks ! I think it's an old "nostalgia isn't what it used to be" rant, and it's bogus.
Now my own son (6) plays with his Lego, and my old stuff. He just doesn't care what shape the bricks are; a roof tile makes just as good a piece of pizza as it does a computer console.
At his age, Lego isn't interesting as a construction toy. It's more about simple abstract constructs that are given meaning by their play context (if he says yesterday's castle tower is now a bus, then it's a bus). By the time he starts to think about it as an engineering problem solving tool (How do I find a thing that can reach sideways and have a hook on the end ?) he'll hopefully be too interested in using it to do the job, not worrying about the provenance of whether it's OK to make Giant Killer Roberts out of pink Belleville pieces.
Re:Capsela is even better than LEGO or Meccano (Score:2)
:)
Us oldies...
Anyway, I see there are several sets one can buy... there are some specialised sets which force you to build specific models etc, but I had the 1000 set... with many more pieces... and I can never remember having trouble building my own designs...
Depends on the set, I guess.
;)
Re:Capsela is even better than LEGO or Meccano (Score:2)
I cannot find it many places... I bet it is fetching huge amounts on e-bay though...
PS: Some companies do still seem to be selling it.
Capsela is even better than LEGO or Meccano (Score:3)
I remember my first Meccano set... I lost a lot of little bits, and the rest rusted or broke.
The problem with LEGO is that it's overpriced for bits of inert plastic, but otherwise it's cool, but not *that* cool.
Capsela on the other had was cheap (at the time), and it was motorised. It also did not rust, and NEVER broke.
I wish I could buy some again, but have not seen it in local stores for some time now...
Re:The same applies to software (Score:4)
If you want to teach how computers work, go for C (with some assembler). ..., then higher level languages do a better job, because students are less distracted by syntax and hosekeeping problems.
But if you want to teach logic and algorithms, such as sorting, stacks, etc
Re:The same applies to software (Score:2)
Which is exactly my point. It's not so much programming as it is data entry. The problem with people who don't learn those low levels of programming make poorer programmers, in general, than those that do. I hate to even say in general, I don't want a blanket statement that offends someone, but if you know what's really going on you have an edge, it's that simple.
Re:The same applies to software (Score:2)
Re:The same applies to software (Score:2)
It's sad that if you were to go to a college campus today and talk to the students, you'd be hard pressed to find one in twenty that really enjoys programming. The future hacker who loves the details and understands computers. The rest are kids whose parents (or through their own ideas) told them that they could make a lot of money in computers. Which sadly sends some woefully underskilled and (dare I say) incompetent workers into the field. I realize I'm being a little elitist, but it's getting harder to find people who appreciate the art of programming, and get fired up over great code, killer algorithms, and elegant proofs in computer science.
Re:The same applies to software (Score:2)
The recent decline in status of assembler falls into the same category of those who say (and teach) such bullshit as "Computers are so fast nowadays you don't have to worry about speed", "Memory is so cheap and plentiful, you don't have to worry about size", and "Never, ever use a goto statement". All three of these statements are false, but that's the mentality that's being passed along. Which is fine when you do nothing more than write jsp pages (or whatever), but to get involved even a little with hard core "real" coding you're going o have to through this crap out the window.
Re:The same applies to software (Score:2)
Re:The same applies to software (Score:2)
Re:The same applies to software (Score:2)
You've proven you're foolishness immediately by your very first statement. To even make the claim that every student in a class has the intention to learn is ridiculous, apparently you haven't been to school at all. The majority of students aren't there to learn, they're there to get a degree, which is a wholly separate thing. They don't care if they leave with the knowledge or not just as long as they get a passing grade. Graduating from school lacking knowledge is ENTIRELY the fault of the student. If a student leaves college with no knowledge it's because he/she did not put sufficient effort into it. The knowledge is there.
Yeah I am an elitist, but I have every reason to be. You throw it around like it's a dirty word, I'm proud of my ability, and of course I look down on anyone who can't compete.
Re:The same applies to software (Score:2)
As far as the difference between CS and SE, I know both, I'm damn good at both. I will admit that I'm more CS oriented, but I also believe that you have to be. I also believe that you need a deep understanding of CS to be a software engineer, otherwise you will always be surpassed by those with knowledge of the theory who can adapt to any situation.
Re:The same applies to software (Score:2)
I can't even been to deconstruct your last paragraph. Who's being elitist now? They must not watch tv, or play with their kids, or just go outside because they are so busy too huh?
Re:The same applies to software (Score:3)
I'm not saying Java like languages don't have their place. They're great for building GUI's. But half the time it doesn't even seem like programming.
Re:Well mate, here's a hint (Score:2)
Re:Not British (Score:2)
Lego is still a construction toy (Score:3)
Lego is still a contruction toy that encourages kids to be inventive and use their imaginations - it provides more of an engineering experience than Action Man or Playstation or something, and has clearly been a major toy in the childhood of a lot of /.ers.
We should encourage any toy that stimulates kids, not just the most complicated ones.
I also suspect that there may be a patriotic side to this too (Meccanno is British like Sir Kroto, Lego is Danish), though of course that's just my unfounded speculation.
Railtrack is at fault, not Lego! (Score:4)
And Railtrack keep going to the government asking for more money (they're supposed to be a private company remember, not a nationalised service), and all they seem to do with the cash is come up with more reasons why they need more cash. BR wasn't great, but Railtrack are really poor (as is demonstrated by the terrible number of deaths and accidents over the past couple of years).
Saying that giving more kids Meccano would solve this is totally unfounded. Whilst I respect Harry Kroto (he discovered Buckminster Fullerenes), and think that kids should be exposed to more engineering toys, I think that he's way off the mark with his comment.
Free Erector sets? (Score:2)
This was a serious proposal, back when staying ahead of the USSR technically was a major goal of American education. Bell Labs used to send out free electronics kits to students.
I had "From Sun to Sound", with a solar cell, speaker, and transistor. You had to build your own capacitor from foil and waxed paper, and they didn't tell you the dimensions; you had to calculate them.
Either Or? (Score:2)
- Lotso ThomasTheTankEngine Stuff
- The plastic beginners erector stuff
- All 3 sizes of Lego plus the sound-module jet thing
- No computers or gameboy's or anything (there isn't one in the house)
Why not have both?
I'm a developer and manager with 20+ years experience, not a luddite by any means. But I'm convinced that, at least for the next couple of years, these types of toys are better than a peecee with even the best educational software.
Just think - most folks spend $1,000 on a peecee. If I spent that much on an erector set, my boyz would put Pinky and the Brain out of business!
Meccano/Erector vs. Lego -- nuts and bolts (Score:2)
What I was always a fan of was Pipeworks. You can get Quadro now, which is essentially the same thign -- I used to build gokarts with them and race them down driveways.
/Brian
/Brian
Re:Capsela is even better than LEGO or Meccano (Score:2)
The problem with Capsela, which is why I guess they went out of business or stopped production, is that the pieces were too specialized. So it was great for building individual models out of the manual, but too difficult for me as a 7 year old kid to envision my own designs. Legos--oops, "Lego Building Blocks(tm)"--on the other hand, didn't build quite as wonderful motorized models, but they did give you smaller building blocks that allowed for a variety of models and let my imagination run wild. I suppose that's why I have no idea where that Capsela set is, while my cherished Lego sets remain built and stored to this day.
Re:Lego Dumbs It Down (Score:2)
Re:Why make kids play with the same toys that we h (Score:3)
YOU CAN MAKE...
Squares
Cubes
Triangles
Pyramids
Regular Polygons
And many more!
*yawn*
Think-A-Dot and DigiComp I (Score:2)
I had an erector set. It had sharp edges, a million little pieces, and I could never think of anything interesting to do with it.
I got my start programming with
- Think-A-Dot
- DigiComp I
Think-A-Dot was a plastic box with 8 flip-flops inside. You dropped marbles in the top to toggle them.DigiComp I was a 3-bit state machine, implemented in plastic. I spent hours programming it when I was 9 or 10.
Big pieces == low cost (Score:2)
They do that to keep the cost down.
Each big (hollow) custom piece replaces anywhere from 10 to 100 individual bricks in a Lego kit. This enables them to sell the kit at an affordable price.
Re:The same applies to software (Score:2)
I agree that you probably will never need to write assembly code, but understanding how assembly works on different platforms allows you to optimize your code for a variety of architectures.
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Re:The same applies to software (Score:2)
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erector sets were cool, but... (Score:2)
Well mate, here's a hint (Score:5)
I take it the gentleman refers to the trainsystem in ol' Blighty and I agree that it doesn't really work well; however I don't really link that to the rising popularity of Lego and the decline of Meccano, but more to the following factors:
Miss Thatchers unprecedented privatisation blizzard, which essentially wrecked all British utilities, by guaranteeing end user prices beyond believe without the necessity to invest into maintenance.
I don't think it's really efficient to split a national train system into umpteen private companies, each one of them considering stockholder profit far more important then customer satisfaction, clean trains or even security. The safety record of the British rail system is probably the worst in Europe, which brings us to another issue:
Railtrack, the infamous privatized infrastructure company, with an abyssimal track record for just about everything. Now, please repeat loud and clear: If any infrastructure of national importance is outsourced to a private entity you're fucked! The moment this happens profits are more important then the public...
You see, the UK is living proove for this fact: Watersupply, train system, electricity is about the most expensive in Europe, but provides the most rotten service to their customers. Just ask a fireman about what they did to the water pressure in order to avoid fines for water leaked through the rotten pipe system and no! the fire brigades don't consider this to be funny.
So sir, the demise of the British rail system is not due to Lego or Meccano, but due to greed, buddy favors and quite likely corrupt politicians.
No need to thank me...
The original quote was: (Score:3)
I think the original quote for that was from Kristian Wilson of Nintendo in 1989:
===
Don't blame Lego for Railtrack (Score:5)
As I understand it, the problems with British railways have a lot less to do with engineering than with finance and administration. Maybe all those kids who grew/are growing up on Railway Tycoon will be better equipped to realize that half-assed privatization is not a good idea.
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Re:Technic, anyone? (Score:3)
As some other poster noted, LEGO has the problem that with time it's moving toward the "few specialized pieces" approach instead of the "lots of unspecialized pieces". Technic is following the same trend: if you grab hold of the ORIGINAL technic boxes you'll see that they had very very few pieces, but they managed nevertheless to build objects of high complexity. I owned most of them as a kid (they still sit somewhere at my parent's), and in particular I remember the first "car" box, featuring 4-piston engine, gearbox (3 speeds, I think), steering wheel, adjustable seats, and all of this done with basically the classic lego pieces plus 20-30 parts (shafts, wheels,....).
What's more interesting is that with the same parts you could build anything else, since they were absolutely non-specialized, pushing creativity much more that the current sets.
See what I mean at this site [sunysb.edu].
yes, but they now they are smarting up again (Score:4)
The blocks are bigger now than before. However, I saw an interview with a chief designer/engineer at Lego on Danish TV a year ago, and he said that this was a trend Lego got into in the 90's, and that they wanted to move away from it, as many of their customers were complaining about it..... so there's hope
BTW, a tidbit you might appreciate: A couple of years ago part of the LEGO Technic [lego.com] assortment was targeted in Danish newspapers towards adult men! A picture of 40 year old man in a suit toying around with a few pieces. I thought it was so cool, but I don't think it was a commercial success. I guess girlfriends would rather buy sweaters than toys for they husbonds for Xmas.
Oh yeah.... another tidbit.... LEGOs longterm vision: Programmable intelligent blocks - think OBJECTS! Very cool that LEGO, which AFAIK inspired OOP, now wants to take the idea back and use it to develop themselves.
-Kraft
British Engineering ain't that mechanical (Score:3)
The only really cutting edge areas for mechanical engineering are manufacture of ICs and Formula One racing. Perhaps the ignorant fool has not noticed but the British Formula One industry is a multi-billion dollar concern. Also Ford may have closed the plant making the Ford Fiesta (budget hatchback) in Halewood, but they replaced it with the plant making the Jaguar X-Type.
I had a Meccano set growing up, a number 6 set with several extras. The box must have weighed about 30 or 40 lb. At the time the same set new would have cost several hundred pounds. Today it would probably cost over a thousand.
I also had lego and from an earlier age. Most kids can't start with lego until they are 9, they don't have the strength to do the bolts. You can start with the duplo lego at 3 and on the real stuff by 6.
When technical lego first came out it was very much a competitor for Meccano. As time has gone on though they seem to have dumbed it down. Most sets have at least one unique piece so that to build it you have to buy the set.
Unfortunately the comp-sci version of Meccano has yet to be written. When I grew up with the Commodore PET and the ZX-80 personal computers were pretty simple and well within the understanding of a 12 year old. Today the PC is beyond anyone's understanding.
Traditional rant (Score:3)
When I was younger, we didn't have any of those (modern gadget)s. We had the (old junk), that was good and lasted forever. Now, the kids can't even...
My Grandpa wasn't a nobelist, so he didn't make it to the news, but that's the only difference I can see.
Re:Technic, anyone? (Score:3)
Isn't that just preparing him for a job on an assembly line?
Sure, Lego Technic is fun, but Mecanno encourages you to invent new things.
Right idea... (Score:3)
I also don't think much of modern LEGO. The sets I grew up with had hundreds of little pieces that could be used to make all sorts of things, but the modern sets have a few large pieces that can only really make one design. This is a pity. In fact, if you look at the really good LEGO models on the 'Net, they use lots of small pieces rather than a few big pieces.
Not all Lego is created equal (Score:4)
OK, as an IT consultant and lego fan, I feel compelled to speak (type). I got into lego in 1976 and I'm now a hard-core collector, 300-400 sets. I've also run an online parts auction and bought and sold many sets on e-bay
In my opinion, lego has changed greatly over the years. Sets got more complicated, then a lot less complicated. But still, it's silly to go to the store and look at the shelves and only use that subset of available sets to develop an opinion as a whole. What's happened to town sets in the last few years is very sad. Buildings used to be made of many smaller bricks, now they're fewer, larger pieces. But that's just what's on the shelves. There's a complete line of very good train sets that are largely only available from lego shop at home. The same is also true for technic sets.
I've played with erector sets and I believe that they can't compare to lego technic. Lego technic has transmissions, differentials, crown gears, bicycle style chains, spring-loaded pieces, pneumatics, and electric lights and motors, as well as countless connectors in all shapes and sizes that can produce literally anything. As an example, I'm currently working on a motorized Lego gatling gun.
So to me, lego is easily more advanced than erector sets. As an example, have a look at set #8888, which is the black super car. It had a v8 with working pistons, a working transmission, 4 wheel steering, 4 wheel independant suspension, and 4 wheel drive through three differentials and constant velocity joints.
Re:Well mate, here's a hint (Score:4)
New Zealand has a privatised electricity production industry and it keeps electricity prices down. It's a little thing called competition.
Repeat loud and clear: If any infrastructure of national importance is outsourced to a private entity with competiton, prices and service will plummet and sky rocket respectively. The reason? Money. If people don't like your prices or service, they'll likely to drop you and give their cash to your competiton.
Before New Zealand's power and rail systems were privatised, they were a shambles. NZRail employed people who did nothing but maintain disused stretches of track - what a waste of my money and on a service I don't even use.
So mate, next time you want to go ranting about privatisation being "bad", kindly remove your blinkers and look at more than one case before forming an opinion.
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Lego Dumbs It Down (Score:5)
Nowadays, Lego comes in HUGE custom pieces. The sheer number of blocks you get in a Lego set these days is tiny compared to when I was 10. It involves a lot less thinking.
You could draw a parallel with Windows/Linux. Linux comes in lots of little pieces (in a big box of course), and to get your OS to work the way you want it to, you have to make sure all those pieces are compatable.
With Windows, you get huge custom pieces that can't be used for much else than the picture on the front of the box.
Modern Lego just dumbs the whole process down if you ask me.
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never really liked Lego (Score:3)
Games dont affect kids (Score:3)
That would mean that we would by now have a bunch of teenagers running around in dark rooms, listening to monotonous music and eating pills..
alfakrøll
Re:Don't blame Lego for Railtrack (Score:4)
As they where spending all the time streaching their legs and they where so close to retirment age any way RT sacked them.
3 years on RT is wondering where all their enginears are and why no one seams to inspect/understand large sections of the inferstructure any more