27 Sep
2010
27 Sep
'10
5:43 a.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
Now I'm jealous ;-)
I was really interested in that Technic Lego that used to be around - I spent
many an hour designing gearboxes and the like. I'm not sure if you can even
get the stuff these days (or if it's anything like it used to be - gradually
there were more and more custom parts creeping into the model kits, and of
course anyone with a real interest in that stuff built the kit model once and
then used the parts to create their own things)
re. toys like
that though, I'm not sure if the problem is that kids today
don't like them - or that they don't get the chance to find out because
parents don't buy them and companies don't make/market them.
I think I've mentioend before that these days my parents would probably
be guilty of child cruelty or something. My 8th (I think) birthday
prsennt consisted of things like a woodworking tenon saw, a junior
hacksaw, a set of twist drills, a wheelbrace (hand drill) to use them in,
a small vice, and so on. I certianly think there are fewer constructional toys
around now than
there were perhaps 30 or 40 eyars ago. I must have over a dozen
different educational electronics systems, and none of them are Heathkit
:-). As I've said before, I think the Philips EE kits were the most fun,
but teher were others.
I was probably around 7 when I got one of those ones with the bendy springs
and a bunch of wires for making connections to components that were mounted on
the board - it was a good introduction to electronics. I don't remember how
old I was when I first tried soldering my own stuff together, though.
Be careful!. LH threads are always ued for a reason,
not becuase the
manufacturer is awkward.
I don;t know aobut compressors, but I rememebr there is some convention
with gas cylinders and the regulators for those.
Yeah, I asked around a while back, and it seems that general-purpose
compressors exist with both RH and LH threads for the regulators - there
doesn't seem to be any kind of standard. I don't care which way I have to turn
it to do what - it's a tool that has to be learnt, like any other - so I'd
much rather they used standard parts (although to be fair I suppose they never
thought that someone would be taking the regulator apart!)
cheers
Jules