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Description

Erector set-like smart interconnectors enable a child to create objects for play from sticks found around. thus carts and cots can be strong enough carry the weight of playing children.

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Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

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We cannot be held accountable for injuries incurred during construction or usage of our designs and construction manuals.

Construction toy
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Prototype Twentyfold cost reduction Applicable in modern as well as in poor economies Education Comfort Rural as well as urban.



Why
Erector-like sets have a tremendous educational value. They help to gain spatial understanding and to learn by experimenting about strength and stability of constructions. Many of the people we know with a mechanical mind set, able to design and construct objects and machines have learned this by play with an erector set.
It is obvious that having the chance to play with Meccano in one's youth helps a lot in solving technical problems when older. A drawback of the Meccano or Lego construction parts is the scale. What can be constructed with it is never more then a model of something that is normally larger in scale. If what can be constructed has a size and a sturdiness, in which it can perform a realistic function as a hut or a cart, it may help to develop a childs ability to take initiative. This would also integrate playing with construction materials in other games in which a child is involved with mates.

How
Thin, straight sticks are interconnected when they are stuck into holes drilled into blocks and fastened with wedges of a special design. These provide a sturdy connection although they can be placed and removed by hand. Disks can turn around the sticks. Cart and cots in any shape can so be made by a kid.
These sticks can be interconnected either flexible, or free to rotate or stiff and sturdy with construction elements that children can easily handle. Such construction elements can be blocks of wood in which sticks can be fastened with wedges or rubber strips for flexible joints. Bushes that can act as bearings for parts that turn can also be attached to such flexible rubber strips or blocks. Fastening of the parts is done in a way it can be done by children without tools. Cart and cots in any shape can so be made by a kid.





Planned progress

  • To find an alternative for the wooden blocks as intermediate connectors. Interconnectors could be made from rubber or from metal sheet.
  • To research into the value of toys for pleasure and development of children in poor villages. Is a lack of toys compensated for by an environment with many playmates and a high diversity of objects and animals?
  • Research into the need for (construction) toys for children in poor urban quarters.



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