Toys to Tools: Learning not to make stuff.....

High end road racing bicycles mostly. The torques and adjustments are infintesimally precise.
 
Uglydog said:
Saw this article about the demise of a large toy store.
The cause reflects a cultural shift in how and what children are learning. I'm wondering if there are long term implications for home shops and industry.

By the 1990s, toys had to do things: They blinked, they spoke, they walked or rolled along the floor. They operated not according to the whims of children but according to definitions imposed by their creators. And a piece of the imagination died.

.... nowadays even very young children prefer the touchable screen to the touchable toy. Apart from a niche here and there, toy stores no longer serve any discernible function."

Daryl
MN
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Interesting article but this guy definitely grew up in a later gen and possibly another world. My first vivid memory of a toy was when I was 5 and we all went in for Christmas morning. This was 1958 and I got a robot that was about 10"tall, all metal, flashing lights, moved on wheels and stopped periodically and waved it arms and when it bumped into something would back up and go another direction. There were cars that had that too. But of course it didn't last too long because me siblings were like a pack hyenas destroying everything in their path.

Toys have changed but not to the extent the article says IMHO. What killed TRU if you look at its history was one financial buyout after another and then somebody with the next great idea. There is a great docu-series on Netflix about the "Toys that made us" i think it's called. TRU made nothing, they were only a distributor and had to buy can carry al the licenses on the toys. Check out what Lucas make on the toys, more than the movies. Just boils down to TRU couldn't compete with Amazon and Wallmart. And the constant gutting by the likes of Bain Capital etc.

My experience is that the real culprit is tv itself. It's the gateway drug to screen addiction. There's nothing interactive about it and when you see the estimates of average tv watching you get an idea. I never was much into tv, even though most kids would come home and watch kid shows and cartoons in the afternoon after school. We had too much fun running amok down at the local creek or playing basketball etc.

There are no shop classes offered at the local schools. The cuts in funding and "every child left behind " made sure of that. And even before outsourcing no company around here had apprenticeship programs,they all disappeared after WWII. So you have to pay for college to get a trade and there's little or no jobs. All the factory work around here you have to work through a temp agency for 2-3yrs and you might get hired. You tell me, where's the incentive ? It's pretty clear working hard is for chumps and chumps get their hands dirty while the truly smart work for WallSt dreaming up the next "financial instrument" scam making more in a day than I did in a decade getting my hands dirty.

I'm such a chump I don't regret it nor stop from getting my hands dirty because thats what I love. But i see the causes a bit differently.
 
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jrkorman said:
If you think about it, it started many years ago - There were plan books with your Erector Set, Tinker Toys, Legos, etc through the 70s and 80s. But more and more "instruction" was added on "How to play with your toy" When my kids were growing up (90s and 00s) I threw the instruction booklets in a drawer, mostly never to be seen. I didn't want someone telling them how they should play.
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This is something I continue to be disgruntled with LEGO. The first "sets" of legos I had weren't much more than just blocks. You imagination fueled what you made. The kits now are almost unrecognizable to me. You almost NEED to follow the directions to make anything and can hardly let you mind roam. There are just far too many specifically molded components to allow free building. My son turns seven this year and loves playing with my childhood legos simply because you can build what you can imagine, and don't need to follow the instructions.
 
You can still buy bags of misc lego parts and most of the "Kits" I have , unless I put them behind, glass, end up in a tub of misc lego parts. Of course, as my avatar shows, you can just make them out of brass :)
 
ZSK said:
This is something I continue to be disgruntled with LEGO. The first "sets" of legos I had weren't much more than just blocks. You imagination fueled what you made. The kits now are almost unrecognizable to me. You almost NEED to follow the directions to make anything and can hardly let you mind roam. There are just far too many specifically molded components to allow free building. My son turns seven this year and loves playing with my childhood legos simply because you can build what you can imagine, and don't need to follow the instructions.
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Kids can amaze you. My son had his Lego plus some Technics parts that I purchased off ebay. He was still making things into his teens! In the Navy now, I'm hoping that giving him the opportunity to make things instead of just follow instruction has helped him!
 
My son loved Lego. He was funny in that he wanted certain kits but he never made what was on the box, never. My buddy's two boys had all their Lego displayed on shelves like models. It never occured to them to modify them until my son came to play. At first they were truly disturbed that his Lego were always just a plastic box of parts he'd dump out on the floor and then have at it. It took them a while to get it. My son grew up to be a digital comic artist and the other two the oldest is an electrical engineer and the youngest is a well known gypsy jazz guitar player. You could say they all make stuff I guess, just not out of metal or wood.
 
Not exactly on topic....But still applies since this documentary is about media and consumerism. I'm still optimistic that people will not allow themselves and the world to self destruct by way of the computer. Its just a cycle IMO.

Its a multipart video but is extremely interesting.
Anyway... my optimism comes from the news story of the Utah Law which now allows kids to walk home unattended.
Free Range Kids- https://www.cbsnews.com/video/mother-behind-the-free-range-kids-movement-on-utahs-new-law/
 
It would have been a boring life without Erector sets. I'm up to 71 sets now
and I'm happy....
 
I wonder what the long term effects of this kind of childhood entertainment, loss of real connections with other humans, climbing trees, riding bikes, playing in the dirt etc...will have on our society in the future.I'm not a huge fan of millennials, but crotchety old guys are never a fan of youth. I'm wonder what they will be like running this country, or maybe their children.
 
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