Tinkertoy

The Tinkertoy Construction Set is a toy for children. It was created in 1914 by Charles H. Pajeau and Robert Pettit in Evanston - one year after the AC Gilbert Erector Set of the Company. Pajeau, a stonemason, designed the toy after he had seen children playing with pencils and empty spools of thread. He and Pettit brought Tinkertoy as a toy that would stimulate the imagination of children on the market.

The cornerstone of the set consists of a wooden spool of about 5 centimeters in diameter. All 45 degrees around the perimeter is a hole drilled through the center and, although this hole is in contrast to the perimeter holes drilled all the way through. Because of the different lengths of sticks, the set is based on the Pythagorean theorem.

Tinkertoy was carried posters that model Ferris wheels were made ​​known in and around Chicago. With Tinkertoy complex machines were surprisingly created, for example, Danny Hillis ' tic- tac-toe computer, which is presently located in Mountain View, Computer History Museum, and in 1998 at Cornell University a robot.

Hasbro owns the rights to sell Tinkertoy and produces the components of plastic and wood.

Standard parts

In addition to the parts already described contains a Tinkertoy set:

  • Wheels, is thinner than the coil, but larger in diameter. As the coils they have a transition adjustment in their midst.
  • Caps, originally made of wood, later of plastic, cylindrical pieces with an axis- shaped hole that is adapted to the rods.
  • Connectors, small cylindrical pieces (actually wood, later plastic), about 5 inches long and an inch in diameter, with holes at each end and a through hole through the center.
  • " Part IV ", about the same size and shape as the coils, but with a radius holes 90 degrees away from each other, holes in the center and four through-holes that are parallel to the hole in the center. Coils have outside a groove, " Part IV " has two parallel. It is intended for constructions such as " cage " or " Light transmission ".
  • Short, pointed rods ( originally wooden, and later plastic), usually red, flag, usually green plastic, and various other small parts.

The bars are notched at both ends to keep them in the holes into which they are inserted, better, but also so that you can put cards, flags and threads into the notches. They are colored according to their size, in the set of the 1960s, they were, in ascending order of size, orange, yellow, blue, red, green and purple. Each long bar is the next smaller size times the square root of two; then two bars of the same size with one of the next larger and connect an isosceles and right triangle can be formed.

There are also sets with battery-powered motors, so can the movements of the machine to set different speeds.

Swell

  • Strange, Craig. A Guide for Tinkertoy - collector ( English ). ISBN 0-89145-703-8.
  • Alexander Dewdney. The Tinkertoy computer and other machines ( English ). ISBN 0-7167-2491 -X.
Evanston (Illinois)
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