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The ghost of Christmas past..

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granddad

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Wife and I were reminiscing over breakfast , how it was in the 1950's Christmas, as a middle child of three and a family that struggled after the war, it was not that exciting, but one year Santa bought me a number 1 Mecano set... not much to make, perhaps a crane, but I saved my 6p pocket money and periodically visited the local toy shop, Twiggs they had a big wooden cabinet full of Mecano individual parts, :D I spent an age looking but could only afford one or two small bits, a angle strip , or axle rod, a packet of fish-plates ( You might want to google that one ) Would have liked some brass gears, but that came later after helping big brother with his paper round . Perhaps this started me off with an 'engineering ' brain. I suppose an Arduino would be an equivalent in today's hi-tech world.
Mecano is still made but its not the same ...
 
I think I got my start with Lego and their Technic sets, as well as Mecano. They had all sorts of neat pieces and I had a blast trying to construct them in a logical and useful manner. As I got older I started adding electronics to my constructions and things took off from there.

Great sets, Lego and Mecano.
 
An ERECTOR set (4 1/2) for me (I think I was 7, so maybe 1955). Had the windup motor. Made a crane. When I finally got an electric (AC) motor, I was introduced to "over-heating"; stupid little motor got very hot (almost immediately) and smelled up the whole room...

Led me into both mechanical AND electrical pursuits.
 
Great sets, Lego and Mecano.
With you there, My kids had Lego,( the 40 yo still does ! ) I tried to encourage them to not just make the toy in the instructions ... seem its all the children do ... follow the kit instructions. ( bit of an exaggeration ! ) But if asked to help the grand kids I get told off for doing it wrong !
 
Someone mention Ghosts? :D
 
Well Well, look what the cat dragged in!

Long time no see, have they given you time off for good behaviour?

What have you been up to LG?
Have you invented cold fusion yet?

JimB
 
Hi LG... Got any toy stories ?
I'm guessing an airfix kid ...
 
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Well Well, look what the cat dragged in!

Long time no see, have they given you time off for good behaviour?

What have you been up to LG?
Have you invented cold fusion yet?

JimB

Nah bloody flux capacitor keeps failing! i might try warm fusion........just dosnt have the cred, plus i am low on 222 transistors. A couple of years ago cold fusion would of been awesome! I am pretty sure there is an Arduino shield for it now :D.

Truth be told i went and hid, nerves and probably a lack of talent, got to me and i failed my exams. Actually failed is an understatement of just how spectacularly bad i did. Soo i was extremely mature about it and went and hid!

The worse bit for me was walking out of the exam, and suddenly have the answers flood in my head. In retrospect it would have been better had they not come back. I get to do resits sometime in the spring, thats if i can find a way not to pressure myself.

How did you all cope with exams? I still dont know how you can prepare so much for a exam, and yet not have a single sensible answer come during the exam. The worse part is the exam wasnt hard, even those considered not the sharpest did well. Was pretty hard facing people having failed, most the people around me thought i would walk it. I stayed off school a couple of months after :oops:.

i only came back in case you needed advice Jim :p, i felt guilty you had to answer the hard stuff on your own lol.
 
My experience with Erector Set prepared me for this project.
Building a screen enclosure was added to my job description this week.
I keep telling them that I specialize in miscellaneous.

Screen frame sm.jpg
 
I still got all my dads old mechano stuff, he collected it for years. I think anyone calling mechano a toy has never used it, my dad used make loads of quick prototypes with it. Probably one of the greatest inventions ever! I didnt know they cam with instructions!! Kind of defeats the point of having it.
 
Its probably obvious , but never passed an exam in my life... a few 'tests' but nothing with letters .
In the last couple of weeks leading upto them, everyone kept telling me i would walk it, in some ways i ended up feeling really pressured. The first exam started 2 hours late, by the time i got into the exam room my head was a total blank.

Once we got the papers back, my teacher went through and asked me each question, i got around 90% right. That made things worse in some ways, i hadnt had exam nerves before so not sure why i did this time.
 
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