I've been going through all the old issues of Robotics Age magazine (on archive.org ) In the March 1984 issue was an editorial titled "Why Toys?" Then, in the letters section was the letter/comment that provoked that editorial. Here is the text of that letter:
In regards to your "Super Armatron" article, why bother with toys?
Gary Hodgson
Heathkit
PO Box 691
Bridgeton, MO 63044
There was another letter following, which took a different point of view to the same article. The editorial and letters struck a nerve...
I was shocked that such an attitude came from anybody, much less from someone apparently employed by Heathkit!
First, a bit about the article. I haven't read it, but the editorial gave enough information to know what it was about. The Armatron was a robotic arm toy sold in the 80s by Radio Shack, among others. It had joystick controls to allow the operator to move the arm and open and close the gripper. It wasn't intended to be anything but that. A lot of experimenters at the time thought initially it was a great, inexpensive way to get a robotic arm to interface to a computer. Alas, it turned out not to be so great. It was a mechanical marvel. It had a single electric motors with all sorts of mechanical gearing and linkages control six different motions with that single motor. But the authors of that article persevered and managed to create a fairly sophisticated computer controlled arm from it.
But that isn't really the point of this post. As much as I like robots and computers, the nerve that was struck was much more fundamental.
Over the last 10,000 or so years, people have created all sorts of wonderful devices. And some not so wonderful. Often it was for some perceived need. But quite often it was rather whimsical, perhaps a toy. Those devices, even the less than great ones, embody a great deal of knowledge, ingenuity, and creativity. Toys are, for the most part, cheap: as cheap as their maker can make them. They are high volume, so money is put up front in engineering to be offset in manufacturing savings. They tend to have a high density of creative engineering -- a significant education in a $30 box!
When I was around ten years old, my dad was replacing the water pump on the family car. I was helping. That mostly meant handing him wrenches and tools: "give me a nine sixteenths." Among all the father-soon benefits of that, I also learned what nine-sixteenths looked like. That's a handy skill on its own. And an unusual one these days.
But the true learning value came when he got the old water pump off. Well, there was the "Advanced Cursing 510" before that... When he got the old water pump off, he handed it to me and said "figure out how it works." Ask a lot of university students how a water pump works, and you'll likely get some really good textbook answers. And some less-good answers. But there is a world of difference between a textbook and a water pump. Not only did I figure out how the impeller worked, but I also learned about the clearances needed, bearings, bushings, seals, gaskets, and pulleys. That was one of the most profitable hours of my education. I even revisited that old water pump several times. I kept it a long time, and continued to learn from it.
So, to the point, we can learn an awful lot that is really useful by taking things apart. Even better if we can put them back together and make them work again. But often these "educational deconstructions" lead to a non-working device afterward. Enter toys. As I mentioned, toys often have some amazing feats of engineering hidden beneath the plastic skin. And they're usually pretty cheap. So an educational foray into the innards of a toy might not end with a large financial loss. It can be a pretty cheap engineering education. Take it apart; figure out how all the parts work together; determine why each part is needed and what it does; wonder, "why did they do it this way instead of some other?"
And, you don't even need to buy new toys. You can find plenty of discarded broken toys. Finding out why it broke is more engineering education. Failure analysis is a huge part of engineering. Goodwill and thrift shops often have interesting toys for cheap. Radio control cars without the controller aren't much good for anything else, but they provide a wealth of knowledge under the screwdriver. Dollar stores, such as Dollar Tree, often have things like pull-back cars; you roll them backward and let them go and they race forward. Open one of these sometime. Better yet, have your kid open one. Even better, buy two. Have your kid take one apart and try to put it back together. Chances are the first one won't go back together right. But then the kid gets a second try. The positive feedback of how much they learned on the "failure" is great. And if they get the second one operational again, that's an amazing confidence booster.
And they'll be in really good company. Albert Einstein took apart clocks as a kid. He even got some back together. Worked out pretty well for him!
I studied physics in college. I was surrounded by incredibly brilliant young people. They were simply amazing at doing physics and math -- on paper. But ask them to build a simple electronic circuit they had just designed. I was utterly shocked at how difficult it was for these super-brilliant people to do simple hands-on, practical work. I suppose they never took their toys apart!
