Erector Set is the trade name of a toy
construction setA construction set is a set of standardized pieces that allow for the construction of a variety of different models. The pieces avoid the lead time of manufacturing custom pieces, and of requiring special training or design time to construct complex systems...
that is popular in the United States.
It consists of collections of small metal beams with regular holes for
nutA nut is a type of hardware fastener with a threaded hole. Nuts are almost always used opposite a mating bolt to fasten a stack of parts together. The two partners are kept together by a combination of their threads' friction, a slight stretch of the bolt, and compression of the parts...
s,
boltA screw, or bolt, is a type of fastener characterized by a helical ridge, known as an external thread or just thread, wrapped around a cylinder. Some screw threads are designed to mate with a complementary thread, known as an internal thread, often in the form of a nut or an object that has the...
s, screws, and mechanical parts such as
pulleyA pulley, also called a sheave or a drum, is a mechanism composed of a wheel on an axle or shaft that may have a groove between two flanges around its circumference. A rope, cable, belt, or chain usually runs over the wheel and inside the groove, if present...
s,
gearA gear is a rotating machine part having cut teeth, or cogs, which mesh with another toothed part in order to transmit torque. Two or more gears working in tandem are called a transmission and can produce a mechanical advantage through a gear ratio and thus may be considered a simple machine....
s, and small
electric motorAn electric motor converts electrical energy into mechanical energy.Most electric motors operate through the interaction of magnetic fields and current-carrying conductors to generate force...
s.
The brand name is currently used for
MeccanoMeccano is a model construction system comprising re-usable metal strips, plates, angle girders, wheels, axles and gears, with nuts and bolts to connect the pieces. It enables the building of working models and mechanical devices....
sets sold in the United States.
History
Patented in 1913, The Erector Set was invented by
AC GilbertAlfred Carlton Gilbert was an American inventor, athlete, toy-maker and businessman. Born in Salem, Oregon and died in Boston, Massachusetts, Gilbert is best known as the inventor of the Erector Set.-Early life:...
in 1911, and was manufactured by the
A. C. Gilbert CompanyThe A. C. Gilbert Company was an American toy company, once one of the largest toy companies in the world. It is best known for introducing the Erector Set to the marketplace....
at the Erector Square factory in New Haven,
ConnecticutConnecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, from 1913 until its bankruptcy in 1967. The Gabriel company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania bought the Erector name, and continued to make nearly identical sets into the 1970s and 1980s.
The Erector Set is believed by many to have been the subject of the first national
advertising campaignAn advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication...
in America for a toy. Its great success made it part of American folk culture, although its popularity has faded in recent decades in the face of competition from molded plastic construction toys, electronics, and other more "modern" toys.
The Erector Set was inducted into the
National Toy Hall of FameThe National Toy Hall of Fame is an American hall of fame that recognizes the contributions of toys and games that have sustained their popularity for many years...
at
The StrongThe Strong is an interactive, collections-based educational institution in Rochester, New York, USA, devoted to the study and exploration of play...
in
Rochester, New YorkRochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
, in 1998.
Scores, perhaps hundreds, of different Erector Set kits have been made over the decades, most famously the "No. 12½" deluxe kit that came with blueprints for the "Mysterious Walking Giant" robot.
Current "Erector" sets are actually
MeccanoMeccano is a model construction system comprising re-usable metal strips, plates, angle girders, wheels, axles and gears, with nuts and bolts to connect the pieces. It enables the building of working models and mechanical devices....
sets manufactured by
Meccano S.N.Meccano Ltd was a British toy company established in 1908 by Frank Hornby in England to manufacture and distribute Meccano and other model toys and kits created by the company...
of France, part of the Nikko Group of Japan. They do not have the flanged beams of the original Gilbert Erector Sets. In the United States, since January 2008, these Erector sets have been distributed by Schylling Toys.
An extensive collection of Erector sets, model trains,
chemistry setA chemistry set is an educational toy allowing the user to perform simple chemistry experiments. The best known such sets were produced by the A. C. Gilbert Company, an early and middle 20th century American manufacturer of educational toys...
s, radioactivity experimentation kits,
microscopeA microscope is an instrument used to see objects that are too small for the naked eye. The science of investigating small objects using such an instrument is called microscopy...
s, and other AC Gilbert Company scientific and educational children's toys is housed in the
Eli Whitney MuseumThe Eli Whitney Museum, in Hamden, Connecticut, is an experimental learning workshop for students, teachers, and families. The museum focuses on teaching experiments that are the roots of design and invention, featuring hands-on building projects and exhibits on Eli Whitney and A. C...
, in
Hamden, ConnecticutHamden is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The town's nickname is "The Land of the Sleeping Giant." Hamden is home to Quinnipiac University. The population was 58,180 according to the Census Bureau's 2005 estimates...
.
Movie
In 2002 a movie based on A.C. Gilbert's life called
The Man Who Saved Christmas was made for TV.
Applications
In 1949, an Erector Set was used to build the precursor to the modern
artificial heartAn artificial heart is a mechanical device that replaces the heart. Artificial hearts are typically used in order to bridge the time to heart transplantation, or to permanently replace the heart in case transplantation is impossible...
by Drs.
William SewellWilliam Sewell , English divine and author, was born at Newport, Isle of Wight, the son of a solicitor.He was educated at Winchester and Merton College, Oxford, was elected a fellow of Exeter College in 1827, and from 1831-1853 was a tutor there. From 1836-1841 he was White's Professor of Moral...
and
William GlennWilliam Wallace Lumpkin Glenn was an American cardiac surgeon who co-created an early version of an artificial heart and was the developer of a technique for the treatment of congenital heart defects....
of the
Yale School of MedicineThe Yale School of Medicine at Yale University is a private medical school located in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. It was founded in 1810 as The Medical Institution of Yale College, and formally opened its doors in 1813....
. The external pump successfully bypassed the heart of a dog for more than an hour.
An Erector Set was used by Dr. Kevorkian to design his first
assisted suicideAssisted suicide is the common term for actions by which an individual helps another person voluntarily bring about his or her own death. "Assistance" may mean providing one with the means to end one's own life, but may extend to other actions. It differs to euthanasia where another person ends...
machine, as seen in the HBO movie,
You Don't Know JackYou Don't Know Jack is a 2010 television film directed by Barry Levinson and starring Al Pacino as Jack Kevorkian, based in part on the book, "Between the Dying and the Dead: Dr. Jack Kevorkian's Life And The Battle To Legalize Euthanasia"...
, featuring
Al PacinoAlfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...
.
The "Soarin'" attraction at Walt Disney World's
EpcotEpcot is a theme park in the Walt Disney World Resort, located near Orlando, Florida. The park is dedicated to the celebration of human achievement, namely international culture and technological innovation. The second park built at the resort, it opened on October 1, 1982 and was initially named...
near
Orlando, FloridaOrlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...
was designed with an Erector Set.
See also
- Construx
Construx was a brand of plastic building toys introduced by Fisher-Price in 1983. Unlike other building toys such as Lego, Construx featured beam-like pieces of varying lengths that snapped on to cubical connector knots in order to build large shapes. These were relatively secure even though no...
- Girder and Panel building sets
Girder and Panel Building Sets were a series of plastic toy construction kits created by Kenner Toys in the mid 1950s. These construction kits enabled a child to build plastic models of mid-twentieth century style buildings...
- Lego
Lego is a line of construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of colorful interlocking plastic bricks and an accompanying array of gears, minifigures and various other parts...
- Lincoln Logs
Lincoln Logs is the name of a children's toy consisting of notched miniature logs, used to build miniature forts and buildings. They were invented by John L. Wright, son of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright...
- Lionel Corp.
Lionel Corporation was an American toy manufacturer and retailer that did business from 1900 to 1993. Founded as an electrical novelties company, Lionel specialized in various products throughout its existence, but toy trains and model railroads were its main claim to fame...
briefly made a construction set in the immediate postwar era
- Märklin
Gebr. Märklin & Cie. GmbH or Märklin is a German toy company. The company was founded in 1859 and is based at Göppingen in Baden-Wurttemberg. Although it originally specialised in doll house accessories, today it is best known for model railways and technical toys...
- Meccano
Meccano is a model construction system comprising re-usable metal strips, plates, angle girders, wheels, axles and gears, with nuts and bolts to connect the pieces. It enables the building of working models and mechanical devices....
- Merkur sets
Merkur refers to a metal construction set built in Czechoslovakia . It was also referred to as Constructo or Build-o in English-speaking countries and Tecc in the Netherlands....
- Steel Tec
Steel Tec is a metal construction toy similar to Meccano. It used a combination of metal and plastic parts held together by metal screws.It was manufactured in China by the Azrak Hamway International, Inc. from 1992 to 1997. The rights are currently held by JAKKS Pacific, Inc.Unlike Meccano , the...
- Tinkertoy
The Tinkertoy Construction Set was created in 1914—one year after the A. C. Gilbert Company's Erector Set—by Charles H. Pajeau and Robert Pettit in Evanston, Illinois. Pajeau, a stonemason, designed the toy after seeing children play with pencils and empty spools of thread. He and...
- K'Nex
K'Nex is a brand name of a construction toy system invented by Joel Glickman, designed and produced by Industries of Hatfield, Pennsylvania, USA. Currently Michael Araten is the president of the organization. The name is, presumably, a phonetic variation of connects, and is pronounced the same way...
External links