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In lugnet.loc.uk, Simon Bennett writes:
> Dear All
>
> There was a letter in last week's New Civil Engineer which I shall reproduce
> for you:
>
> "I support the suggestion made by your correspondent (nCE 7 June) that
> Meccano be adopted by schools to assist in the study of construction.
> Unfortunately it is my experience that teachers expect children to construct
> things using Lego, which although it has some merits, is absolutely hopeless
> for modelling structures or demonstrating mechanics."
>
> The writer provided his address so after a few hours to calm down I thought
> we might like to respond to this.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Psi
I think it's probably been written by someone who missed out on the whole
Technic line by being quite old and narrow-minded. Since when did Meccano
have a helicopter swashplate on their parts inventory? And can you build
epicyclic gearboxes out of Meccano?
Having said that, maybe Meccano is better for mechanical demonstrations,
since it's a lot sturdier. But, it takes so much meticulous planning to
build anything decent. For kids to learn and build for themselves, Lego
wins hands down.
You see, the other thing this misses out on is that education is no longer
about the teacher demonstrating and the kids writing down what happened.
It's about letting the kids experiment too - and not pre-defined experiments
with copyable results either.
Try setting a challenge to build a wall, that's going to be hit by a
mechanical wrecking ball. Give kids a few tries with Lego and see how many
reinforcement methods they can come up with. Then try doing that exercise
with Meccano...
Jason J Railton
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | New Civil Engineer letter
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| Dear All There was a letter in last week's New Civil Engineer which I shall reproduce for you: "I support the suggestion made by your correspondent (nCE 7 June) that Meccano be adopted by schools to assist in the study of construction. Unfortunately (...) (23 years ago, 2-Jul-01, to lugnet.loc.uk, lugnet.mediawatch) !
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