This is definitely connected to the Defender Dan post.
As a five year old boy, I was given a set of Lincoln Logs as a toy for Christmas of 1960. Many of the pieces were created to be interlocking, so that any number of possible combinations could be assembled to make various simple, and sometimes recognizable, structures. When the “creator” within got tired of a certain iteration or assembly, the structure was disassembled, and reassembled into newer versions, only limited by the imagination and the potential for complexity of design of the Lincoln Logs themselves. When I was finished, I would usually replace the logs back into a big can, and call it “good”.
As a six year old boy, I was given an Erector Set. It was two or three orders of complexity greater for me, yet it offered many more opportunities for creativity and innovation as I assembled, and reassembled, the components into various designs which I either imagined in advance, and implemented, or which I stumbled upon, through random assembly. Like the Lincoln Logs, when I was through with my “creative expression”, I would just disassemble, and replace the individual components back into the box.
As I matured, plastic model ships and airplanes came to my attention. I made many trips to the hobby shop purchasing new projects to assemble, all of the way until I was in 8th grade.
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