Things that taught you as a child

[fizzy]

Are you sure? You can buy everything online now, my brother and I made "Rocket candy" a few months ago.

I daren't though!
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing - a lot of knowledge is a LOT worse!
Sometimes I do envy the Yanks!

 

[Fazerruss]

A couple of tv documentaries to add to the mix I loved as a kid:

Tomorrow's world
The secret life of machines

 

[Chillitt]

When other kids were reading Beano and Eagle, we had World of Wonder. Not the coolest thing for a kid, and no one else wanted to swap but it was educational. Sadly a lot of that education turns out to be the stuff that sets off the QI klaxon...

 

[Tinbasherdan]

This pretty much sums up me growing up (I always take the scientist route ).

Original comic site here: https://xkcd.com/

Check out the dilbert "engineer" cartoon, says it all

 

[Tinbasherdan]

I'm so pleased to see my 9 year old Granddaughter often has her nose in a book. I was brought up in the country on a farm. I was often left to amuse myself with a hammer and nails etc and learnt a lot from an Uncle who had built a steam railway and "knew a lot about electricity etc".
Whereas she has lived in east London all her life but has travelled a lot. In fact she has seen far more of the world than I have . However at her age I enjoyed the Arthur Ransome, Swallows and Amazon books and when I saw a complete set for sale I asked her parents whether it would be ok to give them to her and got the answer that they "would not have much relevance to her". Bit my tongue but thought "as much relevance as Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings maybe?".

Paddled out to "wildcat" island (peel island) in coniston couple months back. Not been there since I was a kid in scouts

 

[Shedendman]

Airfix,lego,helping my dad work on his car by passing the wrong spanner and getting blamed for everything going wrong doing it
taking stuff apart that was working just fine,then putting it back together only to find it didnt work again(not broke dont fix it)
TV programs like Tomorrows world,Vision on, and HOW

 

[pedrobedro]

Hammer, hatchet nails, saw and rope were always favourite toys when we were kids.

 

[RaceDiagnostics]

My dad was a joiner so spent a lot of time on building sites learning all the trades.

Three great toys.

 

[rtbcomp]

^^ I had an electronics kit similar to that, but instead of a printed circuit you used wire to connect the components, thus you could experiment with your own circuits.

 

[fizzy]

My dad was a joiner so spent a lot of time on building sites learning all the trades.

Three great toys.

I had all 3 of those - the microscope kit had a few more bits in it I think though - the rest was identical. I remember there was a dead bee in one of the jars - I would never open it in case it came back to life!

 

[Parm]

Are you sure? You can buy everything online now, my brother and I made "Rocket candy" a few months ago.

What’s rocket candy ?

 

[Parm]

A couple of tv documentaries to add to the mix I loved as a kid:

Tomorrow's world
The secret life of machines

Every Thursday Evening

 

[Parm]

Mecanno and my grandads workshop

 

[JoelC]

For me book wise - I think the only fiction book series I read in anger was the Hardy Boys. The rest was all really books about facts, technology and engineering.

From a toy point of view - Lego was always my thing - at 34 I still wish I hadn’t of given it away. The rest was the usual taking apart and putting back together of whatever I could get hold of. Some stuff even worked afterwards

 

[Woody.v8]

This is where I went wrong in life , you lot was reading educational material,
I was reading Viz magazine

 

[Farside]

I used to get a bit carried away with chemistry - my best subject. I was actually taken by a policeman and the headmaster around every chemists shop in the area and they were told "Don't serve this boy any chemicals"! These days it would have been Guantanamo Bay! Fun is officially banned now!

When I was a lad the chemistry sets had only just started to become a bit anaemic, but I had one of the last of the older ones that had some proper dangerous stuff in it. I regularly went round the local chemist shops for supplies and nobody ever batted an eye at my requests. Indeed, when they knew what it was for, they couldn't have been more helpful.

 

[Revs1972]

That you shouldn't fill the science sink with gas from the Bunsen burner tap and chuck lit splints at it

 

[Dee J]

Doesn't so much seem to be source material as much as personal hunger... as a child I soaked up anything to do with tools, making and mending things, how things work etc. From Arthur Mees childrens encyclopedia, via back issues of practical householder and Tomorrows World... To me tools equal agency in the world. The ability to shape reality.

 

[8ob]

I had an ex REME dad who had me on the spanners helping him from a very early age, he would always give me something to do just to shut me up Its was much more fun building up a bicycle or gocart from bits than just buying one.

Bob

 

[Maker]

My dad was a joiner so spent a lot of time on building sites learning all the trades.

Three great toys.

I've got thag exact microscope in the shed somewhere, I think it was my dad's when he was younger.

What’s rocket candy ?

It's rocket fuel made from sugar and potassium nitrate. We didn't pack it into casings and try to launch anything but we found if you didn't dry it properly it makes an excellent smoke bomb.