Yeah, no. We had Erector, which fucking sucks. 1) It's a step above pot metal. Literally scrap steel. Yield strength of zero, which means when you bend it, it's bent. And it bends really goddamn easily. 2) So structural integrity is added by stamping it. So all your "i-beams" are these dimpled pieces of shit that go straight, straight or straight. Want to put them together at an angle? Guess what? You just bent it. Irrevocably. 3) Nuts are square. Bolts are round-head slotted screws. Threads on nuts are deliberately looser than threads on bolts, so you can't fully attach shit. 4) Plates were plastic, and brittle plastic at that. They'd bend until they broke. Or, if you left them out in the sun at 7,000 feet, where I lived, the UV damage would reduce them to autumn leaves in a day or so. Erector is such shit. I'm so glad it's dead dead dead. You could try and build the shit on the box, but the erector set you got for $30 would build, like, nothing.
Oh no, K'nex was must've been made out of a new plastic-titanium alloy because I don't remember it ever bending. That, or I wasn't a very strong kid. Bonus: if you had some money (I didn't) you could make some really cool looking rollercoasters out of it: Too bad it always goes way too fast through the track. Still, you try building this out of Erector:1) It's a step above pot metal. Literally scrap steel. Yield strength of zero, which means when you bend it, it's bent. And it bends really goddamn easily.
Yeah. Did I mention the rusting? I mean, I lived in the middle of the goddamn desert at 7,000 feet. cars don't rust. Erector? If you didn't rub that shit down with WD-40 it'd rust. Now I'm pissed off about the missed opportunities of my youth due to the shitpile that was Erector. ;-)
Mindstorms, yo. Mindstorms. I also found my wife's old Robotix set in her mom's garage. She's got some Capsela, too. We're already messing around with her Little People. They're dope. They're, like, wood. They were used when grandma got them and that was '75. I mean, Mr. Hooper.