fischertechnik

It's been a long time since I posted here. Mostly because I've simply come to enjoy the smaller constructions, and when revisiting what I already have posted about with larger projects, it seems redundant. But also partly because sometimes stuff gets tangled up in my head and I start avoiding it, be that specific block sets or posting in general.

I got my first fischertechnik stuff a few years ago, before I was blogging. I thought fischertechnik was great, and really enjoyed how the pieces went together. But I had gotten a used, "looks like it's all there," batch, and it turned out that even with a second lot I was missing just enough of the critical basic pieces to not be able to build even the simpler example designs.

That is one of the experiences that taught me that if I expected to build with something, I needed to start with a known complete starter set, and only use "not sure it's all there" lots for supplements. It seems like all too often, someone has built some small introductory model which has wandered off, and what is left is all the special and advanced pieces, but a gap in the basic pieces.

Unfortunately, that experience has sometimes "burned my fingers," and compounded with guilt-by-association with mental health crashes, I have trouble even getting that stuff back out.

But I've learned more about that process in the last year or two, and learned more about repeating the "stages of block building" after any sort of break - and having and using a reentry path.

So last August I got a fischertechnik "mini" set (all of my fischertechnik is from the 1970s -- while newer fischertechnik looks nice, it is the older -- or fischertechnik classic -- that grabs me), and proved the point about starting small and re-starting small. And that seems to have led to only making one more Block Play post. Oops.

Well shucks. Is it reasonable to have stopped posting just because everything I did that wasn't smaller constructions with sets for which I had already posted larger and more impressive projects, or else was "not really blocks"?

fischertechnik (not "Fischer Technik") has some block-like pieces, but the real reason it belongs here is simply that when I am playing with it, the activity is one of a constellation of similar activities that, for want of a better label, I have chosen to label block play. And it is good block play.