Construction kit

Construction kit with wooden blocks

Child with Building Blocks , anonymous painter, 1853

A kit is a toy that consists of individual, easy-to-assemble parts. Originally the term used to refer to building blocks or building blocks, later other games as well. The purpose of a construction kit is to simplify the construction of a large number of objects for the playing child by means of prefabricated construction elements and thereby promote the joy of learning . The Fröbel gifts developed by Friedrich Fröbel for kindergartens are a detailed, pedagogically well thought-out system of building blocks, each of which builds on one another with extensions .

Building blocks

Building blocks were originally mostly made of wood and initially intended to be piled up. This toy became popular in 1882 with the Anker stone construction kit with stones made of artificial stone and in 1949 with the plug-in Lego blocks made of plastic. Further developments include the systems: Baufix , Constri , Fischertechnik , Plasticant , Formo and the metal construction kits , such as the Stabil construction kit from Stabil, in which metal rails are screwed together. Modern building blocks are often colored and enable varied, free play. Also puzzle pieces can be viewed as building blocks.

There are also house construction kits made of stones, beams and other construction elements from which model houses can be built playfully. These construction sets belong to the classic children's toys and were a common toy in the GDR .

Lego and Fischertechnik in particular have developed into complex development platforms for control and regulation . Robot kits , for example, belong under this category . Such kits are also used in commercial and university research for the construction of prototypes .

Science kit

For scientific or technical experiments, there are often special kits with building instructions that provide specific examples for constructions or experiments. Such special sets are, for example, the Märklin metal construction sets. For special areas of science and technology there are experiment kits that can stimulate employment and improvement of knowledge in chemistry , physics , electronics , optics or photography .

Museum & Art

In the Czech Republic there is the "Merkur-Baukasten-Museum", in which a huge steel city can be visited, the oldest kit from the year 1920, a large track system Merkur "O" in the scale 1:45 and a number of historical and modern ones Exhibits. Panels provide information about the production history of the Merkur kit including the competition.
The Swiss painter and media artist Matthias AK Zimmermann dedicates his work, which he calls "model worlds", to the aspect of the construction kit by designing panoramic landscapes that are put together like construction kits according to geometric principles.

The construction kit as an artistic theme

"The bent and bent city", 2007
Acrylic on canvas, 160 × 165 cm
Artist: Matthias AK Zimmermann
Location: Aargauer Kunsthaus