The Tinkertoy Construction Set is a toy
construction set
A construction set is a set of standardized pieces that allow for the construction of a variety of different models. The pieces avoid the lead-time of manufacturing custom pieces, and of requiring special training or design time to constr ...
for children. It was designed in 1914—six years after the
Frank Hornby
Frank Hornby (15 May 1863 – 21 September 1936) was an English inventor, businessman and politician. He was a visionary in toy development and manufacture, and although he had no formal engineering training, he was responsible for the inven ...
's
Meccano
Meccano is a brand of model construction system created in 1898 by Frank Hornby in Liverpool, England. The system consists of reusable metal strips, plates, angle girders, wheels, axles and gears, and plastic parts that are connected using nut ...
sets—by Charles H. Pajeau, who formed the Toy Tinker Company in
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston ( ) is a city, suburb of Chicago. Located in Cook County, Illinois, United States, it is situated on the North Shore along Lake Michigan. Evanston is north of Downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, ...
to manufacture them. Pajeau, a
stonemason, designed the
toy
A toy or plaything is an object that is used primarily to provide entertainment. Simple examples include toy blocks, board games, and dolls. Toys are often designed for use by children, although many are designed specifically for adults and pet ...
after seeing children play with sticks and empty spools of thread. Pajeau partnered with Robert Pettit and Gordon Tinker to market a toy that would allow and inspire children to use their imaginations. After an initially-slow start, over a million were sold.
The cornerstone of the set is a wooden spool roughly two
inches (5
cm) in diameter, with holes drilled every 45
degrees around the perimeter and one through the center. Unlike the center, the perimeter holes do not go all the way through. With the differing-length sticks, the set was intended to be based on the
Pythagorean
Pythagorean, meaning of or pertaining to the ancient Ionian mathematician, philosopher, and music theorist Pythagoras, may refer to:
Philosophy
* Pythagoreanism, the esoteric and metaphysical beliefs purported to have been held by Pythagoras
* Ne ...
progressive
right triangle
A right triangle (American English) or right-angled triangle ( British), or more formally an orthogonal triangle, formerly called a rectangled triangle ( grc, ὀρθόσγωνία, lit=upright angle), is a triangle in which one angle is a right a ...
.
The sets were introduced to the public through displays in and around
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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which included model
Ferris wheel
A Ferris wheel (also called a Giant Wheel or an observation wheel) is an amusement ride consisting of a rotating upright wheel with multiple passenger-carrying components (commonly referred to as passenger cars, cabins, tubs, gondolas, capsule ...
s. Tinkertoys have been used to construct complex machines, including
Danny Hillis
William Daniel "Danny" Hillis (born September 25, 1956) is an American inventor, entrepreneur, and computer scientist, who pioneered parallel computers and their use in artificial intelligence. He founded Thinking Machines Corporation, a parall ...
's
tic-tac-toe
Tic-tac-toe (American English), noughts and crosses (Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian or Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with ''X'' or ''O''. ...
-playing
computer (now in the collection of the
Computer History Museum in
Mountain View, California
Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, it has a population of 82,376.
Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley, and is the ...
) and a
robot
A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may ...
at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
in 1998.
One of Tinkertoy’s distinctive features is the toy’s packaging. Initially, the mailing tube design was chosen to reduce shipping costs. Early versions of the packaging included an address label on the tube with space for postage. To assist buyers in differentiating between the various offerings, sets were placed in mail tube packages of different sizes and also delineated with a number (e.g.: 116, 136) and a name (e.g.: major, prep, big boy, junior, grad). A colorful "how-to" instruction guide accompanied each set. In the 1950s, color was added and the wooden sticks appeared in red, green, blue, and peach.
The main manufacturing location was a 65,000-square-foot four-story plant at 2012 Ridge Avenue, Evanston, Illinois.
Tinkertoys were inducted into the
National Toy Hall of Fame
The National Toy Hall of Fame is a U.S. hall of fame that recognizes the contributions of toys and games that have sustained their popularity for many years. Criteria for induction include: icon status (the toy is widely recognized, respected, and ...
at
The Strong
The Strong is an interactive, collections-based educational institution in Rochester, New York, United States, devoted to the study and exploration of play. It carries out this mission through six programmatic arms called "Play Partners":
* Na ...
in
Rochester, New York
Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...
, in 1998.
Hasbro
Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational conglomerate holding company incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Hasbro owns the trademarks and products of K ...
bought the Tinkertoy brand and currently produces both Tinkertoy Plastic and Tinkertoy Classic (wood) sets and parts. The US rights are now owned by Basic Fun!.
Standard parts
In addition to the spools, a standard Tinkertoy set includes:
*Wheels, which are thinner than spools, but larger in diameter. Like spools, their center holes have a snug fit.
*Caps, originally wooden, but later plastic, cylindrical pieces with a single blind axial hole snugly fitted to the rods.
*Couplings, small cylindrical pieces (originally wood; later plastic) approximately 2 inches long and half an inch in diameter, with snug-fitting blind-drilled holes in either end, and a loose-fitting through-drilled hole crosswise through the center of the part.
*Pulleys, identical to spools, except that the center holes are loose-fitting.
*"Part W", approximately the same size and shape as a spool, but with perimeter holes 90 degrees apart, loose-fitting center holes, and four tight-fitting through-drilled holes parallel to the center hole. This allows for free-spinning parts, and also for construction of "cage" or "lantern" gears.
*Short pointed sticks (originally wood, but later plastic), typically red, and flags ("fan blades"), typically green plastic, and various other small parts.
Spools and pulleys all have a single groove around the outside; "Part W" has two parallel grooves.
Sticks (or "rods") are slotted on each end, both to provide slight flexibility when inserted into snug-fitting holes, and to allow thin cards, flags, and strings to be inserted into the slots. They are color-coded by size; in the 1960s-era sets, they were, in order from shortest to longest, orange, peach, blue, red, green, and violet. Each successively longer rod is (with allowances for the size of the spools) the next smaller size times the square root of two; thus any two of the same size will combine with one of the next size up, and three spools, to form an
isosceles right triangle
A special right triangle is a right triangle with some regular feature that makes calculations on the triangle easier, or for which simple formulas exist. For example, a right triangle may have angles that form simple relationships, such as 45° ...
(45°–45°–90°).
Tinkertoy sticks before 1992 were made with a diameter of 0.25 inch. The earlier sets had natural wood sticks, but changed to colored sticks in the late 1950s. From measurement, the orange sticks are 1.25 inches long; peach, 2.15; blue, 3.35; red, 5.05; green, 7.40; and, purple, 10.85. Spools are 1.35 inches in diameter with holes of 0.30 inch depth.
Most of the larger sets also include a driveshaft (an unfinished wooden rod without slotted ends, of an intermediate length between "green" and "violet", normally turned with a small plastic crank.
The Ultra Construction Set also includes connectors, small cylindrical plastic pieces approximately 2 inches long with a slot in either end and a slotted hole crosswise through the center of the part.
Sets with
battery
Battery most often refers to:
* Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power
* Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact
Battery may also refer to:
Energy source
*Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...
-powered
electric motor
An electric motor is an electrical machine that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction between the motor's magnetic field and electric current in a wire winding to generate for ...
s were available; these sets also typically included at least one wooden "double pulley" with a single snug-fitting through-drilled center hole, and grooved rims at two diameters, allowing different moving parts to operate at different speeds.
See also
*
K'Nex
K'Nex is a construction toy system founded by Joel Glickman. It was first introduced in America in 1992. K'Nex is designed and produced by K'Nex Industries Inc. of Hatfield, Pennsylvania.
K'Nex was purchased by Florida-based company Basic Fun ...
, a similar
construction toy
*
Construction toy § Categories
*
Lego
*
Fischertechnik
Fischertechnik is a brand of construction toy. It was invented by Artur Fischer and is produced by fischertechnik GmbH in Waldachtal, Germany. Fans often refer to Fischertechnik as "FT" or "ft".
It is used in education for teaching about sim ...
*
Meccano
Meccano is a brand of model construction system created in 1898 by Frank Hornby in Liverpool, England. The system consists of reusable metal strips, plates, angle girders, wheels, axles and gears, and plastic parts that are connected using nut ...
*
Lincoln Logs
References
*Strange, Craig. ''Collector's Guide to Tinker Toys''. .
*
Dewdney, A. K. ''The Tinkertoy Computer and Other Machinations''. .
External links
Cornell University press release for Tinkertoy robot*
{{Authority control
Construction toys
Hasbro products
Products introduced in 1914
Wooden toys
1910s toys