erector set

12.03.08

December 1948

Holiday wish lists of 50 years ago looked a lot like today's: classic toys enhanced by cutting-edge tech

By Sarah Goforth Posted 11.29.2004 at 5:47 pm 0 Comments

By 1948 the bridge-and-skyscraper-style Erector Set had been around for 30 years. But the newest of the construction kits came with crank-powered motors and wheels, enabling kids to fashion walking robots like the one we featured on our cover. And somewhere in the ancestry of the Roombatoday's roaming, saucer-shaped robo-vacwas the Electrocar, which reversed direction when its spring-loaded bumper struck a wall. A child-size vacuum cleaner was also on our 1948 gift list.

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READ MORE ABOUT > airplane wings, american hospitals, automatic transmissions, erector set, pogo stick

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