Science Week: Favourite Childhood Invention

Published Tuesday, November 13, 2007 by Kevin Breathnach | E-mail this post

Copacetic pays tribute to Lego today as part of Science Week 's blog competition. The intricacy of my choice over his perhaps betrays my youth someway. We're typing away about a subject we may or may not usually write about in the hope of winning a Nintendo Wii. Just what I've always wanted. Always wanted that is, since I lost interest in what I deem my favourite invention (if an invention you can call it) of this childhood on which the sun has just set. K'nex, ladies and gentlemen, occupied an inordinate amount of my then very valuable time. I remember spending one solid week behind the couch in our old living room where the K'nex was kept and compiled. I all but slept there.

I built a crane with some difficultly; in all things K'nex, I struggled against nervousness and an always unsteady hand. But once it was complete, I marvelled at the necessity of every piece involved. For something so tall, so intricate and, above all, so useful, it fascinated me to think that the removal of one single, tiny spacer could collapse the structure's utility-factor (bringing a biscuits or two from one sideof an entirely imaginary, collapsed bridge to another, mostly). I spent hours explaining this truth to friends and relatives but they never listened. After one year of unenthused responses, I hung up my wheels, my sticks and my all important spacers, gave up on my ambition to be a captain of engineering and began dreaming about someday winning a Nintendo Wii in some form of internet competition.

Labels: k'nex, science week, tuesday

Science Week: Favourite Childhood Invention

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