Abstract:

Regarding the history of construction kits, it turns out that they have always represented a mediator between playing and learning, whose development on the one hand depends on technical progress and its possibilities, but whose application and use are just as often closely linked to the educational intentions and pedagogical understanding of the respective epoch.

The variety of construction kits nowadays ranges from simple (stackable) wooden building blocks, via plug-in and screw systems to electrified metal construction kits with lights, gears, actors, sensors and microcomputers. It indeed may often be their varying properties, such as how they fill space or how individual parts join together that suggest different approaches to construction.

With a broader focus they are well known as toys as well as building systems for teaching and learning purposes but also as systems to build mechanical applications like prototypes for research or machines. With regard to elementary schools and kindergartens, the industry-related applications are omitted, but nevertheless, with a few purely educational exceptions, they cannot completely hide their roots in most cases.

The use of construction kits as media for technical education became even more apparent as a result of the educational reform of the sixties and seventies in Germany. The consequences of the Sputnik shock in 1957 led to an appreciation of science and technology as educational content in schools.
While a phase of initial euphoria in construction kit system was followed by a phase of stagnation in the school program towards the end of the 1970s for pedagogical, organizational and school policy reasons, the metal construction kits also disappeared from everyday school life.

Like the manufacturer of metal construction sets, fischertechnik later was also trying to build on earlier successes with its educational range. To this end, among other things, the system construction kits are continuously being supplemented with contemporary robotics applications, which are established and widespread to varying degrees in different regions.

From 1984 onwards, fischertechnik itself launched so-called computing construction kits on the market, which could be connected via cables and suitable interfaces to the Commodore, IBM and other personal computers that were widespread at the time.

They were a consequence of the increasing spread and use of computers and the growing demand for computer literacy in schools. They followed the gradually growing pressure to teach information technology basics, programming, introduction to data processing and measurement and control in schools.
Even though the original computing construction kits from fischertechnik provided for the construction of various machines and robots, the originally used features as construction kits receded into the background. Instead, simulations and visualizations of disembodied data processing came to the fore.

Finally, the first controllers for mobile robot applications, which were suitable for schools and the masses and no longer depended on a cable connection, came onto the market about simultaneously. Construction kits now found new pedagogical fields of application in schools primarily as robot construction kits and less as modernized and automated construction kits.

Keywords:

Construction kits, educational robotics, technology education, history of educational robotis.