It seems like there were 6.2 million different brands of building sets to choose from while growing up in the 80s. For the most part I was a diehard Lego maniac, but for a short time I dropped my minifigs and building blocks and became quite enamored with Fisher Price’s answer to Erector Sets & Lego Technic, Contstrux…
Designed to work more on a beam and connector-knot system (rather than Lego’s stacking concept), Construx seemed more about play than just building. With Lego, I’d find myself spending hours trying to recreate intricate model-like versions of my favorite TV and movie vehicles and when I was sufficiently happy with a final design the end product would usually find its way to a shelf or a box in the closet. On the other hand, because Construx were so limited because of their size and design, it was always about creating something that more or less approximated a vehicle or robot and then playing with it. I was never worried about my creations falling apart as they were super easy to recreate. I guess in a way they resembled Duplo more than Lego in this regard.
Another thing that I always used to like about Construx was the satisfying snap the pieces made when joining them together. They were a lot more tactile than Lego bricks, though they weren’t quite as exacting. For awhile I was addicted to building with these, but no matter how I tried to work around it, I never had enough of the blue connector knots.
Searching online I found this fun site with a bunch of original Construx creations. In particular I liked the webmaster’s design for the quadpod as it looks like it would make an almost perfect base for recreating a Construx version of the Silverhawk’s ship, the Miraj…
