Construct-All Plastic Construction Sets from Transogram (1966)

Company: Transogram | Release date: 1966 | Where to purchase: eBay

Maximum performance with minimal effort!

Transogram’s Construct-All construction sets allowed children to build and rebuild realistic three-dimensional designs that mimicked their real-life counterparts.

Released in 1966, the sets were a mix of plastic beams, gussets, bearings, connectors, axles, pulleys, and wheels. The pieces were fabricated to be large enough for inexperienced hands to handle and assemble.

A focal point of each set was the Riv-a-Matic gun loaded with “rivs” (short for scrivets) that were used to securely connect various pieces in the set together by depressing the gun’s trigger. The no-batteries required Riv-a-Matic could be loaded with 8 “rivs” before it needed to be reloaded for another round of building. For instances when a “riv” could not be dropped in place with the gun, children could add it manually and tighten with an included plastic wrench.

Transogram released three different Construct-All sets in various sizes: the Construct-All 1000, 1500, and 2000. The latter two sets included an additional component that could be incorporated into builds — the Power Pak. Running on two D-batteries, the Power Pak featured a series of pulleys and an attached remote control to control their speed. The pulleys ran at different speeds, allowing kids various options when motorizing their creations – faster for speed and slower for power.

For inspiration, Transogram included an instruction guide with each kit that featured a series of sample builds of varying complexity.

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