I didn't have them when I was a kid but some of my friends did and I attribute some of my mechanical/wood skills to playing with them. It seems Erector Sets and Lincoln Logs have been replaced by cell phones and computer screens and it doesn't seem to me that those things would inspire an ability to make things with just a few pieces of metal or scraps of wood. Even books seem to be a lost art, I still have the books I bought when I started building our home, they've been extremely useful. The thing that triggered my desire to write about this is when a dear friend mentioned that her son in law knew how to weld but didn't know anything about working with wood, hard set to even fix an entrance door for his mom. I happen to believe that one can do almost anything, I didn't build things because I was smart, I got things done because I studied about how to do it, but I do think that Erector Sets and Lincoln Logs helped to figure how to put things together and so they were an important part of my life. It does make me wonder if they would help the young people of this age. Oh, and by the way, do any schools have woodshop or metal shop anymore? Or are they just "too dangerous"?