USSR School Building Lesson

I studied in an ordinary Soviet school, but nevertheless, we often brought our own construction sets to the lessons. Mostly metal construction sets with screws or Polet, sometimes we had the rare Soviet Lego. We made crafts and organized exhibitions right in the classroom. Of course, the boys were more interested in the sets, but the girls weren’t far behind. There were children who did not have construction sets. The photo shows a lesson in an elementary school (Soviet school in Geneva) in the late 80s of the last century. Children create models using Quercetti gear sets. It’s a pity that the experience of lessons like that remained in the 80s…

This vintage building set is similar to the Quercetti Gears sets. It also includes baseplates, poles, and, of course, the gears. The baseplates connect like the pieces of a puzzle, they are heavy and sturdy enough to hold the whole construction in place. There are also many small colorful pins to decorate the pieces.

While there are no poles like in Quercetti sets, you can connect and interlock the baseplates in 3D, making some of them stand upright. They can also hold together at the angle, so you can build all kinds of shapes from them. Overall, these plates themselves form a good building set.

After making something from the baseplates, you can attach the gears to the finished crafts and make the gears spin. All gears are the same size, they are almost as big as the baseplates, and you can also use them just to decorate the crafts. All pieces come in many different colors. Sadly, there are few pieces overall.

This set has an educational purpose – some schools used it to teach children about the gear transmissions. The description says that the set is for children aged 4-8 years.