Yup, looks almost identical to my Erector Sets growing up. I made all kinds of stuff, but never a guitar. A.C. Gilbert, the company that made Erector Sets, went out of business in the 1960s, but the torch was carried on. Current versions are made by - you guessed it - Meccano of France, which is apparently part of Nikko of Japan. Basic info here -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erector_set . Even though these are still made, I haven't seen one of these in the hands of a kid in the US for at least 40 years. I wanted to get one for my daughter, and I got evil looks from everyone around me. Shoulda' done it anyway.
I'm all for chips, bits, bytes, and computers - but I think at a young age, there's nothing so fascinating as mechanical contraptions. They're more tactile and easier to grok what's happening. I have no doubt that this early experience made it easier for me to do the math, science, and engineering thing. As a society, we pay lip service about wanting more math and science for our students, especially women and minority students. Stick one of these in everybody's hands in kindergarten and first grade, turn them loose with some fun projects to work on, and make it look cool - it'll happen on its own, IMO. But it seems that we only want to talk about this.
