[craftyguy]

> What would you give young people to start getting them literate in the machines?

Erector set[1]. It's a toy, but not super obvious how the parts are supposed to work together. (unless now they give advanced instructions for constructing things..)

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erector_Set

[smogcutter]

Yup, same thing as meccano. Now that I think about it I had an erector set growing up, beats me why meccano came to mind first. I missed out on lego robotics, but those look really cool too.