Frank's career as an educational consultant began in 1960. In 1963 he met Laymen Allen of Yale University and became inspired by Allen's idea to teach using game concepts. While working on several different teaching machine designs, Frank saw a parallel between what a teaching machine does and what a game does. If the rules of the game are structured from the rules of the subject matter, the game will teach. Each has a set of structured rules, a goal, and an opportunity for strategies. And each provides stimulus-response situations in a step-by-step sequence.

Frank had also been reading about permutations and combinations in a book by the mathematician Percy MacMahon (creator of the Multimatch I and Multimatch III sets made by Kadon) and realized that the Instant Insanity puzzle was also a problem in combinatorics.

Among the over 60 toys, games and gadgets Frank has come up with are a magnetic chess set, a discovery-learning toy of rattling number tiles called Noisy Numbers, an interlocking construction toy called Fiddle Disks, and a toothbrush timer. His company, Colorado Bootstrap, Inc., continues to develop and market an extensive product line.

Frank's career as an engineer spans four decades and several industries, including several patents in instrumentations. His educational credentials cover educational psychology (doctoral), computer science, instructional technology (Master's degree) and physics. His other accomplishments include being a magician, toastmaster, pilot, and corporate president. Fifteen years he spent at Lockheed as instructor and developing training methods.

Now semi-retired, Frank continues to design and produce educational toys, games and puzzles. Check out his website, Armbruster Puzzles, for lots of paper-and-pencil puzzles you can freely print out to work on and enjoy. Pass them around to every kid you know, too, to challenge their thinking and learning.

Frank has another charming website, Colorado Bootstrap, for products and consulting services. Be sure to check it out, too.