Toy recomendations for young Scientists, Engineers, and aspiring geeks

[Mellobuck]

Personally, I am a big fan of the stuff they have at ThinkGeek:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geek-kids/

I am pretty sure i will be getting the Mad Scientist blocks (F is for Freeze Ray, M is for Maniacal...) for my 7 month old son.

I was a huge Lego fan myself, but I also have fond memories of a plastic gear set that I spent a lot of time with. It consisted of interlocking pegboard-like plates, that had pegs and gears and handles that you could turn. I still think of it when dealing with gear ratios and things.

[MRedRaider]

Magnadoodle.

My 2 and 4 year old boys have fought over them (even with one for each, the one they have is never the right one) for over a year. They scribble on them and we're teaching the 4 year old to write on one... best part, they are portible and work well in the car too.

[Ben]

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MattH wrote:

Magnadoodle.

My 2 and 4 year old boys have fought over them (even with one for each, the one they have is never the right one) for over a year. They scribble on them and we're teaching the 4 year old to write on one... best part, they are portible and work well in the car too.

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It seems I have been looking in the rong place and should have been shopping in my garage!

Re: bottom of the steps >>> Sea Wee Story

When I was young (approx. 7 ?) my brother and I went to visit the farm of a great-uncle. They let us play in the barn (good so far) where the combine was parked (bad idea). I figured out that I had to release both brakes (the one on the front and the back) to get it moving. My uncle scrambled and managed to pull my brother out from under the wheel before it crushed him. They never left me alone with a combine again after that.

Ben

[Ben]

Olvia found something that she liked, that I would have written off fast. One of my buddies makes aliving by clearing out old houses and often runs across interesting finds that he bring over for review. In a recent haul he brough in a large bag of a variety of stuffed animals. While digging thru this pile Olivia (now almost ten months old) found a animated Elvis Presley Bear. She had previously shown no interest in stuffed criters that talk or sing. But the Elvis Bear has servos and controls systems that actually syncronize with the music.

Here fist checks were along the line of "Is Grandpa doing that?" but she ruled that out after turning him over a couple of times and sticking her hand in its mouth.

I stood it up on a Olivia sized bin so she could stand in front of while it performed. To my amazement she enjoyed the perfomance most of the day yesterday and at one point, she triggered a flash-back for Grandpa when she was banging on the stage and shaking her head to the music. It reminded my of those ole Beetles concerts were groopie were swooning. The "Dancing Baby" has nothing on Olvia!

So Olivia gives high rating for the Elvis Bear at 10 months.

But how that help encourage her to become a scientist? The next leason will involve a screw driver.

Ben

[Henrik_Volkers]

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Ben wrote:
[...]

But how that help encourage her to become a scientist? The next leason will involve a screw driver.

Ben

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Just wait until the cells are out of power, then provide the screw driver and new set of (rechargeable) cells 🙂

BTDT , however I think my daughter was about 2 years old  ....   

(Now she's nearly 10, in two weeks she will visit a LEGO robbo workshop.... (encouraged by by wife!) 

 Maybe Santa Claus might bring a Mindstrom 🙂 😄 

[Broken_Arrow]

Toy recomendations for young Scientists, Engineers, and aspiring geeks  ?

A football, a basketball, and some decent running shoes. 

[Intaris]

Broken Arrow,

that's the best answer yet.

Just think of the experiments to find out WHY the NBA stars throw the ball that way....

Shane.

[Joe_H]

I like the old fashioned way. Old clothes, some friends and good ole imagination. Let them get outside and play. taking away the PS3, Mindstorm NXT, PSP, and the radio and TV out of my son's room was the best thing i ever did for him

[F._Schubert]

Wait some time. They are starting to learn how to talk to you. They will have that funny baby language (my daughter has the word taco with a vey funny pronounciation for tractor). What really impresses me at that stage is the very high level of abstraction (heared about that in CS?). Even before having a babay language, I got pffff for any flower just because she knew blowballs (correct translation? de:Pusteblume).

Today me daughter surprised me on the tech way. She is now 18 month old. I checked the battery of a 'taco' with a cheap handheld mutlimeter. Afterwards she claimed the DMM and put the pin to one of the connectors, like I did. What an amazing play...

Felix

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

Felix:

Cool!

Make sure she does not have the leads installed in the current jacks with the DMM set to amps when she gets near the electrical outlets 😞

When my eldest son was 5 he thought my car key was a perfect fit for the exposed slot for the knob on the ceiling fan speed control. The resulting 120VAC short shook him up pretty bad for a day or two and took a lot of coaxing to telling me what happened. That may explain why he does not use the 300-in-1 electronics kit I bought him....

-AK2DM