Gifts for Maker kids?
brian wrote 12/04/2017 at 19:07 • 3 pointsHello! first time commenter here, please be gentle
I have 3 boys (9, 11 and 14) who have all asked for various maker type presents this year.
The youngest wants Lego Mindstorms, having taken a week long course in the summer at the local rec complex.
The middle one is the artistic type and has been asking for a 3D printer for a few years, and is also bugging me to get him into electronics.
The oldest is taking a robotics/automation course at junior high school and is asking for an Arduino, sensor kits and stuff to let him make up interesting projects.
I've been doing research and trying to find good electronics/robotics kits and a reliable and flexible 3D printer, but the options are vast and time is limited.
I thought I would ask the community for their thoughts and experiences, as it may provide information that is generally useful for the parents in the crowd.
Personally I'm trying to keep it around $500/kid, since I view this particular round of enthusiasm as an investment in their futures, but would be open to spending more (or less!). Any opinions on options at any price point would be interesting for discussion.
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the creality CR10 3D printer seems to be all the rage right now, many youtubers get them for free, then say their review is not promoted and give out coupon codes ;)
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Youngest: Id say get him a lego mindstorms that stuff is great, and very easy for kids, its much better then most other robot kits aimed at kids too (that ive seen) and it works with lego-blocks which they prolly already have lots of.
Middle: This one is a bit hard, realistically there are like 250 options at the least, but no less then 225 of those will require maintenance & some know-how. and the other 25 will have DRM on the printing material and whatnot. Personally i would try go for a reprap, since they are DIY (so you get to build it with him which should be fun) and you will be able to get parts and/or help all over the world.
Oldest: definitely get him a nice arduino kit from Sparkfun and/or Adafruit
note however that this will be in like 50 bucks range, so depending on how materialistic your kids are this could become an issue when they look up prices for what they got? if you wanna avoid that and give him something of similar value, 'robotis' has awesome robotics packages, but they (the not-obviously-kids-versions) start at your suggested budget, oh and if you do go that route, be wary, 'robotis' robots scale all the way from kid friendly to beeing able to break your finger in a moments notice, so dont start by buying him the most expensive kits ;)
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Little Bits has some really great kits, as well. There's even a Star Wars Droid kit I'm eye for myself, too. :)
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seed , adafruit , and spark fun all have good kits available to order through their websites.
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A good soldering station, along with a an electronics starter kit and the cheap oscilloscope soldering kit will satisfy two out of three kids. The third one can be the black sheep of the family and will always be a disappointment anyway.
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When I was a wee one, I was given a Parallax Boe-Bot. First thing I ever programmed, and it's what made me get into both CS and electronics. I'd probably recommend the Robot Shield instead these days, since an Arduino is a whole lot less limited than a Basic Stamp.
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