Christmas Shopping For Your Nephew

colenski writes "My vote for the coolest toy of the decade so far has to lie with the EyeClops Bionic Eye. As one reviewer noted, simply, "Microscopes never worked this well or looked this good when I was a kid." An ingeniously simple and brilliantly designed product, the EyeClops plugs into your TV and magnifies anything you put it on 200 times. Brain dead simple to use, EyeClops is a cheap $40 US / $60 Cdn gift that your nephew or nerdy niece would probably freak over. Here's some cool and disturbing pictures I got after about 20 minutes playing with it. Check out the money shot." I always struggled to focus through a microscope as a kid, and this looks like a great inexpensive present for a little kid since every cool chemistry kit is totally nerfed now. Any other fun ideas?

Comments

The problem with microscopes...

[inviolet]

I always struggled to focus through a microscope as a kid, and this looks like a great inexpensive present for a little kid since every cool chemistry kit is totally nerfed now.

The problem you had, and that my own son had last Christmas, is that cheap microscopes don't have "widefield" eyepieces.

If you spend a little more (typically $100-$150 on Ebay) you can get a good-quality student-grade microscope with a widefield eyepiece. And nowadays, many come with 640x480 webcams, or at least webcam attachment points.

The webcams are USB, so it's trivial to capture images and print them out for science projects. That's vastly more useful than a TV-out.

Re:The problem with microscopes...

[Ford Prefect]

Bah. For my thirteenth birthday, I got money towards a microscope. Not any old microscope, mind - but one sold by a local scientific supplies outlet. (The vast, thousand-page catalogue was also great - full of proper laboratory supplies of every possible description!)

It was made in the Soviet Union. Unpacking it from its elastic bands, crinkly yellow-brown paper and unprocessed cotton wool was a fantastic experience.

I've still got it, too - and only realised a month or two back that its LOMO manufacturer is that LOMO - all I can say is that its optics are way better than the cameras...

Five or six years ago, I strapped a tiny composite video camera to it with an intriguing assembly created out of Lego. I got some half-decent results, too. Having said that, I'd still love one of these modern toy efforts. Lugging around a huge box filled with cast-iron optics isn't so much fun nowadays... ;-)

OLPC

[Anonymous Coward]

The ultimate gift of this season: OLPC.

Not only are you giving a great educational device, but you're also helping some child in the developing world. Perhaps a good time to introduce your nephew to philanthropy, too.

Re:OLPC

[ackthpt]

The ultimate gift is to give time to your kids, neices, nephews. Take them somewhere they want to go, help them do something they want to do. Yeah, the OLPC is pretty good, too.

Re:Great present.

[servognome]

Pity kids can no longer get chemistry sets. How many genius chemists are we going to lose due to that again?

How many genius aerospace engineers did we lose due to banning lawn darts?

Microscopes worked great for me as a kid

[throatmonster]

Of course I was a nerdy geek and spent the time to learn how to use real microscopes. I examined a lot of things (including semen) and learned a lot of things (except, of course, the social skills needed to get the semen inside, or anywhere near, a female).

Re:Advertising

[colenski]

Jesus, why does everything have to be labeled an ad? My GF's daughter got one for her birthday, and I freaked and I wrote TFA. Now you know everything there is to know about it. It's Slashdot, remember? The site where we, i dunno, talk and stuff about nerdy things like cool toys. Are we *not* supposed to submit stories because it might contaminate the lofty standards imposed on it by the NPOV gestapo?