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Gadgets For a Budding Geek?

Posted by kdawson on from the better-to-give dept.

fprintf writes "As much as I hate to admit it, it looks like my 13-year-old son is following in my footsteps and preferring interesting, science-based toys. In the past he has been really interested in Lava Lamps, Newton's Cradle, and anything magnetic. It seems the knick-knacks that have generated the most interest were small and relatively inexpensive. For example, a small laser pointer keychain I bought him a couple of years ago still provides tons of entertainment. Yesterday I showed him ThinkGeek and he really liked the Levitron. I wanted to ask the Slashdot crowd what were some other really neat, interesting gadgets? Is there anything cool in the under-$50 range that you would like in your stocking this year?"

5 of 372 comments (clear)

  1. How about building/deconstructing? by dacut · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As much as I like ThinkGeek, their selection is limited to gadgets. I found that assembling and -- to my parents dismay -- disassembling things are what really grabbed my interest.

    I would take a look at the various kits from American Science & Surplus. There are a number of other sites (e.g., Carl's Electronics) which have even more kits, but I haven't ordered from them so I can't say whether they're worthwhile or not. (These days, most of my toys come from DigiKey, and not in kit form.)

    1. Re:How about building/deconstructing? by evanbd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Seriously. The most interesting thing isn't the gadgets, it's the parts with which to make gadgets. You canget a couple hundred resistors and transistors, some op amps, a few buttons, LEDs, a microcontroller or five, and a breadboard and not go much over the $50 budget.

  2. Re:ThinkGeek's marketing emails by afidel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Opt-out sucks and well run companies rarely resort to using it.

    --
    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  3. Re:"/."liza. by evanbd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I can't get circuits right the first time, even when I'm being paid to build them. That's what breadboards are for. You build it on the breadboard, go "huh, that's not right," fix it, and then transfer it to soldered perf board. You don't build with solder the first time. If you need it right the first time (because you're fabbing a PCB, for example) then there's hours worth of design review and double checking involved.

    If you're worried about letting the magic smoke out... well, you can do that just as easily on a breadboard or spring terminals. Besides, being overly paranoid about the magic smoke is bad for learning. Go buy 100 transistors from digikey ($6 for 2N3904 / 2N3906), a dozen op amps, a couple hundred assorted resistors, etc. Obviously you don't want to teach carelessness, but paranoia about $0.05 components isn't warranted either.

  4. Re:Warning: NSFW link! by foo+fighter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How about a subscription to Make or Craft, backed by your commitment of time and money towards a project per issue?

    --
    obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies