Ask Slashdot: Math-Related Present For a Bright 10-Year-Old?

Posted by timothy on Tuesday January 26, 2016 @05:28AM from the but-books-get-better-with-age dept.

peetm writes: I have an above averagely bright nephew, aged 10, who's into maths and whose birthday is coming up soon. I'd like to get him a suitable present – most likely one that's mathematically centred. At Christmas we sat together while I helped him build a few very simple Python programs that 'animated' some simple but interesting maths, e.g., we built a factorial function, investigated the Collatz conjecture (3n + 1 problem) and talked about, but didn't implement Eratosthenes' Sieve – one step too far for him at the moment perhaps. I've looked about for books that might blend computing + maths, but haven't really found anything appropriate for a 10-year-old. I should be indebted to anyone who might suggest either a suitable maths book, or one that brings in some facet of computing. Or, if not a book, then some other present that might pique his interest.

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Robo Rally by Anonymous Coward · 2016-01-26 05:32 · Score: 5, Interesting

Look for Robo Rally. It is a programming-based multi-player hands-on board game that is much more fun than the simpler Robot Turtles.
Rubik's cube by mdsolar · 2016-01-26 05:48 · Score: 3, Interesting

My son, who decided to ace the math portion of the SAT, spends time with a Rubik's cube.
Re:Buy him sports equipment. by rfengr · 2016-01-26 06:12 · Score: 4, Interesting

Get him into fencing; physical chess. For a sport, the people are pretty intellectual, and it hones aggressiveness, which most intellectual types need.