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Ask Slashdot: What's The Best Geeky Gift For Children?
Everyone's suggesting gifts to teach the next generation of geeks about science, technology, engineering, and math. Slashdot reader theodp writes:
In "My Guide to Holiday Gifts," Melinda Gates presents "a STEM gift guide" [which] pales by comparison to Amazon's "STEM picks". Back in 2009, Slashdot discussed science gifts for kids. So, how about a 2016 update?
I've always wanted to ask what geeky gifts Slashdot's readers remember from when they were kids. (And what geeky gifts do you still bitterly wish some enlightened person would've given you?) But more importantly, what modern-day tech toys can best encourage the budding young geeks of today? Leave your best answers in the comments. What's the best geeky gift for children?
I've always wanted to ask what geeky gifts Slashdot's readers remember from when they were kids. (And what geeky gifts do you still bitterly wish some enlightened person would've given you?) But more importantly, what modern-day tech toys can best encourage the budding young geeks of today? Leave your best answers in the comments. What's the best geeky gift for children?
Ready for the Re-Enslavement
plutononium.
They'll be living on welfare by the time they grow up.
Mandarin so they can receive orders from their future bosses, and Hindi so they can outsource the real engineering while all they do is manage.
So they fight off all the H1-Bs
One of the books by Randall Munroe?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Your Raspberry Pi doesn't need any more than 640 MB of RAM.
-- Melinda Gates
Without all the action figure stuff that serves as training wheels their imagination, unless they've demonstrated that they need it.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
A Sphero. They are extra cool, programmable, and there is a platform for people to make and share educational content
Too sexy for Milan, New York and Japan.
They have enough useless crap as it is.
My mom was sick and we were staying with a family. They took us shopping for Christmas, and I found a crystal radio tuned to the local station. They bought that for me. When we got home, their son, who had chosen a funky fire engine, whined that I had the better gift. They took it away from me, and gave me that stupid firetruck. That was almost 6 decades ago, and I am still angry about it. A budding geek lost such a great toy. Later I got into TV repair and I maintained the family TV and radios through the 60's. My love for technology continued to grow despite the loss.
Real geeks don't do Christmas
...and they can create and print their own toys.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
AR-15 + CMag
Cyanide
Galaxy Note S7
Nitric Acid
Ammonium Nitrate + Mobile Card
- old tube AM radio to take apart (I was 5 years old and had already been passionate about electricity and electronics for the previous 3 years or so)
- crystal radio kit
- build-it-yourself motor kit (very cool - I had to wind the armature myself)
- countless ignition cells and lantern batteries
- 100-in-1 electronics educational kit
- walkie talkies
- wood burning kit (never did any wood burning 'art' with it, but it was my first soldering iron)
Along with new geek gifts for kids, consider old 'junk' that they can take apart, experiment with, and learn from; it won't cost much, and they won't be worried about breaking some new bit of shiny and pissing off Mom and Dad. And remember that the greatest gifts a parent can give to a geek child are TIME and COMPANIONSHIP. Take them to places that they'll love, but that they wouldn't normally go to or wouldn't discover on their own. When I was a kid my father took me to a local hydro-electric generating station. (I grew up in Niagara Falls Canada). And this was no tourist visit; he had a friend who worked there, and we were up on a narrow, high catwalk above the generators - a place where only employees were supposed to go. I'll remember that 'til the day I die.
The above ideas aren't specific to Christmas - but this is a good time to remind ourselves of the gifts we can and should be giving kids all year to feed their passions and build their confidence.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
A snake so they can bite off the head like a real geek.
suitable for all children from age 3 to 123
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I believe these provide immense fun.
If you are a member of a hackerspace, how about:
An optics kit
Some lego-enhanced optics components
Other cool optics components using legos
A home built robot
3d-print an industrial robotic arm
A modular clock kit
Any sciency kit
Any sciency toy
There's a long list of interesting things you could *build* for your child, or build *with* your child, and if they break something or want to modify/extend something, you can build them a replacement or an extension.
What about for the geology geek/rock hound/pebble pup? They'd love for you to get them some opals, or fire agates, or celestite, or maybe some lapis, or perhaps a massive Moroccan trilobite.
Not all geeky children gifts need to be technology-based. You aren't going to get a rockhound geek encouraged to get out and learn more by giving them a calculator.
Slashdot's playing a really stupid exclusionary game by basically denying geekdom to massive subsets of science with this Ask Slashdot thread, especially since the originally-referenced thread practically was meant for Geologists.
WhipSlash, you and everyone else should know better than this. What a goddamned shame.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Assuming they're old enough. Lego's suck for learning real engineering. If that's a no-go maybe Lego Technic, but I still think the Erector sets your better buy.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I agree with the lego bricks and if you want to go one step further, get a mindstorm ev3. Yes, mindstorm is expensive but it beats almost any stem toy on the market. It has a low learning barrier to entry but is still pretty powerful and most importantly is not single use. I have bought my kids quite a few other stem toys like sphero, ozobot, mbot, snap circuits, littlebits, preprogrammed toy robots, etc... but most of them either have limited customization or you have to be a programmer to make them do anything cool. The mindstorm kit was the most expensive stem toy I have ever bought but it is the only one that my kids still play with on a regular basis as the rest are now mostly just collecting dust and collectively all the other dust collecting stem toys cost more than the mindstorm set and the mindstorm can basically replicate the functionality of all of them. The only real problem my kids have with mindstorm is that they can only create one thing at a time and must destroy it before creating something new.
A rock tumbler requires patience but has an awesome payoff.
A metal detector has a sense of adventure, finding bits of jewelry and coins at a playground or park.
Learn Hindi. Emigrate to India when they grow up.
It's the only way to find a tech job in the US.
Get them an age/reading-level-appropriate magazine on some scientific topic.
Ranger Rick (National Wildlife Federation) is good for kids interested in nature.
Monthly magazines with puzzles and games are good for the math/logic-type geeks-in-training.
Comic book subscriptions and fannish magazine subscriptions are good for people whose geekdom is in literature, TV, or movies.
Why paper in the age of digital media? Because it's concrete and tangible, and it still works when the Internet or electricity goes out.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Get 'em ready for the sexual indoctrination from the mainstream media. If you aren't hookin' up at age 8, you're doing it wrong!
captcha, and I kid you not: newborn
i would buy them stocks in a fracking company and stuff their stockings with coal and a martial arts membership. fock technology manufactured in slave labour conditions.
if...
then... elseif when do for next loop.
10x50 binoculars
Peterson field guide to stars and planets
National Autobon Society Field Guide to Birds around wherever you are
A Sighting compass
A good quality boomerang
A Gakken SX-150 MARK II Analog Synthesizer
Two desktop trebuchets
A Hohner Blue Midnight Harmonica, Key of A or G
A good world band radio
A Microscope
A hobby class RC buggy kit, required parts and the right tools
An ant farm or sea monkeys
Watercolor paints, paper and crayons
Have Fun!!
As a kid, I made most of my own toys from cardboard, Popsicle sticks, toothpick, and twist ties with scissors, tape, glue and paint. And I could make just about any toy I had seen on TV commercials. Radio Shack and The Comic Book Store were my go to places. The best geeky gifts I remember as a kid from younger age to older age are: 1. Lego's and playmobil toys 2. electric train set 3. A clear plastic model of internal combustion engine and transmission with working stick shift (had to turn the fly wheel by hand) and 4. A Book of science fiction short stories. That said, I left out things like Walkie Talkies and Camera, do to the cell phones of today, not to mention PCs and Video Game Consoles. It really depends on the child's age and their interests. So my advice would be to just ask the child what things they like geeky or not. Keep in mind science, technology, engineering, and math. apply to just about every thing.
I would have originally said a mac laptop..... but, apple have destroyed what was insanely great.... ,and left the world with massively overpriced computer like objects that you cant even plug in a usb memory stick.
You could go windows but that would be selling your kids heart to the devil, along with his browsing habits, shopping preferences and anything else microsoft want to monitor.
You could go with a linux laptop like...erm....... errr.... Cant find one for sale. Scrub that.
You could go with a chrome book. BUT.....GOOGLE.....WHY?....the market is shite (see above), you could clear up. WHY DONT YOU WANT TO?
Actually, all things considered I would buy a second hand Macbook white core 2 duo from 2010. they're available for £150, shove in 8gb of ram, and it will easily run the latest OS. If I was a kid, I would love to find this in my xmas stocking more than anything else;
Get them good tools. Then teach them how to use them. I can barely remember disneyland, vacations, movies and the other passive activities from childhood. Building or fixing something with my dad or grandfather are all still strong memories.
Pine Book laptop. $89. Awesome.
https://fossbytes.com/dollar-8...
check Your mechanical keboard, son, it seems to be ghosting
Just kidding
http://saveie6.com/
Let them learn about the old days when there was nothing to do on Sundays but watch guys throw a weirdly shaped ball around. Let them learn tech by 'rebelling' against your wishes, "Don't go into to tech, go outside and sports!"
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I am into rc stuff. This is great.
Could be anything from a build it yourself drone to a small E010 for indoor use. People are modding these. Cutting props from 4 to 2 blades. Stick extensions on remote. Battery replacement etc.
Hat. A half-dozen balls. Bat. A few weeks of camp since these Dads obviously won't be any use in saving these youngsters.
Puzzle games are always great gifts for children. A puzzle game with a programming theme is even better.
Best geeky gift for kids? Time to play, have fun. Less tech toys that are meant to 'train them for tomorrow'.
Buy a phone, unbox with an Ifixit manual, give lots of small parts presents, tools and manual. No in stand rewards and they learn (or break)
Apparently, Slashdot believes there are kids, and then there are geeky kids. I think all kids are born with curiosity, hence are geeks and we beat or bore it out of them.
Some ideas:
some crayons, a couple metal measuring spoons, an incandescent light bulb and fixture. Melting crayons together to make different colors was one of my earliest "geeky" pass times. For beginners, I'd stick with the primary colors.
Erector sets - or any other construction set if, and only if, it comes with a battery powered electric motor. And string. Course, you need a way to vary motor speed...
A microscope. I suspect if they bothered, a CCD device would be cheaper and do a better job than a cheap manual/eye optical one, but have no idea if that's available.
A prism
A book of puzzles
A magnifying glass and a comic book to burn through
For older kids, a butane torch - give them some coins to melt (along with a well ventilated space)
A rocket kit
A bubble blowing kit - complete with wire frames / forms
A battery, two wires and some salt water - make oxygen and hydrogen
a cell phone to root
a camera to take the IR filter off - have to do a bit of research on which sensor / camera to get
A couple of rare earth magnets, some copper wire, an iron nail, and a dc power source.
A wide/multi band radio receiver - and a decent antennae
A telescope
I'm a (pretty fit) Gen Xer who just hung out with some Millennials (or the younger generation whatever they're called) and HOLY SHIT are they FAT!!!!!!!!! Someone sound the alarm and get these fat ass kids off their duffs before it turns into a national crisis.
Geeky like me? Get him an assortment of tools and all the cardboard, construction paper, popsickle sticks and rubber bands you can find. Hell, if I hadn't run out of that earlier I would still be in the basement building my own toys!
Then I turned 30 and my dad said I'm too old ... other story.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_U-238_Atomic_Energy_Laboratory
Arduino, variety kit of leds, resistors, capacitors & sensors. Hours and hours of fun and great hands on experience.
Today's drones are 'extreme geek'. Having upwards of 12 microprocessors, flight controller, radios. GPS, gyros, accelerometers, barometer, magnetometer...
That's why you should get your kid a drone kit of parts. Plus all of the tools, soldering iron, hand tools, volt meter, shrink tubing, wire, etc.
How about an Arduino starter kit?
And a link to Jeremy Blumm's tutorial series on youtube of course.
How about an old inner tube and directions to the nearest snow covered hill. Lots of physics to learn from that.....
Lego mindstorms was one of the best gifts I received, as a tech enthusiast child. When I checked to see if it was still being sold, my mind was blown at how cool it is now. Build a robot with lego, program it, control it with an app on your phone. Probably not cheap but it's a worthwhile investment.
Maybe a snow, scate or surfboard or perhaps a climbing harness ( depending on where you live) might be a better present. Maybe its just me, but I think the first world kids today might need encouragement _not_ to sit inside.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Ladyada's toys are *wonderful*, reminding me of when science kits had actual *parts* in them to assemble, and Ladyada is the sort of person I want my daughter to know about. I actually met her years ago, and have one of the "Body Thetans on Board" T-shirts she arranged to print about 20 years ago when Scientology was harassing Usenet. I'm 15 years older than her with a big bushy beard and several MIT degrees, and I kept thinking "I want to be *her* when I grow up".
If you haven't been soldering or using small toys lately, do be ready to buy some replacement components. But breaking a few parts of a small kit by accident is a critical part of learning small assembly, as well, and she *lists the parts* to be able to get replacements or build up enhanced versions of her kits.
Geeky children have specialized interests, so there is no one-size-fits-all Science Barbie that would satisfy them all. Depending on your geeky kid's particular talents get a telescope, a chemistry set if you can sneak in a real one, a computer with specialized software of some appropriate kind, a paint set, a camera, or an Estes rocket kit.
With the right gift, your geeky kid can get the start in life that he/she needs to be the billionaire boss of those ACs in this thread who have given up all hope for the future. Their role in life will be getting enough Basic Maintenance Income to keep themselves perpetually stoned and out of your kids way.
If I had to pick one toy that I played with the most, it's definitely a skateboard. I'm over 40 now and still play with it :)
Max age on many sets is 99.
http://bricks.stackexchange.com/questions/682/why-does-lego-have-a-maximum-age-limit
Screw lego and mindstorm and mechano. Your kids would probably prefer a guitar, especially since their peers will see it as a cool gift. It's something that is hard for them to learn but will give them a well-deserved boost in self-esteem each time they learn something new. It's also a gender-neutral gift, so no issues there.
Plus, there's the opportunity to bond by teaching them to play Stairway to Heaven, etc. The Stones ain't dead yet.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Money. Then the recipient can choose.
Good parenting goes a long way.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
They are turning 7 soon.
Legos and the basic Perplexus. The latter is a difficult game of angular motion.
Here it is:
https://www.amazon.com/Perplex...
BlameBillCosby.com
Best one I ever got was a Kenwood TS-520S amateur radio transceiver (I'd passed my Novice Class License exam by that point, but the radio was $700 in 1978 - my awesome dad took a leap of faith, and I'm still using it today, though it's been largely supplanted by a more modern one.) 2nd best geeky gift: one of those Radio Shack 150-in-1 electronic project kits in 1976 or so. Both crucially important gifts, in addition to being turbo awesome.
A lot of people are rooting for Legos and I don't really disagree, but my personal experience as a kid was waaaaay better with Meccano. The box had a booklet with instructions for various stuff, but at the end it had an "advanced" category where each model was only shown using three pictures. You had to figure out the rest yourself. It was awesome.
Got my daughter (8) a cubit kit (cubit.cc), think easy pluggable modules with a labview-ish programming interface and option to write lua later
Give your kids something of everything and let them chose their own life.
I remember getting a Chemistry set, bug catchers + biology kits, toy microscopes, lego, a telescope, and at some point I received "The Fun Way Into Electronics Part 1". Then I asked for part 2, and 3 and a few years later a university degree.
I'm an EE now.
I don't have any great suggestions for others because I can't seem to find what I think should be out there right now based on where tech is at. I'm looking for things for an advanced seven month old to enjoy over the next year, and I'm seriously thinking I may just have to get some little WiFi or bluetooth device (preferably cheaper/smaller than Alexa or Google's new offering), cut a stuffed animal open, and sew it in.
Does anyone know of a stuffed animal or something similar that has a bluetooth microphone/speaker combo built-in and uses software running on a computer or phone to help it (with adult guidance) interact with a child?
Do any of you know of a toy that simply answers the question "why?" with some semi-reasonable answer - endlessly - without tiring? Just a little bit of voice recognition tuned to the kid level, a (child safe) internet lookup to retrieve the answer, and some text-to-speech packaged in the form of a stuffed animal would be awesome.
Since the order in which sounds are learned (in general) is well known, is there a toy out there that detects what sounds the child is making, baby-talks back to them (during appropriate pauses) with those sounds sprinkled with the next ones in the progression, and gets excited in some way to encourage new ones when they are detected?
How about a toy that just says a calming "Shhhhh" and perhaps vibrates in a purring sort of way when they cry out at night?
Or a stuffed animal that simply reads whatever e-text I feed it?
Why am I not finding things like this out there?
Hank Salas model.
Runs Linux pretty much "out-of-the-box". All sorts of deployment options for kids with software or electronics aptitude.
One fun thing to play with is a USB microscope: even with low magnification (x50 or x100) can be really interesting for looking at both man-made objects as well as insects and plants. It's engrossing. Get a pad- or phone-connectable one to take into the field.
Try an edison as a much cheaper lego compatible robot:
https://meetedison.com/
They are still quite programmable and the built in barcode programs make them quicker to get started with especially for younger kids.
Note: I'm not an affiliate, just a happy customer
I pickup on the Fahrenheit 451 ref, but not the mods? woah is Slashdot, I say, woah!
I got my daughter Snap Circuits two years ago and we try to do a page in the book each night. https://www.amazon.com/Snap-Ci... last year we got her the Osmo Genius Kit https://www.amazon.com/Osmo-TP... this year I went with the Wonder Workshop Dash Robot and the lego attachment arms. https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-...
Some tools. Needle nose pliers, wire cutters, wire strippers, small ratchet wrench set, nut drivers, screw drivers, a cheap multimeter (analog so they don't get dumbed down). A small hammer, some vice grips, dikes, soldering iron and solder.
Then get them a book on electronic projects and some old piece of crap TV or radio that no longer works. Have them take it apart. Try measuring stuff with the multimeter. Maybe a crystal radio kit.
If you're really in to it, find an old Heathkit shortwave receiver that hasn't been built yet (it'll cost you) or anything else by the same name.
Show them how to "get all of the smoke out of a part".
What first starts out as destruction turns (hopefully) in to construction.
Model rocketry too...
It all worked for me and I still have all of my eyes and fingers :-)
One thing led to another and I ended up with a long career as an engineer.
How about an inexpensive software defined radio receiver? For about $25 these open up a whole lot of radio and computer fun. RTL-SDR and NooElec both offer kits which include the USB receiver itself along with one or more whip antennas and a cable - everything a kid needs to get started, minus a computer and the free software.
or another term would probably be 'problem solving' type. After all, geeky people are people that solve a lot of problems in math, science, technology, etc.
So Lego would be an ok all around gift as it inspires creation. A science kit, kid electricity kit or puzzle game would be better for problem solving.
How about a nice little Dobson telescope plus sky chart? You might add in a sun filter. You're good for many hours of admiring celestial objects with your kids.
For kids of a certain age, a light equatorial mount plus 'scope may enable them to start taking their own pictures.
There's also lots of opportunities to make your own accessories, way cheaper than what you can buy.
I had such awesome fun building stuff with mine. And not the "build this thing" stuff - find a proper, old fashioned, box with 300 pieces you can build anything with.
My little one is still a bit small for mecano (even for lego actually - her fingers aren't that nimble yet) but it's definitely on the list for when she's a bit older.
And a little after that, a raspberry pi ! Best thing I had growing up was my own computer I could mess with and learn to code on, I would not deprive her of the same opportunity.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://www.arduino.cc/
Traffic light fun! Bonus points for a rectifier. Should I be able to get a capacitor to power "amber" when the handle stops? And it's sad when you have to throw out a burnt out LED (from cranking the dynamo way too fast, thanks big brother)
an exciting entertainment for your lovely angel (https://goo.gl/j4P9cU)