Ask Slashdot: What's The Best Geeky Gift For Children? 74
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?
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Welfare Application (Score:1)
They'll be living on welfare by the time they grow up.
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Seriously, it's a zero-sum game. Ignoring personal/familial responsibility and relying on future generations to pay the bill is an ultimate fail.
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No one was ever passed over for a job because they knew 'too many languages'.
I got the opportunity to work in Germany for almost 2 months because I had passable German.
I flew over there. Made something. Trained everyone there how to use it and haven't had to touch it since. I wish I could train a H1B to do my job so I can do the next thing. I could honestly train a high school student to do 90% of the boring laborious parts of my day and concentrate on the other 10%.
Oblig xkcd (Score:2)
lego bricks (Score:4)
Without all the action figure stuff that serves as training wheels their imagination, unless they've demonstrated that they need it.
Build your own (Score:3)
If you are a member of a hackerspace, how about:
An optics kit [hackaday.io]
Some lego-enhanced optics components [hackaday.io]
Other cool optics components [hackaday.io] using legos
A home built robot [hackaday.io]
3d-print an industrial robotic arm [hackaday.io]
A modular clock kit [hackaday.io]
Any sciency kit [hackaday.io]
Any sciency toy [hackaday.io]
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.
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There's a long list of interesting things you could *build* for your child, or build *with* your child
Just give them a reprint of "Inertial-Electrostatic Confinement of Ionized Fusion Gases" and a bottle of heavy water...
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LEGO Mindstorm has Simulink Support [mathworks.com].
They have cheaper home licenses. If your kid can play Minecraft, they can use Simulink. I could hand away half of my job to highschoolers if they knew Simulink. (Job search Indeed in any part of the country).
For younger kids I really wish they still sold Capsela [ebay.com]. My parents swear it's why I became an engineer.
On the cheap end of the spectrum: Go to a thrift store. Buy a electronic thing for under $10. Take it apart. Google the chip numbers. (For some things it's a digital
mindstorm ev3 (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Sphero (Score:2)
Pen and paper (Score:2)
They have enough useless crap as it is.
Xmas gift that I "lost" (Score:1)
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
3D printer... (Score:2)
My favourite gifts as a child (Score:3)
- 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.
Re: My favourite gifts as a child (Score:2)
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- 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)
Dilbert, is that you [youtube.com]?
Lego (Score:3)
Zome Tool (Score:2)
I believe these [zometool.com] provide immense fun.
Not all gifts for geeks are techy... (Score:2)
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 sinc
Erector set (Score:3)
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I used to think that, then the kids got more and more legos and built things you couldn't possibly build with erector sets. Technic builds more stronger devices then erector could ever hope to.
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If they've outgrown Legos, maybe a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook ?
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One, the plural of Lego is Lego.
Two, you don't form plurals with an apostrophe.
Two more: Tumbler. Detector. (Score:2)
A rock tumbler [amazon.com] requires patience but has an awesome payoff.
A metal detector [amazon.com] has a sense of adventure, finding bits of jewelry and coins at a playground or park.
Geeky magazine subscription (Score:1)
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.
What's The Best Geeky Gift For Children? (Score:1)
A laptop. (Score:2)
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I bought a really nice 2012 15 inch Macbook Pro for a little over 600 on ebay recently. 2.3Ghz Quad i7 with16GB of Ram and discrete Nvidia graphics. It's pretty sweet. I guess you can't upgrade anything on the newest ones though. This one is difficult but possible to change the battery. I think it's not necessary to keep shrinking everything to ridiculous proportions.
Geeks need tools (Score:1)
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.
Found it! (Score:2)
Pine Book laptop. $89. Awesome.
https://fossbytes.com/dollar-8... [fossbytes.com]
Emacs (Score:2)
Just kidding
A Football (Score:2)
Bah Humbug (Score:1)
Best geeky gift for kids? Time to play, have fun. Less tech toys that are meant to 'train them for tomorrow'.