This is not yet an exhaustive list. Please comment if you know of any other resources to mention!
Hardware & Software
- Lego Big Blocks - the classic! Our 2 1/2 yearold daughter loves these. You can build simple
This is not yet an exhaustive list. Please comment if you know of any other resources to mention!
Hardware & Software
- Lego Big Blocks - the classic! Our 2 1/2 yearold daughter loves these. You can build simple animals, towers, houses etc.
- Boxes for building towers - I forget the brand name but our daughter has a box of boxes(!) that she loves. It’s just a set of about 10 colourful boxes; each one a little smaller than the previous one such that they all pack away into the largest box (a little like a Russian doll). It’s great for building towers. Surprisingly good fun!
- TED Talk: AnnMarie Thomas: Hands-on science with squishy circuits
- Little Bits - little electronics building blocks which snap together with magnets.
- adafruit have a Young Engineers section of their shop (including Little Bits)
- Snap Circuits
- Hot Wires
- Cambridge BrainBox Electronics Kits - several kits. Similar to Hot Wires and Snap Circuits.
- Superstructs Starter Set - We bought this for our 2 1/4 yearold. I was hoping that it would be easy to assemble the pieces but it’s actually quite physically tough to force some of the pieces together (even for an adult!). You often have to apply quite a lot of pressure and must do so within quite a narrow range of angles. As such, I’d hesitate to recommend these for younger kids. But, that said, our daughter does like this kit, even though she can’t get many of the parts to connect together. She can build simple little creations and she often demands “Mummy / Daddy, build new car!” Of course, the toy is meant for 3 year olds upwards, so I’m being a little unfair writing a review based on our 2 1/4 yearold’s experiences! It’s entirely possible that a patient 3 year old would be able to assemble the pieces with little trouble.
- play-i Bo and Yana robots
- Lego Mindstorm kits
- Graphical programming languages for kids:
- MIT’s Scratch
- Berkeley’s Build Your Own Blocks (BYOB) - now called Snap!
- Enchanting (for programming Lego Mindstorm NXT 2.0 kits; I have used Enchanting and love it. Here’s a blog post where I describe my experience of using Enchanting and Mindstorms with 9-12 yearolds)
- ScratchJr - coding for young children (5-7)
- The Foos
- Built It Nuts and Bolts - (we bought the “construction starter set” for our 2 yearold daughter. She likes fiddling with it although it’ll be a while before she can build anything substantial with it. But she loves asking me and her mum to build robots for her! At 26 months she’s just about getting the hang of putting a nut on a bolt and taking it off again, although she still needs a lot of help with that.)
- MOSS - The Dynamic Robot Construction Kit. By Modular Robotics - “Build your own robots with MOSS! Simple, fun, magnetic robot construction kits. No coding, no wires, oodles of configurations!”
- Goldie Blox - “Building Games for Girls.” And cool promo video!
- Circuit Scribe - “a rollerball pen that writes with conductive silver ink. It makes creating circuits as easy as doodling.”
- MaKey MaKey - “Turn everyday objects into touchpads and combine them with the internet. It’s a simple Invention Kit for Beginners and Experts doing art, engineering, and everything inbetween”
- Circuit Stickers - “Circuit stickers are peel-and-stick electronics for crafting circuits. Use them to add electronics to any sticker-friendly surface: paper, fabric, plastic, the sky’s the limit!”
- Meccano do a couple of plastic kit for years 5 and up. http://www.meccano.com/uk/products/models.html I don’t think they have any motors or cogs in these kits though.
- Big Trak
- Primo Cubetto - for 4 yearolds up. Looks awesome. “Program” a robot to move using a simply physical interface. Apparently also works for advanced 3 yearolds.
- Ozo Bot - tiny programmable robot (using visual programming system). Looks cute!
- CHERP (Creative Hybrid Environment for Robotic Programming) - “a hybrid tangible/graphical computer language designed to provide an engaging introduction to computer programming for young children in both formal and informal educational settings. With CHERP you can create programs for robots like the LEGO Mindstorms RCX and Lego WeDo, as well as the KIWI research prototype… CHERP’s wooden blocks contain no embedded electronics or power supplies. Instead CHERP uses the computer’s embedded camera or a standard webcam connected to a desktop or laptop computer to take a picture of your program, which it then converts into digital code”
- Kamigami - “lightning-fast, origami-style robots that you can build yourself! Our robots are perfect for those looking for a fun, spring-to-life, do-it-yourself project that won’t break the bank. It’s 