HACKER Q&A
📣 brutusborn

What is the best way to get young children into technology?


I want to find the best way to expose my nephew to programming, as well as computers and technology in general. He is starting to read and is able to type and can use a tablet pretty well, so what kind of toys or projects would be best for his ability? I was considering Lego robots as a starting point. Does anyone have any experience they could share?


  👤 ksaj Accepted Answer ✓
Have you seen Little Bits? https://littlebits.com/.

They have kits that allow you to quickly build really interesting things. For example, a Space Rover: https://littlebits.com/collections/invent-at-home/products/l... - scroll to the "What's In The Box" section and you'll immediately understand the price point. It's quite worth it. Educational through-and-through, yet everything is simplified by the magnetic connection strategy they employ to ensure you only ever connect modules in ways that work and don't ... fry. And the almost origami-meets-Lego build is a whole lot of fun.

We actually have the Space Rover Inventor Kit in our household, playing and re-configuring it a lot. The sensor modules and other plug-in things are really great. And you control everything using the tablet, which your nephew has already started becoming proficient at.

We love terrorizing our pets with it. But I digress....


👤 ColinWright
I've seen good things about this:

https://www.turingtumble.com/