Xmas present for teenager - tinkering/engineering/robotics computer project?

strumpusplunket · 25 Nov 2023 at 09:34

My youngest is 14 and can't think of a Christmas present request, so I'm trying to get some advice to focus what I'm thinking of.

He is very keen on D&T at school and is set on the ambition of pursuing electrical or computing engineering. He has a decent gaming PC and doesn't really need any upgrades, but a side-project related to computing and engineering would be ideal, I think.

We've been looking at starter kits for things like soldering and circuitry, but a lot of it looks a bit young or a bit gimmicky.

I was wondering if there were any home project kits that would be good for him getting his teeth into? I've been looking at the Raspberry Pi kits, and they look interesting. I note there are robotics add-ons too. But... I really know very little about this area of computing.

If anyone more in the know could offer some pointers that would be great. Is a Pi kit and accessories the best bet? Any alternatives? What should I be looking to get? We don't have any specific projects in mind, just something he can build, tinker with, set up to do interesting things, so ideally a bit flexible and something he can pursue his own reserach into.

strumpusplunket · 25 Nov 2023 at 21:24

Mcnumpty2323 said:
Have a look on Tom's hardware guide
It's got a section dedicated to raspberry pi stuff
Should be some good ideas there
One of the writers on there
Usually also posts about kits he does
With his kids
Though not sure there's a dedicated section
For that bit
May involve a bit of scrolling or searching

Cheers. Will check that out.

strumpusplunket · 26 Nov 2023 at 09:08

brendy said:
Not quite the same but fun also, a 3d printer? Great tool and could also get him into basic cad to design his own parts.

That would be intresting too. I thought they were extremely expensive, but I'll have a look.

strumpusplunket · 26 Nov 2023 at 11:03

Mcnumpty2323 said:
Tom's hardware again lol
They have a 3d printer section too
There's a list of best budget 3d printers in there

Tried CAD myself once
I was awful couldn't even do basic stuff lol
So might be worth trying CAD with him
Before forking out on a 3D printer
If decide that's what to get him

3D Printing News, Analysis and Features | Tom's Hardware

Discover more about 3D Printing with insights from the experts at Tom's Hardware.

www.tomshardware.com

Ah, a lot to think about, I see. I'd not even considered the CAD element of that.

Better get my research trousers on! Looks like TH is a good place to start, though. Cheers.

strumpusplunket · 26 Nov 2023 at 13:56

Vince said:
This is super tricky because at least for me things that are varied with no specific outcome rarely fill the hole. 99% of the things I end up doing / building that aren't just repairing something are because I went down a rabbit hole on something that interested me. Things like building a 3d printer from scratch, it has a defined outcome, at the end I want "this" 3d printer. When you design circuit boards its because you found a problem or some inspiration from something and wanted to make it. The parts I print and build are generally because i found a better way or a solution to a problem I had.

The Pi kit is good but without a project in mind or some sort of problem to fix its difficult to really learn. A great example is when you are learning to write code, if you are just learning for the sake of learning you likely wont get far beyond writing a hello world app, if you have a problem to solve beyond that with a scope and defined outcome you are much more likely to learn at least what you need to in order to fix that particular problem.

Yeah, cheers. I think it is a bit ill-defined at the moment. I might speak to him and see if he likes the idea of any particular projects to work towards.

strumpusplunket · 27 Nov 2023 at 11:05

Vince said:
Its tricky, you want to get something he will use and that is going to kick off that interest and send him down that rabbit hole things like 3d printers are great as you end up making stuff for the printer with the printer and that's always cool to see them upgraded, it also can teach you to get into the cad side designing your own stuff. Soldering wise I did a surface mount led clock that was pretty satisfying. Soldering down a few thousand tiny little LED's and circuit to make a cool clock was pertty cool and easy enough to follow. It really depends on what interests him and what he wants to do - You could go mad and buy a empty gameboy pcb and make your own gameboy from scratch if you wanted. I did it with a GBA, bought an empty board and built one from scratch. Super satisfying and you have a retro console you built yourself at the end of it.

For the gameboy I did actually end up doing a full bill of materials with pretty much every single part, bar the 4 or 5 donor chips you need from a broken original one. That was a pretty cool project that came about because i saw an awesome empty gameboy pcb on aliexpress.

Cheers. Much appreciate all the thoughts and pointers.

I wish I'd had this idea a month or two ago, really. He is having a think today about things he might like to do and going in to his D&T class looking for ideas, so hopefully we hit on something in time.

He's also really into D&D, so I wonder about the possiblity of designing and making figurines on a 3D printer, too...

strumpusplunket · 27 Nov 2023 at 13:52

Vince said:
Sounds like a resin printer might be on the cards

Oooh, is that a sub-type of 3D printer? It looks like there are lots of different types. I think I have my own project for the evenings coming up here...

strumpusplunket · 27 Nov 2023 at 15:25

Vince said:
Its a type of printer! Take a look at the sort of stuff and quality you can get out of it!

Dont ask... somebody wanted charmander wearing an xmas hat lol

Wow, amazing!!

strumpusplunket · 27 Nov 2023 at 17:23

Vince said:
And not crazy expensive either. if your sons thing is minatures etc as well a resin is the way to go.. messy as all hell but fun

Neat. He's not got into miniatures yet, but he has been talking about him and his friends getting tabletop gear to represent their encounters so that might be a good route to explore with him. Thanks again!

strumpusplunket · 28 Nov 2023 at 09:25

Vince said:
Having some table top resin characters all painted up representing the D&D game they are playing would be a pretty cool project in itself. You could literally use a xbox kinect or something similar, scan yourself and your mates into the pc and make a 3d model of yourself add some daggers, staffs and stuff like that and you could have a little array of characters printed up that represent your in game characters. I have never personally played a game of D&D so don't know quite how it works but that does sound pretty cool.

This is getting quite exciting. I was talking to him about this over dinner last night. He said he hadn't considered 3D printing because he thoght the kit was really expensive, but I could see his eyes lighting up thinking about it. He's going to have a think about whether he'd rather get stuck into a Pi type project or get into design and printing.

Cheers!!

strumpusplunket · 29 Nov 2023 at 13:38

Looking into printing a bit more, I am now a bit concerned about the toxicity of the resin. I didn't realise it was such unpleasant stuff. It looks like it's not ideal to have it in a room where people will be living during printing, and then there is washing and curing to think about, which I had no awareness of either. It's looking like my plan of him having a 3D printer next to his PC on his bedroom table won't work out well.

It does look like there are some filament printers using PLA are much safer, though I'm not 100% sure if they're any good for the kind of things he'd want to print or that they don't release at least some level of harmful airborne particulates.

Kind of veering back to the Pi ideas after looking in more detail into all that, I think, although keeping an eye on FMD printer possiblities too.