Engineer types...

[ChelC]

So my six year old is obsessed with building things. He is as we speak dissasembling a remote control car that is no longer working. Got everything apart by himself and is finishing the last bit. I've been trying to encourage this and I'm wondering if anyone knows of some good products he can play with to build things that work. For homeschool last year we built an electromagnetic car from a little kit, it was fun but the parts were cruddy. I'd like to find a kit that is very durable of things he can put together in various ways with a working motor. Where can I find something like this? Any other suggestions?

[Robert]

So my six year old is obsessed with building things. He is as we speak dissasembling a remote control car that is no longer working. Got everything apart by himself and is finishing the last bit. I've been trying to encourage this and I'm wondering if anyone knows of some good products he can play with to build things that work. For homeschool last year we built an electromagnetic car from a little kit, it was fun but the parts were cruddy. I'd like to find a kit that is very durable of things he can put together in various ways with a working motor. Where can I find something like this? Any other suggestions?

Just get old junk. We made remote control boats out of remote cars. Old cassete players have all kinds of useable hardware in them, with cool little motors in them. Battery operated cd players same thing. We put pumps on little fan boats that we made. The pumps that were on the boats were connected to tanks that we put gas in. It spit out flame when it was in the water. Okay you probably dont want that.

Kits are good for education but most of them suck. Besides the rocket kits. They are a lot of fun.

If he keeps taking things apart then he will start to figure out how things work.

I am fairly average, but I dont know of many people that can fabricate as well as I do. I think it is because I was taking stuff apart when I was younger. I didnt really start figureing out how to make stuff out of junk till I was 12. Even then most of the stuff didnt work. I learned a lot.

Wish I could help you out more.

[ChelC]

Those are good suggestions. Maybe I should pick up junk from DI and let him do what he wants with it. I'd also like to find something that teaches him concepts, like what those miscellaneous parts do. I guess we could figure it out as we took them apart.