Your kids have been really good this year, haven't they? Of course they have!
Thankfully, so have the fine people who make brainy toys for them, toys that provide hands-on experience with concepts like engineering and physics, or your kids' first tastes of grown-up technology you only would have dreamed about at their age. We looked for toys with lots of possibility, stuff that will keep them engaged and excited long after the tree comes down and the last of the candy canes is eaten. Wrap up one of these these, and you're sure to have a happy holiday.
LEGO Mindstorms EV3
My brother and I built plenty of cool but frustratingly immobile stuff with our LEGO bricks, mostly elaborate vehicles and wannabe hovercraft that didn't actually do anything on their own. Today's young LEGO enthusiasts don't have to mimic engine noises and pretend their creation is moving—the ridiculously awesome Mindstorms EV3 kit lets them build real, working robots and bring them to life with an included remote control, or icon-based programming software for PC and Mac, or iOS and Android.
The $350 kit comes with an intelligent EV3 brick that contains an ARM9 processor, Wi-Fi, and a micro-SD card reader, as well as motors, a touch sensor, a color sensor, and an infrared sensor for control. You can build one robot (TRACK3R) with the included instructions, and grab plans on the website to build 16 more, including the snake-like R3PTAR and the heavy-duty ROBODOZ3R. This is definitely the gift I'd be begging for if I were a kid age 10 and up.
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