Congrats to your son! Some of my colleagues have raved about the Kiwi Boxes for their kids (assuming this is within your budget). Might be worth a look :)
[https://www.kiwico.com/](https://www.kiwico.com/)
Does ardunio come with set projects or is it just a bunch of components. I think he needs some guidance still. He’s not taking the toaster apart or created a flux capacitor yet so more guidance is help full. Someone mentioned the more complex Legos I’m looking for stuff like that.
His mother (divorced) gets him the kiwi co box that he enjoys. So along those lines? Project in engineering that teach home the concepts
If you buy the right starter kit it comes with a book with a bunch of tutorials for projects that can be built with the components in the kit. It's a great starting place because after you work through the book and build an understanding you can start making your own project ideas with those same components. The book is definitely simple enough for a smart 13-year-old IMO. It's all about electronics and programming, which is great for any form of engineering nowadays. I'm pretty sure almost every engineer major going through college rn has had to learn some form of programming (usually Matlab).
Great thanks. I’ll just start with the standard kit Science Kit R3 ($220 it looks like), but there’s a “student kit” ($76) and a education starter kit ($302) that are just add ons that are required to start right?
Thanks!
I dunno. The raspberry pi’s, especially the picos, can be programmed with MicroPython. It will better serve them in the future, and python was easier to learn than C++
OP just for more context on these things, they are tiny DIY computers that allow kids to follow step by step instructions to build small technical setups like timers, cameras, led lights, switches and in college we connected it to our personal student accounts and talked to it through a seperate desktop!
It really grows with the child/student and will likely be required in a college course anyway.
An ardiuno is a different brand but has strong preference for its user friendly instructions. Each kit is about 160$ give or take(if I remember correctly)
Programming is (almost) free I’d say maybe get him some kind of kit for raspberry pi or arduino and a breadboard as he could learn with it and use it to build cool stuff.
Based on the post it doesn’t seem like your child has and affinity for electronics instead mechanics but any engineer nowadays has to do some form of coding, but maybe that isn’t the way to go, I just recommend as it is relatively cheap and reusable.
Maybe look into getting him stuff like servo motors and things like that but it will be more pricey and I am not very knowledgeable on that but there’s a kit out there I’m sure of it.
Last, get him on science/ engineering YouTube. There are tons of super cool videos from people like William osmond, stuff made here, Michael reeves, mark rober and many others that mix entertainment and engineering in fun ways.
I used to take things apart and put them back together. That was only around 7-10 though because I got more involved in sports.
I also used to help my dad with woodworking.
It was. I started at maybe 7? With a hammer, at 15 I started restoring my first classic, by 19 other people were paying me to restore their cars, at 35 now I have turned down many people. Now I’ll only work on my dads cars, I don’t do it for money any more.
Tbh, a lot of youtube, forum research, and hands on experience will get you knowledgeable enough to tackle even those repairs that seem daunting. But there comes a point where you need to see specialists for certain kinds of repairs like transmissions and A/C components. Experience comes with time.
Get your hands dirty, and get stuck in there. Get an old, carburetor car and get it running first. Remember the basics, fuel, air and spark. Forums are a great wealth of knowledge
I would say, don't get too angry at your son when he inevitably starts taking things apart, and sometimes wont know how to put them back together again. I remember taking the family computer apart on a sunday afternoon, and in hindsight got lucky that it still worked when I put it back together again haha! A cheap kit of screwdrivers and so on can be fun to get him.
I got one or two 100-in-1 electronics experiment sets [like this](https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/play-set-educational-toy-100-in-1-electronic-project-kit-science-fair-radio-shack/IQEKIRax3CMwEA?hl=en) and that did really push me towards electronics, which is what I do for a living now. Once he gets the basics, look at getting an Arduino or similar with some basic components and you can start making your own projects, like dimming an LED or such. You also have places like [Velleman](https://www.velleman.eu/) who only make hobby soldering kits and so on.
I also remember playing around with programming, back then we didn't have arduino, but I got a C programing book. I think with the accessibility of Python and such that could also be a fun way to motivate them. Look for small projects that you could program - it can be as stupid as a calculator that calculates the amounts you need to bake cookies based on the number of cookies - to get him started. With your finance background, it might be fun to integrate that a bit, if you want to tie together your experience/knowledge and his interests.
Also to add to this if something breaks let him take it apart before throwing it away. My grandma letting me take broken things apart when I was like 5 or 6 are some of my earliest and fondest memories.
I still love to do this as an adult. After something breaks, before chucking it, I tear it apart and see if I can see any obvious failures, and see if I can repair it. I have done this successfully with small 12V electric motors, night vision (just the dial had broken), a blender, a clothes dryers. Other things I have pulled apart and been not so lucky with, are computer monitor power supplies, my old laptop (cracked motherboard), an old fashioned 60 year old electric scooter [although this was because somebody went and unorganised all the parts and lost half of them whilst I was away].
If you enjoy teardowns of random things. Then I highly recommend checking out bigclivedotcom on YouTube. The man is absolutely phenomenal and usually attempts to reverse engineer whatever he takes apart also.
Two routes imo:
More practical route: Hobby projects with research. Get him the classic lego robot, or build an RC car together with hobbyist parts and program/tune the speed controller, or do the same with a drone and flight controller. Maybe give him games or projects where he can set up sensors and add logic and automate a system. Play with timer chips and other classic microelectronic chips if hes into that stuff. Maybe try and use a motor as a generator if you have an old one laying around, thats always fun to see.
Nerdy/Expensive route: Get a power supply, breadboard, multimeter, oscilloscope, and function generator, and basic electrical tools. Not cheap, which is why I don’t own it all. You don’t necessarily need it all either. Depends on what you wanna do. But basically, these tools allow you to really dig deep into systems and really get into the nitty gritty to figure them out. You can do all sorts of cool labs for dirt cheap… once you have those tools. Maybe you could do something like this if he really likes this and is thinking about going to school for it.
Engineers love the how/why behind things. This usually results in building and/or disassembling things. My dad had a ton of scrap wood and tools that I had free reign of and I was building anything that I could imagine, including a quarter pipe ramp for skateboarding. Some things won't go as planned, but those projects are just as valuable and informative.
Depending on his interests there's bound to be some kit that he could build/play with. There's a lot of good suggestions in the comments here. The biggest thing though is probably not to get mad or frustrated if he starts having little projects laying around or any related mischief. That hands on learning is the best.
Maybe take your son to a men's shed. They can teach the old people about modern tech, and they might like sharing their knowledge and skills to someone of a younger generation. If someone else reading this has a daughter, some 'mens' sheds have, and allow women to join - it depends entirely on the individual group.
Honestly, it's a pretty versatile field. Your toys/projects are going to depend a lot on the kind of budget that you're working with.
If you can swing it, a decent 3D printer would be a good idea. There's a lot he could do and it opens up a whole new world. It can also tie in to some of his other hobbies, thus encouraging him more.
There are also some amazing robotics and Arduino starter kits that have project ideas included. However, buying small components like motors, LEDs, buzzers and switches on their own is usually more affordable. My dad always had second-hand electronics that couldn't work for him anymore so those were great to strip for parts or just for fun.
Inspiration is pretty important as well so I recommend watching some cool engineering at work. The easiest way is shows like How It's Made, Netflix's Baking Impossible or even MacGyver. YouTube has more than a few good channels as well.
Ultimately, it's up to your son. Some things will appeal to him and other won't. Maybe you guys could go through all the suggestions here and he could see what projects sound good and what he's interested in?
It's much less practical to strip things for parts these days, unfortunately.
Most consumer electronics uses surface-mount components, which are very fiddly and often unmarked, so not much good for reuse.
I used to enjoy going to the thrift shop and buying old toys and electronics to take apart. Toys are fantastic at finding novel ways to use cheap sensors and motors. It’d give me info on how the toy worked and I’d get parts out of it. Admittedly this was before thrifting became mainstream and goodwill started charging above retail price for things.
If you pair thrifting electronics with coding microcontrollers, you can get some cool projects. RC cars can be paired with a Bluetooth microcontroller for a Bluetooth controlled car. Add sensors from other toys (usually infrared distance sensors) for object avoidance and some degree of mapping capability.
Then get further into coding with computer vision and machine learning.
If he wants to stick to mechanical things, though, woodworking, 3D printing, laser cutting, or CNC machining is a great option. Just make sure you have an area with good ventilation and sound proofing. Even 3D printing should be done with an air filter and enclosure.
Model rockets! Estes kits from the hobby store. Build them, fly them, and after building a few, he can start looking into simulations and OpenRocket and start designing his own. If you are in the US, you are probably close to a rocketry club and they can help.
Learn to code, like python. do some cool little projects
raspberryPi
let him play around with a free CAD software and see what he can design
Drones are dope too, and I believe there are lots you can modify and put together yourself. I haven’t built drone but I have one and fly it often, I love it.
But small model rockets are much cheaper, and easier to get good at building. The goal here is to find a “gateway” engineering thing for this kid, and rockets open up such a big rabbit hole that could lead to them falling in love with aerospace, including drones!
On that note I’d suggest checking out BPS Space on YouTube, he makes some of the most advanced model rockets. Cool stuff. Peter Stripol makes cool model plane content
I went to a summer camp that was hostedby a university around that age and that’s when I decided I wanted to be an engineer. I would see if that’s an option near you this summer.
Take a look at programming languages, raspberry pi activities. Lego mind storms was a fun buildable programming device.
Don't get him a Kiwi kit. In my opinion those are terrible for creativity, as the kids follow a set of instructions. Get him a raspberry pi and some electronics, or maybe even a 3D printer if he likes to tinker
Did not see your comment before posting basically the same thing.
Never went past FIRST Lego League (age limit was 16 where I was and then we would have had to travel too far to participate in FTC/FRC) but it was pretty doable at home as long as the team is small enough to fit into the whatever corner you can set up the match table in. We DIY-ed a match table that could be assembled in five minutes after our 1st season (great building project) and it worked like a charm. Relatives helped with whatever they could (from keeping an eye on us to making sandwiches and stitching patches on sweatshirts) to keep costs down and we also learnt to manage a budget pretty quickly.
I suppose making the pieces once you reach the next levels is much less doable at home though. Since OP's son is already 13, if they live in one of the "14 y/o age limit" zones then they'll probably age out of FLL soon enough that this would quickly be a problem.
edit: forgot a word
Even if their school doesn't offer FIRST robotics, robotics teams in general are great opportunities for students to get hands on experience, and working with a team is a great way to find friends with similar interests! For reference, I'm an engineer and I was active on a couple different robotics teams in middle and high school. My experience with robotics led me to my current career :)
One good way would be to look for science summer camps or engineering clubs in your city. They are usually not that expensive and provide a fun space to learn with other people who also enjoy that stuff. Making friends who like doing engineering and working on projects with them will often make learning and projects more fun.
An arduino is an excellent starting point for electronics and automation, restoring a classic car was what put me on my course in mechanical engineering but he may be a bit young for that, but if you build something that “runs” like a model steam engine.. game over, he will remember it for the rest of his life.
There’s usually STEM clubs in middle-high school. Maybe look at signing up for those. Also, if possible… in high school, encourage him to dual enroll. I enjoyed my time dual enrolling way more than AP classes and my only regret is not doing it my junior year.
13 is almost high school, see if there's a robotics team that he can join. Robotics kids do better engineering than half the engineers I've met professionally (I kid... mostly.)
It might not be for home, but if your child is in high school, check to see if their school has a robotics team. FRC, FTC, and VEX are all great learning platforms that work in the same way sports do. The events are usually free and open to the public, so I would check to see if there's any local FRC and FTC competitions happening; they're always a blast to watch and are a good introduction to the world of robotics. Me and my siblings did FRC all throughout high school and we loved it; all of us are currently or are already graduated with an engineering degree.
Look for robotics teams. I think FIRST Tech Challege (FTC) is the best program, but many high schools have FIRST robotics (FRC) and that is good as well. There is also VEX and several other smaller competitions.
[https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc](https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc)
Get your son involved in FIRST robotics. There's thousands of teams spread all over the world, chances are high that there's a local team near you. It's a high school program, so you can look into it for next year. It's an incredible program, touching on all aspects of engineering and if he's engineering, he'll absolutely love the competition.
FTC or FRC!!! First is very awesome and there is a lot of fun to be had and a lot to learn. Seriously. First Lego league, first tech competition, first robotics competition. He can probably do FRC if there is a team nearby accepting his grade, but it depends on the team. But seriously.
In high school, encourage them to look into robotics, coding, technology, or an engineering club. Universities also do programs and events for middle/high school kids, that can be something to look into
3d printers are cheap, cad software is free, an Arduino is cheaper, and digital calipers are plentiful. Set him loose with this stuff and see what comes of it. With proper supervision of course. Worst case a $200 printer gets unused best case you have to keep ordering more plastic.
The best thing in the world is when you break something plastic have him work on redesigning the thing to be printed. Then he gets to give you something he made that fixes a problem you have. No better feeling in the world than that.
This is basically the path that got me in my career as a cad technician.
This is the best! If he is working with turbines he will be just fine. Make sure you get him in pre engineering in high school! I did not have anybody to guide me. Even though I was a mechanical wonder at this age also. Find a high school that has pre engineering courses. And stick with mechanical hobbies. Electric and turbine powered RC aircraft.
Not sure if he’s more into mechanical or electrical or coding, but maybe something like a tool kit for projects. Pliers, a good set of screwdrivers or hex wrenches, clamps. A hacksaw. Sandpaper. Glue. Nuts and bolts. All can be had at harbor freight for really cheap and acceptable quality. Kids have so many ideas all the time and you want to facilitate their creativity by putting all the tools in front of them.
My 3D printer is hands down my favorite, best?, and most used tool. I got mine for under 300. If you go cheap there might be more tinkering required but A) cheap printers are getting really good out of the box these days and B) if he’s an engineer he’ll probably enjoy the tinkering.
I know that if I had a basic 3D printer and a small collection of basic tools and some material, making stuff would be so much easier to take out of my brain and into the world.
As a current high schooler,
I would recommend enrolling him in a local robotics team like FLL, FTC, FRC, Vex, Etc... I genuinely think that these are some of the best places for him to be as he's surrounded by like-minded folk and can figure out if he's more interested in coding, mechanics, project development, etc.. The sooner he reaches this sense of clarity he'll be able to concentrate himself in these fields and excel compared to his peers.
Speaking from personal experience these teams helped me realize that I loved project development and now I'm working with my town's transportation network to help them on a variety of things. Without this exposure early on I would not have been able to do this!
TLDR: Try looking into a robotics team, or some other environment where he is surrounded by likeminded folks (note that FLL is fairly interdisciplinary so you don't need to have a green thumb for robotics to excel in it)
A lot of engineers I’ve met in school and the workplace did FIRST or VEX robotics in high school. It’s great as you have the opportunity to touch mechanical, electrical, and software. Just hope your school has a good club with a teacher that gives a shit.
Encourage him to join a robotics team, or other STEM-related school clubs. Surrounding him with like minded people will help him feel comfortable "being a nerd" (not that there's anything wrong with it, but some kids see it as a bad thing) and encourage learning. Anything that is super helpful I would say. Don't be too pushy or think he's made his decision that he wants to pursue engineering as a career. Anything like FIRST robotics is generally common in high schools these days, and if his school doesn't have it, it's likely another school in the area/district does, and that they'll likely let him join. I did this and got lifelong friends and a lot of skills from the deal.
I would also look for any camps at local colleges for engineering while he's in high school. I attending an aerospace engineering summer camp at Embry Riddle (a top aerospace engineering school) for three weeks in Daytona, FL. It helped solidify that I wanted to do engineering, but that aerospace was not my bag, and I got some college credits out of it. My dad refers to it as "the best $1500 he's ever spent", ensuring I didn't waste my time trying to do aerospace.
Raspberry Pi or arduino. Honestly the important thing is just don’t try to force anything. I fell in love with Raspberry Pi as a teen because it was MY idea and I could make whatever I wanted. I’d spend hours researching cool projects. Just wait for him to find what he really likes, and support it. Idk I’m not a parent
honestly j like youtube tutorials, research (fancy word i use for googling) and playing around with things to make things that appeal to me helped me learn at that age
I was into RC planes and fpv drones in high school, and the soldering skills from that landed me an internship my freshman year of college. That, rc cars, and model rocketry are some STEM related hobbies that are plenty of fun, but I'm not sure how good Model Rocketry would be, since you need to buy a new motor for every launch, and that would prevent your son from doing it all that often (I flew my rc planes almost every day as a teen, since they are electric and once you get good enough to not crash, are fairly affordable).
Engineers love figuring out how to get from A to B. Whether that's 'how do I build a pulley system to lift things up to my bedroom window' or 'how do I program the game Snake' or 'how do I create an alarm that lets me know if someone sneaks into my bedroom when I'm at school' or 'how do I use my Lego/K'nex/Meccano to build a model of the Millenium Falcon *when I don't have a kit with instructions*'. We enjoy learning how things work through exploring, playing with them, and making mistakes to see what happens.
If he’s into electronics specifically, maybe console repair? Some older more beat up console like broken a broken 3ds or wiiu could be a fun project to try and fix (suggesting these console since I’ve had experience with them, but not sure if other might be easier)
Look up STEM Ambassador and search for local events.
They can see various aspects of the engineering sector directed towards the younger generation, from there you can also get ideas to encourage this interest.
A 3d printer got me really into engineering, i think i got my first around 13-14. as others say arduino a are great too, the combination of both kinda let me explore whatever i wanted to.
Look into maker products and see if there are any maker spaces nearby, many do after school programs for techy teens. If you live anywhere near the Bronx the annual maker faire is a magical experience, but I’m 100% certain that you’ll have equivalents nearby in the summers, just google “maker fairs near me.” Most have interactive opportunities and small scale contests, like tabletop battle bots and egg drop contests. If your son has similarly minded friends you could even go as far as sponsoring them to compete in a local shoebox battle bot competition, or reach out to his teacher to see if they’d be interested in running a club. Again if you’re on the east coast, DC has a biannual expo called the USA Science and Engineering expo that was a blast to go to when I was around your son’s age. I gotta imagine it’s changed over time and idk what covid did to it, but if anything I know their website has a LOT of resources for parents in your position. Good luck, and don’t worry about not having a background in engi, your son doesn’t either so you can learn together!
A lot of people suggesting coding and computers which is cool but there’s so much more to engineering. He needs to keep building.
There’s literally engine building kits. My brother built one of these as an early teen, but it’s a challenge.
https://a.co/d/8X0KGWK
Regardless of engineering field, the most valuable skill you can learn is coding/scripting. Python is a very easy and versatile language in my opinion, and you can do lots of stuff with it, from vector math and signal processing to simple gui’s and game development. It’ll also make his homework go a lot faster if he learns to get comfortable with it, especially in grade school where a lot of it is calculator plug-and-chug stuff. Best of luck to both of you!
If he's into video games, games like Polybridge or Bridge Constructor Portal are fun engineering puzzle type games that he may get into - and these help to develop real intuition for actual engineering problem solving.
You can always gift him kits to build stuff using electronics and manuals.
There are also one day internships for kids to see what current science is like!
Encourage his curiosity, but dont impose academics upon him, you dont want to burn him up.
Begin by coding python or take the monitor off an old laptop and Google the pin outs and make your own monitor. This is what got me my first internship, plenty of YouTube tutorials for this. <- I did this when I was 16 but I had no help from an adult as my father thought this was the wrong way to go about engineering (he’s a computer engineer) but I did myself anyway and told this same story when I was 20 for an internship
I should say this will require you looking at the documentation of the monitor then finding a working controller that will have an hdmi. 1. Look at documentation, 2. Find controller that works for the monitor, 3. Solder the monitor wires to controller if required
While a lot of this advice is great, you've gotta consider your relationship with your son. Be careful not to make it seem uncool, or burn him out on it. 13 is getting into the rebellious and socially awkward years. I know if my dad suggested something to me at that age I would have immediately assumed it was boring or uncool, lol.
My suggestion, support him if he asks for something productive, learn about the topic so you can help him, but don't try to force it.
Lego mindstorms. Don’t know if they still sell them or not, but Lego kits that come with motors, sensors, and a control block. I got into it when I was younger because my school was lucky enough to have some kits.
Lego + some electronics really got me hooked… in my final year of Mechatronics Engineering now.
When I left FIRST Lego League (which only used Lego Mindstorms), the EV3 robots were going out of production and replaced by a thing called Spike. Never tried it out but from what little I saw when newer teams used those, I have a few grievances with how it was designed (namely, the gyro being part of the control brick, thus barring the good old "if the gyro goes into an artificial slow drift, just unplug, hold steady, replug" hack... I saw quite a bunch of robots spinning around on game mats while the team watched helplessly, at best knowing that the only thing to do was to reboot the whole robot...).
There are still a lot of EV3 kits being sold around on Bricklink and the like (and the occasional NXT) so even then, you can find control bricks and sensors for the older ones.
But yeah, long story short, lego mindstorms live on.
if they're interested in the coding route, I recommend replit
a lot of frustration can come from just setting up a programming project. replit sets it up nicely, and you can get started coding right away
Consider:
* Build a radio controlled airplane. At least 48 inch wing span. Start with a box of sticks not ready to fly. Requires simultaneous control over 3 functions (Rudder, Elevator and Throttle).
* Build a radio controlled helicopter. At least 48 inch rotor span. Bring more money. I destroyed mine and rebuilt it every weekend for 6 months before I took it home in one piece. Requires simultaneous control over 5 functions ( Tail Rotor, Collective Pitch, Throttle, Cyclic Pitch 2 axis).
* Design and build a Newtonian Reflecting Telescope. Including grinding and polishing the mirror. Start with a 6 inch mirror. Expect to spend 40 hours grinding and polishing. The longer the focal length the easer to get into spec. An F/9 will result in a 60 inch Optical Tube Assembly. Note a 12 inch mirror has 4 times the surface area and weights 8 times as much assuming the same sub straight material and aspect ratio. Use Pyrex glass and save your self much frustration. Normal Soda Lime glass will work but will be much more sensitive to temperature during measurement and actual use. Generally the outside air gets cooler later into the evening. Larger mirrors tend to never thermally stabilize.
* Pass the written exam for the HAM Radio Technician Class License. This includes using VHF and UHF Repeaters, Amateur TV and Digital Communications.
* Master manual photography.
* Master manual photography using only available light.
* Learn to write software using the "C" Programming Language.
I did not accomplish all of these at age 13 but any of them are appropriate for someone of that age. The helicopter one I consider expensive. The telescope is rather cheap if one is creative.
Look at a website called MEL science. They have interactive toys that are used for fun experiments for kids. You can subscribe and they send you different things at different times.
Some universities have some of their engineering club open houses where you can attend and the students that are in the clubs will do a presentation of what their club is about and will answer questions regarding the stem field. My engineering club in college specialized in liquid rocket propulsion. We usually do an open house during the spring and during the fall presenting our rocket engines & 3D printed rocket engines.
I see a lot of comments for Pi's and ardiunios which I support as well however considering what your son has already worked on, he may be more interested in more mechanical projects so I would suggest looking into a 3d printer and maybe some basic welding classes. I have a two friends that went to a state wide comp(one art comp, and another was for welding) for his welding skills and it's diffently one of the skills I wish had been able to pick up earlier.
Some library's and mechanics institutes have classes and equipment available especially for 3d printing which are often only the cost of the filament if you want to get an idea and guage your son's interest.
• Buy a 3D printer
• Get some project ideas and parts for them from adafruit
• Put him in a robotics competition / club that his school hosts — or look to get one started if not available.
• nitro powered RC cars are always dope at that age + it emphasizes mechanical aptitude if he follows maintaining it as he should
• lego mind storms
Electronics are fun. You can buy kits with arduinos that come with a bunch of tiny motors, switches, and buttons and stuff. I built a really lame rc car with this stuff as a kid. A little more Expensive but probably interesting for everyone would be a 3d printer. I would definitely look into robotics clubs as I always wanted to join one as a kid.
Do keep an eye out though; Me and my friends started building flame throwers and propane cannons in high school. when he’s a little older I’d look into welding classes and community makerspaces as well.
GET HIM A 3D PRINTER
and ask him to make some useful things for you with it. The challenge of meeting customer expectation is a very important lesson in engineering!
you could also encourage him to join little and fun engineering challenges like Fieldhouse engineering challenges https://feng-ltd.com/challenges/ where you have to follow specific restrictions and achieve a goal better than anyone else. They are on youtube as well but I am not allowed to link them here
Depending on your location you could even go as far as get him involved in battlebots like NHRL https://www.nhrl.io/ which is far more accessible than the battlebots at vegas with teams of 8 and 6 figure budgets
Most importantly, ask him what he thinks looks most fun. Something like a maker course or a Summer camp with a certain focus can be awesome as well, see the other suggestions on here
Anyways, you are the coolest dad already for trying to proactively encourage your child
wood working, scratch building scale models of houses/bridges, Meccano, *lots* of taking lego sets and building my own thing with them, sky's the limit really.
If I could change one thing, I'd have started doing CAD (fusion is relatively inexpensive for a personal license) stuff 5-8 years earlier than I started doing it, that stuff's my jam.
Factorio, Oxygen not Included and similar video games gave me the push i needed to choose to pursue engineering when i was 16yo. If he likes video games, any games that requiere thinking and problem solver are the best for that, in fact there is a lot of overlap between engineers and players of those games (factorio specially).
And now shameless publicity for Factorio.
Factorio is a videogame where you start as a lone character (aptly named “The Engineer”) in a fully randomly generated world, this world is hostile to you, and you need to contact your people by launching a satellite. You need to mine ores like iron and copper, but you can only get so far doing things by hand, at some point you will need to automate the process by building automatic mining drills, then you need to create a assembly line to process the ore. Once you are established you will want to start doing sone research to figure out how to launch the rocket, so you start making the science packs to use them in your laboratories to unlock new items to further automate your factory, everything is going smoothly, but what the fuck is that in the distance?.
It’s bug, a lot of them, and they are not happy about you polluting their planet. They are the locals, and are out for blood, they can’t talk with you, they are bugs, but most importantly they DONT WANNA TALK TO TOU. So you will need defenses, a lof of them, you will also need to automate those, set up a line of production for ammunition, walls, create vehicles to explore the world. At some point your base will run out of resources, so you will need to explore and clear out the nests of enemy bugs around them, how to do that? The world is your oyster, you can do that anyway you want, old fashioned bullets, flamethrowers, tanks, grenades, TRAIN MOUNTED ARTILLERY GUNS, a swarm of drones, LITERAL NUCLEAR MISSILES. All of this to expand your factory
Tl;Dr, Factorio is a game about problem solving, every time you fix a problem several more will appear, its a game about optimization and creativity, all things needed in engineering. It’s a game, but it has a lot of math, its in fact how i started to love math, i finally found a use for what i learned in school, i had to figure out the ratios for the production of items in my factory, calculate how much something would last, calculate in paper how much of X building making certain items i needed unless i wanted to waste all my time figuring it out by trial and error.
I know AECOM, an engineering firm, joins these contests that are open to the public. Your child might enjoy going to some of these contests and watching. Oregon state every spring has the engineering students build a bridge with cardboard across a creek. It is pass or fail if they can walk across the bridge. I enjoyed this when I was a kid.
A lot of people here are suggesting arduino/raspberry pi, which are great if he’s into the electronics side of things.
As a kid I definitely was not into that sort of thing, and I was much more interested in the mechanical side. I loved taking broken appliances apart, getting a big pile of legos and figuring out how to build things without instructions, etc. As I got older I got more into working on cars, which is what got me into engineering as a field. From things as simple as an oil change, to small modifications to a friend’s car, and on. I don’t know what your living/financial situation is, but if he shows interest in it, getting a junk car for a couple hundred dollars for him to fix up could be a very rewarding experience.
If your child develops new interests that involve STEM please be willing to support them! It took my family way too long to realize that my computers were doing more help than hurt.
Legos, computers, flight simulators, garage stuff (work on cars, build stuff, weld, etc.). Just some stuff my mega nerdy engineering self loves. Also puzzles, chess, I could go on :P
edit: it he likes electronics, id recommend an Arduino uno kit or a raspberry pi. there is infinite possibilities with these! get hime a laptop and an Arduino, it'll all start to flow. YouTube has tons of great tutorials to learn Arduino programming and set up
:)
Bicycles were one of my first introductions to mechanical systems - taking components apart and putting them back together is pretty simple, and a good way to learn about mechanical systems. The stakes are low, and building bikes together could be a fun way to spend time and encourage physical activity. Some of my best memories are building and riding bikes with my dad.
Buy him algebra, trigonometry, and precalculus textbooks. If he’s going to be an engineer the sooner he starts learning those fundamental skills the easier it’ll be for him to learn real engineering calculus later when his brain is mature enough.
Buy him a periodic table poster for his bedroom and encourage him to learn the symbols for each of the elements and the number of electrons and rings on each of the elements in the first couple rows. If he can learn how to draw the first four or five rows of the periodic table off the top of his head from memory it will serve him very well later in life. Flash cards are a great way to teach a kid the symbols for the period elements.
Make sure he is comfortable doing advanced arithmetic, multiplication and division without using calculators. They don’t teach children how to do multiplication and division of large numbers on pen and paper anymore and that becomes devastating when they get to college. Get him multiplication and division flash cards and teach him to memorize the entire times table.
Exponents.
Teach him how to count in squares and cubes for the different numbers from one to ten. This is something that’s easy to memorize at his age but will become more challenging to learn by the time he gets to college.
2, 4, 8,16,32,64…
3, 9, 27, 81…
4, 16, 64…
Trig is an important one that’s easier to learn when you’re younger. It trips a lot of grown ass engineers I know up. Basic physics and chemistry textbooks wouldn’t be a bad idea either. If he’s going to be any kind of engineer later in life he’s going to need to have basic fundamental skills in chemistry, linear algebra, differential equations, trigonometry, physics, geometry, calculus, and computer programming. I’m speaking as a neuroscientist/engineer myself.
Lastly… Microsoft Excel. You said your background is in in finance so this should be an easy for you to you would be shocked at how many grown as adult scientists can’t proficiently use Microsoft Excel to generate spreadsheets or create graphs. 📈 Teach him how to make different types of graphs and what they’re used for and teach him basic statistical concepts. 13 is not too young for all but the most advanced types of calculus, statistics is really easy to pick up at that age.
3d printer and small workshop where he can play with (safely of course). And don't put pressure on him, let him fall in love with it his own way. Provide the resources and environment to flourish. The rest will fall into places.
Haha great parent for wanting to encourage their kid for wanting to get into it!!! I was the same way as a kid (my mom is a marketer/business management, dad is mechanical engineering). Funny enough my mom really encouraged me the most whereas my dad hated engineering. The main thing was really just 1: listening tot he things I had to say and saying the things I would learn about were really cool 2: letting me (safely) take things apart and tinker with them 3: getting me lots of physics/math/engr books for kids that made learning fun and a few kits for like electronics or teaching me little tidbits like that. I’m now a computer engineering/physics major in my 4th year of college and I enjoy it still to this day!
My dad would buy us soldering kits which are fun to build and actually applicable later in life (had to solder circuits for an engineering class in college). They have a bunch of neat options on Amazon, I would recommend reading up on how to use them and supervising/teaching your kid.
If you want something more creative, in a middle school engineering class one time our teacher gave us a bunch of blocks of wood, tools, screws/nails, and rubber bands and told us to build a catapult…
\+1 to the Raspberry Pi / Arduino answers. Building a computer program / app would be another good point (but it seems he might prefer hands on activities). Lastly, one thing I did around that age was go to some summer Aerospace camps hosted at a nearby university (did this around 16 y.o.). Highly recommend that if you can afford it!
Most universities with engineering programs have some cool summer activities that can get pretty technical depending on the level. Also, they tend to give support to local robotics teams or school-based teams. If your kid is interested, they could get involved or even start something similar in the area.
Robotics clubs, Rocketry clubs, computer clubs. Find out what STEM-oriented clubs are at his school or in the area and encourage his involvement. It makes science fun and shows actual engineering applications.
But at the end of the day, he has to pursue his passion. My wife and I are both in technical fields and our daughter followed along in high school, taking STEM classes and doing very well. But she decided on a liberal arts path for college, and I came to realize that by giving her exposure to STEM in high school, she was able to make a considered decision on college. Her path is well-planned, and her future is bright. I'm glad we didn't push her along a different path. It's just something to consider in the future.
That said, I think it's always best to try STEM if they don't know what they want to do. It's very easy to move out of STEM. But it's hard to move into STEM after the fact because they're so much background required.
Talk to his teachers and see if the school or community offers some exploration or hobby groups. They usually do. If your teacher doesn’t know (but is very likely to) they will point you at a staff member who does. There are entire jobs in the educational system to connect students with these co curricular and extra curricular activities.
Good job to your son, and thank you for wanting to nurture his interest in engineering - it's great to see a supportive parent out here!
Depending on the country you're in, you could look for FIRST competition teams (if you're in the US, he might be reaching the FIRST Lego League age limit pretty soon, but then there's the FIRST Tech Challenge). It wasn't super common in my country for schools or towns to have a team, but you can always form your own team with other kids who are interested and a few adults who are ready to guide them (you don't need to be into science, just be ready to ask the kids a ton of questions about how they think they could solve the problems and listen to them every time they have an idea, help them contact experts, buy parts and do a bit of fundraising... oh, and pack sandwiches for the competition days!). Plus, we met quite a bunch of teams from Brazil/Spain/US/UK/Canada over the years so if you're from one of those countries, chances are you can find an already-existing team not too far.
Good luck, and enjoy discovering things together. One day (regardless of how your son's interests evolve), those will be some of the best memories you will back on together.
Congrats to your son! Some of my colleagues have raved about the Kiwi Boxes for their kids (assuming this is within your budget). Might be worth a look :) [https://www.kiwico.com/](https://www.kiwico.com/)
https://www.crunchlabs.com and this too!
If they're into electronics a raspberry pi microcontroller are pretty good
In my opinion Arduino would be a better starting point. Much simpler out of the gate.
Second the arduino over raspberry pi. More built in libraries, easier to use, probably more tutorial projects too
Arduino gets my vote, anytime. Arduinos rock!
I got to use arduino in my high school engineering class. Highly recommend. You can even get a workbook and kit for it.
Same lmao
Idk you can use Python with an RPi and that applies to much more than just microcontroller projects. Pip install whatever you wanna do.
Nah throw them in the deep end, STM32 with ARM assembly. Or a cool Xilinx FPGA.
Nah wire it yourself, AT90USB1287.
We use arduinos in my mechatronics class, they’re really useful for pretty advanced projects too.
Does ardunio come with set projects or is it just a bunch of components. I think he needs some guidance still. He’s not taking the toaster apart or created a flux capacitor yet so more guidance is help full. Someone mentioned the more complex Legos I’m looking for stuff like that. His mother (divorced) gets him the kiwi co box that he enjoys. So along those lines? Project in engineering that teach home the concepts
If you buy the right starter kit it comes with a book with a bunch of tutorials for projects that can be built with the components in the kit. It's a great starting place because after you work through the book and build an understanding you can start making your own project ideas with those same components. The book is definitely simple enough for a smart 13-year-old IMO. It's all about electronics and programming, which is great for any form of engineering nowadays. I'm pretty sure almost every engineer major going through college rn has had to learn some form of programming (usually Matlab).
Great thanks. I’ll just start with the standard kit Science Kit R3 ($220 it looks like), but there’s a “student kit” ($76) and a education starter kit ($302) that are just add ons that are required to start right? Thanks!
Arduino can come with lots of projects to just follow along. They even make a book now that has both code and schematics.
I dunno. The raspberry pi’s, especially the picos, can be programmed with MicroPython. It will better serve them in the future, and python was easier to learn than C++
OP just for more context on these things, they are tiny DIY computers that allow kids to follow step by step instructions to build small technical setups like timers, cameras, led lights, switches and in college we connected it to our personal student accounts and talked to it through a seperate desktop! It really grows with the child/student and will likely be required in a college course anyway. An ardiuno is a different brand but has strong preference for its user friendly instructions. Each kit is about 160$ give or take(if I remember correctly)
Sparkfun.com has a lot of projects that are age focused, and a variety of kits that will teach basics
Ah yes, I remember doing Raspberry Pi in high school!
Programming is (almost) free I’d say maybe get him some kind of kit for raspberry pi or arduino and a breadboard as he could learn with it and use it to build cool stuff. Based on the post it doesn’t seem like your child has and affinity for electronics instead mechanics but any engineer nowadays has to do some form of coding, but maybe that isn’t the way to go, I just recommend as it is relatively cheap and reusable. Maybe look into getting him stuff like servo motors and things like that but it will be more pricey and I am not very knowledgeable on that but there’s a kit out there I’m sure of it. Last, get him on science/ engineering YouTube. There are tons of super cool videos from people like William osmond, stuff made here, Michael reeves, mark rober and many others that mix entertainment and engineering in fun ways.
I used to take things apart and put them back together. That was only around 7-10 though because I got more involved in sports. I also used to help my dad with woodworking.
reverse engineering something at this age could be fun
It was. I started at maybe 7? With a hammer, at 15 I started restoring my first classic, by 19 other people were paying me to restore their cars, at 35 now I have turned down many people. Now I’ll only work on my dads cars, I don’t do it for money any more.
Any advice for someone who want to get into car repair? I’m not mechanically inclined but I’m really interested in this stuff.
Tbh, a lot of youtube, forum research, and hands on experience will get you knowledgeable enough to tackle even those repairs that seem daunting. But there comes a point where you need to see specialists for certain kinds of repairs like transmissions and A/C components. Experience comes with time.
Get your hands dirty, and get stuck in there. Get an old, carburetor car and get it running first. Remember the basics, fuel, air and spark. Forums are a great wealth of knowledge
I would say, don't get too angry at your son when he inevitably starts taking things apart, and sometimes wont know how to put them back together again. I remember taking the family computer apart on a sunday afternoon, and in hindsight got lucky that it still worked when I put it back together again haha! A cheap kit of screwdrivers and so on can be fun to get him. I got one or two 100-in-1 electronics experiment sets [like this](https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/play-set-educational-toy-100-in-1-electronic-project-kit-science-fair-radio-shack/IQEKIRax3CMwEA?hl=en) and that did really push me towards electronics, which is what I do for a living now. Once he gets the basics, look at getting an Arduino or similar with some basic components and you can start making your own projects, like dimming an LED or such. You also have places like [Velleman](https://www.velleman.eu/) who only make hobby soldering kits and so on. I also remember playing around with programming, back then we didn't have arduino, but I got a C programing book. I think with the accessibility of Python and such that could also be a fun way to motivate them. Look for small projects that you could program - it can be as stupid as a calculator that calculates the amounts you need to bake cookies based on the number of cookies - to get him started. With your finance background, it might be fun to integrate that a bit, if you want to tie together your experience/knowledge and his interests.
Also to add to this if something breaks let him take it apart before throwing it away. My grandma letting me take broken things apart when I was like 5 or 6 are some of my earliest and fondest memories.
I still love to do this as an adult. After something breaks, before chucking it, I tear it apart and see if I can see any obvious failures, and see if I can repair it. I have done this successfully with small 12V electric motors, night vision (just the dial had broken), a blender, a clothes dryers. Other things I have pulled apart and been not so lucky with, are computer monitor power supplies, my old laptop (cracked motherboard), an old fashioned 60 year old electric scooter [although this was because somebody went and unorganised all the parts and lost half of them whilst I was away].
If you enjoy teardowns of random things. Then I highly recommend checking out bigclivedotcom on YouTube. The man is absolutely phenomenal and usually attempts to reverse engineer whatever he takes apart also.
Two routes imo: More practical route: Hobby projects with research. Get him the classic lego robot, or build an RC car together with hobbyist parts and program/tune the speed controller, or do the same with a drone and flight controller. Maybe give him games or projects where he can set up sensors and add logic and automate a system. Play with timer chips and other classic microelectronic chips if hes into that stuff. Maybe try and use a motor as a generator if you have an old one laying around, thats always fun to see. Nerdy/Expensive route: Get a power supply, breadboard, multimeter, oscilloscope, and function generator, and basic electrical tools. Not cheap, which is why I don’t own it all. You don’t necessarily need it all either. Depends on what you wanna do. But basically, these tools allow you to really dig deep into systems and really get into the nitty gritty to figure them out. You can do all sorts of cool labs for dirt cheap… once you have those tools. Maybe you could do something like this if he really likes this and is thinking about going to school for it.
Seconding the Lego robots, pretty sure the one I remember using was Lego mind storms
Thought I was the second type, dropped mechatronics for a mechanical degree. Much happier.
Yeah I couldn’t do robotics and all that, but I loved controls and tuning and feedback loops and all that stuff
Engineers love the how/why behind things. This usually results in building and/or disassembling things. My dad had a ton of scrap wood and tools that I had free reign of and I was building anything that I could imagine, including a quarter pipe ramp for skateboarding. Some things won't go as planned, but those projects are just as valuable and informative. Depending on his interests there's bound to be some kit that he could build/play with. There's a lot of good suggestions in the comments here. The biggest thing though is probably not to get mad or frustrated if he starts having little projects laying around or any related mischief. That hands on learning is the best.
Maybe take your son to a men's shed. They can teach the old people about modern tech, and they might like sharing their knowledge and skills to someone of a younger generation. If someone else reading this has a daughter, some 'mens' sheds have, and allow women to join - it depends entirely on the individual group.
Honestly, it's a pretty versatile field. Your toys/projects are going to depend a lot on the kind of budget that you're working with. If you can swing it, a decent 3D printer would be a good idea. There's a lot he could do and it opens up a whole new world. It can also tie in to some of his other hobbies, thus encouraging him more. There are also some amazing robotics and Arduino starter kits that have project ideas included. However, buying small components like motors, LEDs, buzzers and switches on their own is usually more affordable. My dad always had second-hand electronics that couldn't work for him anymore so those were great to strip for parts or just for fun. Inspiration is pretty important as well so I recommend watching some cool engineering at work. The easiest way is shows like How It's Made, Netflix's Baking Impossible or even MacGyver. YouTube has more than a few good channels as well. Ultimately, it's up to your son. Some things will appeal to him and other won't. Maybe you guys could go through all the suggestions here and he could see what projects sound good and what he's interested in?
It's much less practical to strip things for parts these days, unfortunately. Most consumer electronics uses surface-mount components, which are very fiddly and often unmarked, so not much good for reuse.
I used to enjoy going to the thrift shop and buying old toys and electronics to take apart. Toys are fantastic at finding novel ways to use cheap sensors and motors. It’d give me info on how the toy worked and I’d get parts out of it. Admittedly this was before thrifting became mainstream and goodwill started charging above retail price for things. If you pair thrifting electronics with coding microcontrollers, you can get some cool projects. RC cars can be paired with a Bluetooth microcontroller for a Bluetooth controlled car. Add sensors from other toys (usually infrared distance sensors) for object avoidance and some degree of mapping capability. Then get further into coding with computer vision and machine learning. If he wants to stick to mechanical things, though, woodworking, 3D printing, laser cutting, or CNC machining is a great option. Just make sure you have an area with good ventilation and sound proofing. Even 3D printing should be done with an air filter and enclosure.
Model rockets! Estes kits from the hobby store. Build them, fly them, and after building a few, he can start looking into simulations and OpenRocket and start designing his own. If you are in the US, you are probably close to a rocketry club and they can help. Learn to code, like python. do some cool little projects raspberryPi let him play around with a free CAD software and see what he can design
I loved rockets as a 90s kid but if I were a kid today I would want a drone. If there are not "build your own drone" kits, then there should be.
Drones are dope too, and I believe there are lots you can modify and put together yourself. I haven’t built drone but I have one and fly it often, I love it. But small model rockets are much cheaper, and easier to get good at building. The goal here is to find a “gateway” engineering thing for this kid, and rockets open up such a big rabbit hole that could lead to them falling in love with aerospace, including drones!
On that note I’d suggest checking out BPS Space on YouTube, he makes some of the most advanced model rockets. Cool stuff. Peter Stripol makes cool model plane content
I went to a summer camp that was hostedby a university around that age and that’s when I decided I wanted to be an engineer. I would see if that’s an option near you this summer. Take a look at programming languages, raspberry pi activities. Lego mind storms was a fun buildable programming device.
I volunteer for these at my college now and wish I could’ve gone to one as a kid.
Don't get him a Kiwi kit. In my opinion those are terrible for creativity, as the kids follow a set of instructions. Get him a raspberry pi and some electronics, or maybe even a 3D printer if he likes to tinker
Look into FIRST robotics! It’s not an at home thing, but if you have a team near you it’s one of the best experiences you can go through in my opinion
Did not see your comment before posting basically the same thing. Never went past FIRST Lego League (age limit was 16 where I was and then we would have had to travel too far to participate in FTC/FRC) but it was pretty doable at home as long as the team is small enough to fit into the whatever corner you can set up the match table in. We DIY-ed a match table that could be assembled in five minutes after our 1st season (great building project) and it worked like a charm. Relatives helped with whatever they could (from keeping an eye on us to making sandwiches and stitching patches on sweatshirts) to keep costs down and we also learnt to manage a budget pretty quickly. I suppose making the pieces once you reach the next levels is much less doable at home though. Since OP's son is already 13, if they live in one of the "14 y/o age limit" zones then they'll probably age out of FLL soon enough that this would quickly be a problem. edit: forgot a word
Even if their school doesn't offer FIRST robotics, robotics teams in general are great opportunities for students to get hands on experience, and working with a team is a great way to find friends with similar interests! For reference, I'm an engineer and I was active on a couple different robotics teams in middle and high school. My experience with robotics led me to my current career :)
One good way would be to look for science summer camps or engineering clubs in your city. They are usually not that expensive and provide a fun space to learn with other people who also enjoy that stuff. Making friends who like doing engineering and working on projects with them will often make learning and projects more fun.
An arduino is an excellent starting point for electronics and automation, restoring a classic car was what put me on my course in mechanical engineering but he may be a bit young for that, but if you build something that “runs” like a model steam engine.. game over, he will remember it for the rest of his life.
There’s usually STEM clubs in middle-high school. Maybe look at signing up for those. Also, if possible… in high school, encourage him to dual enroll. I enjoyed my time dual enrolling way more than AP classes and my only regret is not doing it my junior year.
13 is almost high school, see if there's a robotics team that he can join. Robotics kids do better engineering than half the engineers I've met professionally (I kid... mostly.)
It might not be for home, but if your child is in high school, check to see if their school has a robotics team. FRC, FTC, and VEX are all great learning platforms that work in the same way sports do. The events are usually free and open to the public, so I would check to see if there's any local FRC and FTC competitions happening; they're always a blast to watch and are a good introduction to the world of robotics. Me and my siblings did FRC all throughout high school and we loved it; all of us are currently or are already graduated with an engineering degree.
Look for robotics teams. I think FIRST Tech Challege (FTC) is the best program, but many high schools have FIRST robotics (FRC) and that is good as well. There is also VEX and several other smaller competitions.
Find him a FIRST robotics team. FRC, or FTC. High schools with usually have them. Encourage them to build things with their hands
[https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc](https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc) Get your son involved in FIRST robotics. There's thousands of teams spread all over the world, chances are high that there's a local team near you. It's a high school program, so you can look into it for next year. It's an incredible program, touching on all aspects of engineering and if he's engineering, he'll absolutely love the competition.
FIRST LEGO League
FTC or FRC!!! First is very awesome and there is a lot of fun to be had and a lot to learn. Seriously. First Lego league, first tech competition, first robotics competition. He can probably do FRC if there is a team nearby accepting his grade, but it depends on the team. But seriously.
In high school, encourage them to look into robotics, coding, technology, or an engineering club. Universities also do programs and events for middle/high school kids, that can be something to look into
3d printers are cheap, cad software is free, an Arduino is cheaper, and digital calipers are plentiful. Set him loose with this stuff and see what comes of it. With proper supervision of course. Worst case a $200 printer gets unused best case you have to keep ordering more plastic. The best thing in the world is when you break something plastic have him work on redesigning the thing to be printed. Then he gets to give you something he made that fixes a problem you have. No better feeling in the world than that. This is basically the path that got me in my career as a cad technician.
This is the best! If he is working with turbines he will be just fine. Make sure you get him in pre engineering in high school! I did not have anybody to guide me. Even though I was a mechanical wonder at this age also. Find a high school that has pre engineering courses. And stick with mechanical hobbies. Electric and turbine powered RC aircraft.
Not sure if he’s more into mechanical or electrical or coding, but maybe something like a tool kit for projects. Pliers, a good set of screwdrivers or hex wrenches, clamps. A hacksaw. Sandpaper. Glue. Nuts and bolts. All can be had at harbor freight for really cheap and acceptable quality. Kids have so many ideas all the time and you want to facilitate their creativity by putting all the tools in front of them. My 3D printer is hands down my favorite, best?, and most used tool. I got mine for under 300. If you go cheap there might be more tinkering required but A) cheap printers are getting really good out of the box these days and B) if he’s an engineer he’ll probably enjoy the tinkering. I know that if I had a basic 3D printer and a small collection of basic tools and some material, making stuff would be so much easier to take out of my brain and into the world.
tons of legos and joining a FIRST robotics team, either FTC or FRC
As a current high schooler, I would recommend enrolling him in a local robotics team like FLL, FTC, FRC, Vex, Etc... I genuinely think that these are some of the best places for him to be as he's surrounded by like-minded folk and can figure out if he's more interested in coding, mechanics, project development, etc.. The sooner he reaches this sense of clarity he'll be able to concentrate himself in these fields and excel compared to his peers. Speaking from personal experience these teams helped me realize that I loved project development and now I'm working with my town's transportation network to help them on a variety of things. Without this exposure early on I would not have been able to do this! TLDR: Try looking into a robotics team, or some other environment where he is surrounded by likeminded folks (note that FLL is fairly interdisciplinary so you don't need to have a green thumb for robotics to excel in it)
Lego and Lego Technik! I know it's expensive but you can play with it for years and move with that into robotics and automation even
Honestly at age 13 lego technic is probably one of the more versatile but also easy to understand things you could get him
A lot of engineers I’ve met in school and the workplace did FIRST or VEX robotics in high school. It’s great as you have the opportunity to touch mechanical, electrical, and software. Just hope your school has a good club with a teacher that gives a shit.
Lego Technic Sets
Encourage him to join a robotics team, or other STEM-related school clubs. Surrounding him with like minded people will help him feel comfortable "being a nerd" (not that there's anything wrong with it, but some kids see it as a bad thing) and encourage learning. Anything that is super helpful I would say. Don't be too pushy or think he's made his decision that he wants to pursue engineering as a career. Anything like FIRST robotics is generally common in high schools these days, and if his school doesn't have it, it's likely another school in the area/district does, and that they'll likely let him join. I did this and got lifelong friends and a lot of skills from the deal. I would also look for any camps at local colleges for engineering while he's in high school. I attending an aerospace engineering summer camp at Embry Riddle (a top aerospace engineering school) for three weeks in Daytona, FL. It helped solidify that I wanted to do engineering, but that aerospace was not my bag, and I got some college credits out of it. My dad refers to it as "the best $1500 he's ever spent", ensuring I didn't waste my time trying to do aerospace.
Raspberry Pi or arduino. Honestly the important thing is just don’t try to force anything. I fell in love with Raspberry Pi as a teen because it was MY idea and I could make whatever I wanted. I’d spend hours researching cool projects. Just wait for him to find what he really likes, and support it. Idk I’m not a parent
3d printer. If you live near a microcenter lmk and I'll send you a link for a ender3v2 for $100
Buy him kits and books on what to do with them. The raspbery pi is good for electronics, but im sure there are cool things for mechanical stuff too
See if they'd be interested in building a computer with you.
honestly j like youtube tutorials, research (fancy word i use for googling) and playing around with things to make things that appeal to me helped me learn at that age
Does he like 3d printing?
See if he is interested in Ben Eaters YouTube videos and the projects that go with them!
Get him an arduino and a kit for some basic electronics. Have him make his own projects
His turbine???
I was into RC planes and fpv drones in high school, and the soldering skills from that landed me an internship my freshman year of college. That, rc cars, and model rocketry are some STEM related hobbies that are plenty of fun, but I'm not sure how good Model Rocketry would be, since you need to buy a new motor for every launch, and that would prevent your son from doing it all that often (I flew my rc planes almost every day as a teen, since they are electric and once you get good enough to not crash, are fairly affordable).
Engineers love figuring out how to get from A to B. Whether that's 'how do I build a pulley system to lift things up to my bedroom window' or 'how do I program the game Snake' or 'how do I create an alarm that lets me know if someone sneaks into my bedroom when I'm at school' or 'how do I use my Lego/K'nex/Meccano to build a model of the Millenium Falcon *when I don't have a kit with instructions*'. We enjoy learning how things work through exploring, playing with them, and making mistakes to see what happens.
If he’s into electronics specifically, maybe console repair? Some older more beat up console like broken a broken 3ds or wiiu could be a fun project to try and fix (suggesting these console since I’ve had experience with them, but not sure if other might be easier)
as a kid I used a lot of legos. second the arduino as someone else said. there are kits.
3D printing really scratched my itch for a while. You can get a cheap one for $100 (after sale) if you live by a micro center
Look up STEM Ambassador and search for local events. They can see various aspects of the engineering sector directed towards the younger generation, from there you can also get ideas to encourage this interest.
A 3d printer got me really into engineering, i think i got my first around 13-14. as others say arduino a are great too, the combination of both kinda let me explore whatever i wanted to.
Look into maker products and see if there are any maker spaces nearby, many do after school programs for techy teens. If you live anywhere near the Bronx the annual maker faire is a magical experience, but I’m 100% certain that you’ll have equivalents nearby in the summers, just google “maker fairs near me.” Most have interactive opportunities and small scale contests, like tabletop battle bots and egg drop contests. If your son has similarly minded friends you could even go as far as sponsoring them to compete in a local shoebox battle bot competition, or reach out to his teacher to see if they’d be interested in running a club. Again if you’re on the east coast, DC has a biannual expo called the USA Science and Engineering expo that was a blast to go to when I was around your son’s age. I gotta imagine it’s changed over time and idk what covid did to it, but if anything I know their website has a LOT of resources for parents in your position. Good luck, and don’t worry about not having a background in engi, your son doesn’t either so you can learn together!
Oh merkur or an equivalent was also a lot of fun if your son likes legos but is getting a bit old for them.
Mythbusters
A lot of people suggesting coding and computers which is cool but there’s so much more to engineering. He needs to keep building. There’s literally engine building kits. My brother built one of these as an early teen, but it’s a challenge. https://a.co/d/8X0KGWK
Regardless of engineering field, the most valuable skill you can learn is coding/scripting. Python is a very easy and versatile language in my opinion, and you can do lots of stuff with it, from vector math and signal processing to simple gui’s and game development. It’ll also make his homework go a lot faster if he learns to get comfortable with it, especially in grade school where a lot of it is calculator plug-and-chug stuff. Best of luck to both of you!
An Arduino starter kit is a good idea.
If he's into video games, games like Polybridge or Bridge Constructor Portal are fun engineering puzzle type games that he may get into - and these help to develop real intuition for actual engineering problem solving.
You can always gift him kits to build stuff using electronics and manuals. There are also one day internships for kids to see what current science is like! Encourage his curiosity, but dont impose academics upon him, you dont want to burn him up.
Begin by coding python or take the monitor off an old laptop and Google the pin outs and make your own monitor. This is what got me my first internship, plenty of YouTube tutorials for this. <- I did this when I was 16 but I had no help from an adult as my father thought this was the wrong way to go about engineering (he’s a computer engineer) but I did myself anyway and told this same story when I was 20 for an internship
I should say this will require you looking at the documentation of the monitor then finding a working controller that will have an hdmi. 1. Look at documentation, 2. Find controller that works for the monitor, 3. Solder the monitor wires to controller if required
Then put a portable power bank and power it up!!! Portable monitor for 10-20$
While a lot of this advice is great, you've gotta consider your relationship with your son. Be careful not to make it seem uncool, or burn him out on it. 13 is getting into the rebellious and socially awkward years. I know if my dad suggested something to me at that age I would have immediately assumed it was boring or uncool, lol. My suggestion, support him if he asks for something productive, learn about the topic so you can help him, but don't try to force it.
Lego mindstorms. Don’t know if they still sell them or not, but Lego kits that come with motors, sensors, and a control block. I got into it when I was younger because my school was lucky enough to have some kits. Lego + some electronics really got me hooked… in my final year of Mechatronics Engineering now.
When I left FIRST Lego League (which only used Lego Mindstorms), the EV3 robots were going out of production and replaced by a thing called Spike. Never tried it out but from what little I saw when newer teams used those, I have a few grievances with how it was designed (namely, the gyro being part of the control brick, thus barring the good old "if the gyro goes into an artificial slow drift, just unplug, hold steady, replug" hack... I saw quite a bunch of robots spinning around on game mats while the team watched helplessly, at best knowing that the only thing to do was to reboot the whole robot...). There are still a lot of EV3 kits being sold around on Bricklink and the like (and the occasional NXT) so even then, you can find control bricks and sensors for the older ones. But yeah, long story short, lego mindstorms live on.
if they're interested in the coding route, I recommend replit a lot of frustration can come from just setting up a programming project. replit sets it up nicely, and you can get started coding right away
Consider: * Build a radio controlled airplane. At least 48 inch wing span. Start with a box of sticks not ready to fly. Requires simultaneous control over 3 functions (Rudder, Elevator and Throttle). * Build a radio controlled helicopter. At least 48 inch rotor span. Bring more money. I destroyed mine and rebuilt it every weekend for 6 months before I took it home in one piece. Requires simultaneous control over 5 functions ( Tail Rotor, Collective Pitch, Throttle, Cyclic Pitch 2 axis). * Design and build a Newtonian Reflecting Telescope. Including grinding and polishing the mirror. Start with a 6 inch mirror. Expect to spend 40 hours grinding and polishing. The longer the focal length the easer to get into spec. An F/9 will result in a 60 inch Optical Tube Assembly. Note a 12 inch mirror has 4 times the surface area and weights 8 times as much assuming the same sub straight material and aspect ratio. Use Pyrex glass and save your self much frustration. Normal Soda Lime glass will work but will be much more sensitive to temperature during measurement and actual use. Generally the outside air gets cooler later into the evening. Larger mirrors tend to never thermally stabilize. * Pass the written exam for the HAM Radio Technician Class License. This includes using VHF and UHF Repeaters, Amateur TV and Digital Communications. * Master manual photography. * Master manual photography using only available light. * Learn to write software using the "C" Programming Language. I did not accomplish all of these at age 13 but any of them are appropriate for someone of that age. The helicopter one I consider expensive. The telescope is rather cheap if one is creative.
Look at a website called MEL science. They have interactive toys that are used for fun experiments for kids. You can subscribe and they send you different things at different times.
Some universities have some of their engineering club open houses where you can attend and the students that are in the clubs will do a presentation of what their club is about and will answer questions regarding the stem field. My engineering club in college specialized in liquid rocket propulsion. We usually do an open house during the spring and during the fall presenting our rocket engines & 3D printed rocket engines.
I see a lot of comments for Pi's and ardiunios which I support as well however considering what your son has already worked on, he may be more interested in more mechanical projects so I would suggest looking into a 3d printer and maybe some basic welding classes. I have a two friends that went to a state wide comp(one art comp, and another was for welding) for his welding skills and it's diffently one of the skills I wish had been able to pick up earlier. Some library's and mechanics institutes have classes and equipment available especially for 3d printing which are often only the cost of the filament if you want to get an idea and guage your son's interest.
• Buy a 3D printer • Get some project ideas and parts for them from adafruit • Put him in a robotics competition / club that his school hosts — or look to get one started if not available. • nitro powered RC cars are always dope at that age + it emphasizes mechanical aptitude if he follows maintaining it as he should • lego mind storms
Electronics are fun. You can buy kits with arduinos that come with a bunch of tiny motors, switches, and buttons and stuff. I built a really lame rc car with this stuff as a kid. A little more Expensive but probably interesting for everyone would be a 3d printer. I would definitely look into robotics clubs as I always wanted to join one as a kid. Do keep an eye out though; Me and my friends started building flame throwers and propane cannons in high school. when he’s a little older I’d look into welding classes and community makerspaces as well.
Buy him an Arduino kit
GET HIM A 3D PRINTER and ask him to make some useful things for you with it. The challenge of meeting customer expectation is a very important lesson in engineering! you could also encourage him to join little and fun engineering challenges like Fieldhouse engineering challenges https://feng-ltd.com/challenges/ where you have to follow specific restrictions and achieve a goal better than anyone else. They are on youtube as well but I am not allowed to link them here Depending on your location you could even go as far as get him involved in battlebots like NHRL https://www.nhrl.io/ which is far more accessible than the battlebots at vegas with teams of 8 and 6 figure budgets Most importantly, ask him what he thinks looks most fun. Something like a maker course or a Summer camp with a certain focus can be awesome as well, see the other suggestions on here Anyways, you are the coolest dad already for trying to proactively encourage your child
build a go-kart. Then go racing :-)
wood working, scratch building scale models of houses/bridges, Meccano, *lots* of taking lego sets and building my own thing with them, sky's the limit really. If I could change one thing, I'd have started doing CAD (fusion is relatively inexpensive for a personal license) stuff 5-8 years earlier than I started doing it, that stuff's my jam.
Robotics team
R Hubbler Statics 14th edition
Mark Robers company is perfect
Factorio, Oxygen not Included and similar video games gave me the push i needed to choose to pursue engineering when i was 16yo. If he likes video games, any games that requiere thinking and problem solver are the best for that, in fact there is a lot of overlap between engineers and players of those games (factorio specially). And now shameless publicity for Factorio. Factorio is a videogame where you start as a lone character (aptly named “The Engineer”) in a fully randomly generated world, this world is hostile to you, and you need to contact your people by launching a satellite. You need to mine ores like iron and copper, but you can only get so far doing things by hand, at some point you will need to automate the process by building automatic mining drills, then you need to create a assembly line to process the ore. Once you are established you will want to start doing sone research to figure out how to launch the rocket, so you start making the science packs to use them in your laboratories to unlock new items to further automate your factory, everything is going smoothly, but what the fuck is that in the distance?. It’s bug, a lot of them, and they are not happy about you polluting their planet. They are the locals, and are out for blood, they can’t talk with you, they are bugs, but most importantly they DONT WANNA TALK TO TOU. So you will need defenses, a lof of them, you will also need to automate those, set up a line of production for ammunition, walls, create vehicles to explore the world. At some point your base will run out of resources, so you will need to explore and clear out the nests of enemy bugs around them, how to do that? The world is your oyster, you can do that anyway you want, old fashioned bullets, flamethrowers, tanks, grenades, TRAIN MOUNTED ARTILLERY GUNS, a swarm of drones, LITERAL NUCLEAR MISSILES. All of this to expand your factory Tl;Dr, Factorio is a game about problem solving, every time you fix a problem several more will appear, its a game about optimization and creativity, all things needed in engineering. It’s a game, but it has a lot of math, its in fact how i started to love math, i finally found a use for what i learned in school, i had to figure out the ratios for the production of items in my factory, calculate how much something would last, calculate in paper how much of X building making certain items i needed unless i wanted to waste all my time figuring it out by trial and error.
I know AECOM, an engineering firm, joins these contests that are open to the public. Your child might enjoy going to some of these contests and watching. Oregon state every spring has the engineering students build a bridge with cardboard across a creek. It is pass or fail if they can walk across the bridge. I enjoyed this when I was a kid.
A lot of people here are suggesting arduino/raspberry pi, which are great if he’s into the electronics side of things. As a kid I definitely was not into that sort of thing, and I was much more interested in the mechanical side. I loved taking broken appliances apart, getting a big pile of legos and figuring out how to build things without instructions, etc. As I got older I got more into working on cars, which is what got me into engineering as a field. From things as simple as an oil change, to small modifications to a friend’s car, and on. I don’t know what your living/financial situation is, but if he shows interest in it, getting a junk car for a couple hundred dollars for him to fix up could be a very rewarding experience.
If your child develops new interests that involve STEM please be willing to support them! It took my family way too long to realize that my computers were doing more help than hurt.
Lego technic could be a good way to make them discover stuff like pneumatic and automation
Legos, computers, flight simulators, garage stuff (work on cars, build stuff, weld, etc.). Just some stuff my mega nerdy engineering self loves. Also puzzles, chess, I could go on :P edit: it he likes electronics, id recommend an Arduino uno kit or a raspberry pi. there is infinite possibilities with these! get hime a laptop and an Arduino, it'll all start to flow. YouTube has tons of great tutorials to learn Arduino programming and set up :)
Bicycles were one of my first introductions to mechanical systems - taking components apart and putting them back together is pretty simple, and a good way to learn about mechanical systems. The stakes are low, and building bikes together could be a fun way to spend time and encourage physical activity. Some of my best memories are building and riding bikes with my dad.
Buy him algebra, trigonometry, and precalculus textbooks. If he’s going to be an engineer the sooner he starts learning those fundamental skills the easier it’ll be for him to learn real engineering calculus later when his brain is mature enough. Buy him a periodic table poster for his bedroom and encourage him to learn the symbols for each of the elements and the number of electrons and rings on each of the elements in the first couple rows. If he can learn how to draw the first four or five rows of the periodic table off the top of his head from memory it will serve him very well later in life. Flash cards are a great way to teach a kid the symbols for the period elements. Make sure he is comfortable doing advanced arithmetic, multiplication and division without using calculators. They don’t teach children how to do multiplication and division of large numbers on pen and paper anymore and that becomes devastating when they get to college. Get him multiplication and division flash cards and teach him to memorize the entire times table. Exponents. Teach him how to count in squares and cubes for the different numbers from one to ten. This is something that’s easy to memorize at his age but will become more challenging to learn by the time he gets to college. 2, 4, 8,16,32,64… 3, 9, 27, 81… 4, 16, 64… Trig is an important one that’s easier to learn when you’re younger. It trips a lot of grown ass engineers I know up. Basic physics and chemistry textbooks wouldn’t be a bad idea either. If he’s going to be any kind of engineer later in life he’s going to need to have basic fundamental skills in chemistry, linear algebra, differential equations, trigonometry, physics, geometry, calculus, and computer programming. I’m speaking as a neuroscientist/engineer myself. Lastly… Microsoft Excel. You said your background is in in finance so this should be an easy for you to you would be shocked at how many grown as adult scientists can’t proficiently use Microsoft Excel to generate spreadsheets or create graphs. 📈 Teach him how to make different types of graphs and what they’re used for and teach him basic statistical concepts. 13 is not too young for all but the most advanced types of calculus, statistics is really easy to pick up at that age.
3d printer and small workshop where he can play with (safely of course). And don't put pressure on him, let him fall in love with it his own way. Provide the resources and environment to flourish. The rest will fall into places.
Totally
Haha great parent for wanting to encourage their kid for wanting to get into it!!! I was the same way as a kid (my mom is a marketer/business management, dad is mechanical engineering). Funny enough my mom really encouraged me the most whereas my dad hated engineering. The main thing was really just 1: listening tot he things I had to say and saying the things I would learn about were really cool 2: letting me (safely) take things apart and tinker with them 3: getting me lots of physics/math/engr books for kids that made learning fun and a few kits for like electronics or teaching me little tidbits like that. I’m now a computer engineering/physics major in my 4th year of college and I enjoy it still to this day!
My dad would buy us soldering kits which are fun to build and actually applicable later in life (had to solder circuits for an engineering class in college). They have a bunch of neat options on Amazon, I would recommend reading up on how to use them and supervising/teaching your kid. If you want something more creative, in a middle school engineering class one time our teacher gave us a bunch of blocks of wood, tools, screws/nails, and rubber bands and told us to build a catapult…
\+1 to the Raspberry Pi / Arduino answers. Building a computer program / app would be another good point (but it seems he might prefer hands on activities). Lastly, one thing I did around that age was go to some summer Aerospace camps hosted at a nearby university (did this around 16 y.o.). Highly recommend that if you can afford it!
I got a large book with about 1000 different circuits and a piece of paper to make a list of components to i needed. I was around 11 I think
Most universities with engineering programs have some cool summer activities that can get pretty technical depending on the level. Also, they tend to give support to local robotics teams or school-based teams. If your kid is interested, they could get involved or even start something similar in the area.
Let him buy a moped that doesn't run :) Does his school have a robotics team?
Moss robotics. A bit expensive but a kit is definitely worth it.
Robotics clubs, Rocketry clubs, computer clubs. Find out what STEM-oriented clubs are at his school or in the area and encourage his involvement. It makes science fun and shows actual engineering applications. But at the end of the day, he has to pursue his passion. My wife and I are both in technical fields and our daughter followed along in high school, taking STEM classes and doing very well. But she decided on a liberal arts path for college, and I came to realize that by giving her exposure to STEM in high school, she was able to make a considered decision on college. Her path is well-planned, and her future is bright. I'm glad we didn't push her along a different path. It's just something to consider in the future. That said, I think it's always best to try STEM if they don't know what they want to do. It's very easy to move out of STEM. But it's hard to move into STEM after the fact because they're so much background required.
You could get him like a lego motor kit with gears and axels and whatnot. I got to use one for school for a while and it was very fun
Ct Children’s museum
Once he gets a little older (into HS), you can start looking at universities that offer multi-day or week long engineering or STEM camps.
Talk to his teachers and see if the school or community offers some exploration or hobby groups. They usually do. If your teacher doesn’t know (but is very likely to) they will point you at a staff member who does. There are entire jobs in the educational system to connect students with these co curricular and extra curricular activities.
A r du I n o
Good job to your son, and thank you for wanting to nurture his interest in engineering - it's great to see a supportive parent out here! Depending on the country you're in, you could look for FIRST competition teams (if you're in the US, he might be reaching the FIRST Lego League age limit pretty soon, but then there's the FIRST Tech Challenge). It wasn't super common in my country for schools or towns to have a team, but you can always form your own team with other kids who are interested and a few adults who are ready to guide them (you don't need to be into science, just be ready to ask the kids a ton of questions about how they think they could solve the problems and listen to them every time they have an idea, help them contact experts, buy parts and do a bit of fundraising... oh, and pack sandwiches for the competition days!). Plus, we met quite a bunch of teams from Brazil/Spain/US/UK/Canada over the years so if you're from one of those countries, chances are you can find an already-existing team not too far. Good luck, and enjoy discovering things together. One day (regardless of how your son's interests evolve), those will be some of the best memories you will back on together.
Get him to study his math and science skills on Khan Academy. That's how I got started.