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Comment by perlgeek | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how many of their customers are kids, and how many are full-grown geeks like me :-)

When my daughter becomes old enough, that will be the perfect excuse to buy such devices :-)

I did! My youngest daughter (12) has an interest in robotics, so the excuse was perfect. I've played with the NXT kit as much as she has, and we're already talking about getting an EV3 kit for her birthday. (I'm excited).

That's awesome about your daughter's interest in robotics!

I'm a mentor for a robotics program that competes in FIRST competition. You should check it out and see if her schools have anything like this or if you can maybe start something yourself so other kids can learn about robotics with you and your kids.

http://www.usfirst.org/

Yup, familiar with the program. I actually spoke with the STEM outreach director for our middle school about a year ago. She was interested, but school policies would have made it difficult to get an FLL team up and running (she had looked into it in the past).

I may take another stab at an FRC or FTC team next year as I now know (personally) the chairman of the school board. He's an engineering prof/researcher at UIUC so I expect it to be a fairly easy sell, and as a school board member, may be able to "grease the wheels" a little.

+1 to that. My little clone is 2 years old now and I'm already starting to ponder whether she's old enough :-)

She is. I'm of the opinion that you can never start early enough. My daughters (I have 2) have been playing with "engineering toys" since about age 3. One latched onto engineering big time (see above) and, at 12 years old, has even selected her preferred universities (in order: MIT; UMich; UIUC; CMU)

edit: grammer

I tried that one - didn't wash with the wife.

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