Other creative toys/products that come to mind would be, say, Play-Doh as a sort of children’s intro to…Clay, I suppose? But in this vein without being exclusively directed towards children (albeit I imagine many may be).
Always enjoyed a creative kind of toy to mess around with.
A ton of videogames fall into this category. Minecraft is probably the most well-known, but any game with a base building element is a quick hook for me.
I love me some Minecraft, best $10 I ever spent, 11 years of free major updates so far and still going strong.
If you like the sandbox survival games Id recommend Medieval Dynasty, been playing this for the passed year, the survival part of it is pretty tame although you can adjust the setting to make it harder but I really like the village building / settler management aspect while still being a first person style game
While videogames are great, a hobby that dabbles with real things will stimulate you very differently. Touching stuff with your hands, the gap between what you want and what comes out of your work, the search for materials and techniques and other aspects of working with real stuff and not on predefined paths, will engage with your brain in a very different way.
Videogames and “real” hobbies (as in hobbies that use real stuff) are great together in my opinion, they complement and fuel each other.
If you are a technical person, videogames can give you things a physical object cannot do. Minecraft with BuildCraft was so fun, engaging and stimulating in creating automated factories
I still have my K’NEX
I like to program microcontrollers. So that’s sort of my creative toy.
The Arduino or Pi Pico are accessible and fun ones.
I like the Attiny10, but I’m some sort of cursed mercenary science hermit.
The StemmaQt or Qwiic boards from Adafruit and Sparkfun, respectively, are more accessible ways to make physical computing projects with sensors and screens.
I’m working on some simpler discrete circuits with my son, like 555 and shift registers, since he’s really good with his fingers, but only just starting to read. We get to build and test them with Tinkercad or Fritzing and then make them in real life. It’s been awesome learning for both of us.
The CD4069 and LM386 are fun for discrete projects too. Also OPA2132 :)
The Adafruit and Sparkfun stuff is great.
Accessibility is not so much a concern for me, I don’t mind reading long datasheets. That’s half the fun for me. I also like KiCAD a lot, I’ve sent off several designs to the factories to make a few units. Was a really cool experience and I learned a lot.
I’m not a super big Fritzing fan (personal preference I guess) but love Tinkercad for quickly designing something 3D printable.
I have had a few projects manufactured as well. But that was back when Eagle was the best option (Kicad wasnt as usable or stable back in 2008-9).
I’ve really enjoyed the Code simulators in Fritzing, Tinkercad (the electronics section) and there’s a Mac/iOS app called iCircuit that offers SPICE simulating with Arduino code too and makes schematic design pretty fun for beginners. Also it links to wikipedia and data sheets for all its components. The problem is it’s not extensible, so you only get what it has included.
Ah yeah I remember those days. The progress KiCAD has made is nothing short of amazing.
I used to like the code simulator in AVR Studio 4, but since acquisition by Microchip it’s borderline unusable and crashes constantly.
Haven’t heard of iCircuit! Maybe I’ll give it a try.
3D printing and painting resin and game miniatures
ROCK ‘N’ STONE, BROTHER!
If you don’t rock and stone, you ain’t going home!
Rock!
And!
Stooooone!
In the near future, when my son’s mother and I live in separate places, I will set up a ventilation system and get my Saturn back up. I have 4 years of minis from The Makers Cult to print
I’m happy to hear that you are using ventilation. It’s wild how many resin printer owners don’t.
More like terrifying. Its not a huge concern acutely, but once your immune system decides its a threat, you can’t work with it again.
Not to mention, who knows how much of it has formaldehyde and vinyl-chloride and whatever other VoCs mixed in.
Yep. I’ve been 3D printing for about 5 years exclusively with resin and I’m lucky enough to have never gotten it on my skin directly, but I wear googles, an apron, and elbow length gloves, and I make sure to never work near the printer while it’s running, and I always let my washed prints rest for 24 hours before occupying the same space as them. Shit is nasty.
Do you have any information on long term effects from the fumes? I have delved down that hole several times and can’t find anything conclusive. Most I’ve ever done across pertains to direct contact with the resin. Asking in good faith.
The biggest issue is that almost no UV resin comes with an MSDS. This becomes a concern because resins can include formaldehyde and other carcinogens. The respiratory irritation is similar to the skin contact - over time your body can just sta :nope fuck this and leave
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I’m working on a wooden puzzle right now that’s a locked safe. The company has a bunch of neat products wood trick
Ah, that reminds me of some similar puzzle/kits made of metal! I’m forgetting the name for the specific one right now, but there appear to be a few different companies behind them from trying to search & find the one I was thinking of.
You mean Metal Earth? Though they are not the only ones who make those kinds of models but they are the ones that got me into it (for a few months)
That was the one showing at the top of my searches, but there was another company I was thinking of that I can’t recall nor find now.
Is it still like a regular puzzle? Like the same skill set?
It’s comparable to building legos.
ROKR also makes a lot of cool ones.
Edit: OMG THEY HAVE PINBALL!!!
I’m currently building a ship in a bottle. Though it’s a kit, not from scratch. But there is some micro-woodworking and painting needed.
I never had LEGO, but when I was a little kid, my parents got me several Meccano kits (not these ones tho) and this electronic experimental kit
and, 20 years later I mess with Arduinos and Raspberry Pis.
Kapla!
Not my creation, just a random image I found :)It’s mostly meant for my children, but I really enjoy building stuff with it when we’re playing together. It’s basically just wooden planks, but they’re very well proportioned and weighted. My favorite creation was a giant building balancing on only two planks.
Play this with your kids while teaching them Klingon
I’m kind of addicted to building computers. I have two desktops, a mini ITX PC, and I built my wife a PC. It’s a giant waste of money, but it’s so god damn fun.
Too bad nowadays building a computer is so much more simple and integrated.
In a lot of ways, yeah, it is. It’s a lot harder to fuck it up so bad you fry something. I do miss fiddling with little jumpers to get my hard drive and CD drive working on the same ribbon though.
The good ol’ days. I’m not old enough to have dealt with IRQs but it’s definitely a lot easier than it used to be
Magnatiles are surprisingly fun
Seconding Magnatiles
Also, marble runs!
I like to fabricate things (metal) though I’m an utter novice. It just feels right to make something from scrap.
I like making mini projects with Godot or Unity on the computer, or sometimes actually use my guitars or weird toy/synth instruments. 😁 Shout out to the Korg Monotron for getting me into all this!
I have those magnet balls and over the years (sounds more dramatic than it is) i bought 10 sets which usually sit on my desk in some fancy shape as decoration.
They can get fairly expensive (mass/price) so i opted to buy a single set every so often as i haven’t found a magnet shop that sells individual balls for less.
Sometimes i get so invested i’ll mess with them for hours.
Playdough if it’s the kind you can harden.
I’ve recently gotten into model building, in the sense of buying those sheets of pieces that need cut out and snapped or glued together. like this
The issue I have is that I’m not really into most of the things they make models of. Most model kits in this style tend to be classic cars, military vehicles, or anime/Gundams. Not that there’s anything wrong with those things, they’re just not particularly interesting to me.
But I can spend hours just browsing the model kits on websites like big bad toys
