If they are patient enough to try something one by one, I think a VR headset would be a great idea. If you don't already have one, you could pick up a low-end O

If they are patient enough to try something one by one, I think a VR headset would be a great idea. If you don't already have one, you could pick up a low-end Oculus for a couple hundred bucks (and sanitize/return it afterwards, hah). Then you could take them "around the world" - there are some really cool travel/exploration apps with 360 shots of different places, and from my experience can quickly and easily provide that "wow" factor to non-techies. Probably because it's so visual. Besides that, maybe doing a real-time demo of how fast it is to get a simple P2P chat webapp going with some off-the-shelf libs. Or an SMS webapp with Twilio, and then picking another parent maybe in the "crowd" to text live during the demo. Would be a great way to inspire them to try their hand at development, and might push a few over the edge who were already on the fence about giving it a try if they see how accessible the tools are to get started.