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My 7yo is absolutely thrilled by scratch on Lego Mindstorms Robot Innovator [1]. The physicality of it is engaging. Granted, I'm generally a very restrictive pa

My 7yo is absolutely thrilled by scratch on Lego Mindstorms Robot Innovator [1]. The physicality of it is engaging. Granted, I'm generally a very restrictive parent about mobile/console gaming. 1: https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/robot-inventor-51515 https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/robot-inventor-51515

bencollier49 5y ago
I agree with this. I think robots are probably where it's at these days. Kids sometimes like the simplicity of the old computer games, but as mentioned above, the old excitement at having your hands on cutting edge tech isn't there with a Raspi, or an old retro computer.
hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
Agreed. Mobile gaming should absolutely be banned from kids. Most of the games out there were designed to be money-grabbing. Consoles are better especially if you give them a retro one as the first machine.
- mavhc 5y ago
  You mean designed to get you to pay/watch ads gaming. There's lots of great mobile games, why bad them all?
  - jethro_tell 5y ago
    Yeah, I have a little section of no-ad kids games on my phone. There are times when it's helpful. Minecraft, a couple educational games the younger one likes, machinarium, don't starve, lost journey. I find that it's nice to say no mobile games but it's easier to fill that void with stuff that doesn't suck.
  - hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
    That's for sure, not all mobile games are bad, but the majority out there (especially those pushed by stores) are bad because only those have the $$ for monetization (aka pushed to front). I guess we can always ban store access and only download the "good" ones, which is one solution that does not toss the baby out.
JKCalhoun 5y ago
The appeal to me is the "low level programming". I know, the language is not low-level, but: "write code, make thing move" is what I mean by low level. We used to look sideways at the engineers that "wrote drivers", but I see the appeal now. Even a programmer as jaded as me still gets a thrill when code I write for an Arduino is able to talk to a device like an air-particle measuring device. My advice: go Arduino + peripherals. A "sound board" that can generate synthesized sounds would be fun to program — any kind of sensor that measures heat, humidity, air quality, etc. Motor controllers + robot platform of course.... Stuff is fairly cheap and there's so much out there.
tlear 5y ago
Restricting kids from the mobile games is like restricting kids from drinking vodka you have in your bar. Everyone should do it. Those things are not games they are whale seeking mind fucking drugs that no child should have to try and deal with. Anyway school my kids are in uses older version of the inventor, librarian runs a class with that twice a week both my 8 and 6 year old LOVE IT. Meaning that is their topic of conversation and they remember which days they have it during the week. Couple days ago 8year olds class had a bring your parent to school day so I did a presentation mentioning a game I hacked with a debugger as an ice breaker. Forget what I actually do for next 20 minutes all I was asked is how to hack Minecraft, how to hack some online game I don't know :o and not get caught. Blew my mind, teacher was looking sideways at me :) Now I promised to compile a set or resource about modding Minecraft for the class. I am also thinking about setting up a website that kids can mess with using developer tool in the browser(super simple html with hidden "password" etc)
- hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
  > Restricting kids from the mobile games is like restricting kids from drinking vodka you have in your bar. Everyone should do it. Those things are not games they are whale seeking mind fucking drugs that no child should have to try and deal with. Absolutely. I work in the industry so I know exactly the monetization culture there. It is so deeply rooted that there is way to avoid that, at least on Android. I think Apple is slightly better but maybe not really. I'm sad that the whole industry got trained in that mindset :( > Couple days ago 8year olds class had a bring your parent to school day so I did a presentation mentioning a game I hacked with a debugger as an ice breaker. Forget what I actually do for next 20 minutes all I was asked is how to hack Minecraft, how to hack some online game I don't know :o and not get caught. Blew my mind, teacher was looking sideways at me :) This is really very good experience :) I guess it's also very proud of your children to have a cool parent.
- foobarian 5y ago
  I'm struggling with what to do about Roblox. There are many different subgames on it, some of which really focused on money, some not, some focused on grinding, etc. But restricting Roblox wholesale then misses the opportunity to get into the creative/coding side of things. But then if the focus of that is going to be monetization...

bencollier49 5y ago

I agree with this. I think robots are probably where it's at these days. Kids sometimes like the simplicity of the old computer games, but as mentioned above, the old excitement at having your hands on cutting edge tech isn't there with a Raspi, or an old retro computer.

hnthrowaway0315 5y ago

Agreed. Mobile gaming should absolutely be banned from kids. Most of the games out there were designed to be money-grabbing. Consoles are better especially if you give them a retro one as the first machine.

mavhc 5y ago
You mean designed to get you to pay/watch ads gaming. There's lots of great mobile games, why bad them all?
- jethro_tell 5y ago
  Yeah, I have a little section of no-ad kids games on my phone. There are times when it's helpful. Minecraft, a couple educational games the younger one likes, machinarium, don't starve, lost journey. I find that it's nice to say no mobile games but it's easier to fill that void with stuff that doesn't suck.
- hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
  That's for sure, not all mobile games are bad, but the majority out there (especially those pushed by stores) are bad because only those have the $$ for monetization (aka pushed to front). I guess we can always ban store access and only download the "good" ones, which is one solution that does not toss the baby out.

JKCalhoun 5y ago

The appeal to me is the "low level programming". I know, the language is not low-level, but: "write code, make thing move" is what I mean by low level. We used to look sideways at the engineers that "wrote drivers", but I see the appeal now. Even a programmer as jaded as me still gets a thrill when code I write for an Arduino is able to talk to a device like an air-particle measuring device. My advice: go Arduino + peripherals. A "sound board" that can generate synthesized sounds would be fun to program — any kind of sensor that measures heat, humidity, air quality, etc. Motor controllers + robot platform of course.... Stuff is fairly cheap and there's so much out there.

tlear 5y ago

Restricting kids from the mobile games is like restricting kids from drinking vodka you have in your bar. Everyone should do it. Those things are not games they are whale seeking mind fucking drugs that no child should have to try and deal with. Anyway school my kids are in uses older version of the inventor, librarian runs a class with that twice a week both my 8 and 6 year old LOVE IT. Meaning that is their topic of conversation and they remember which days they have it during the week. Couple days ago 8year olds class had a bring your parent to school day so I did a presentation mentioning a game I hacked with a debugger as an ice breaker. Forget what I actually do for next 20 minutes all I was asked is how to hack Minecraft, how to hack some online game I don't know :o and not get caught. Blew my mind, teacher was looking sideways at me :) Now I promised to compile a set or resource about modding Minecraft for the class. I am also thinking about setting up a website that kids can mess with using developer tool in the browser(super simple html with hidden "password" etc)

hnthrowaway0315 5y ago
> Restricting kids from the mobile games is like restricting kids from drinking vodka you have in your bar. Everyone should do it. Those things are not games they are whale seeking mind fucking drugs that no child should have to try and deal with. Absolutely. I work in the industry so I know exactly the monetization culture there. It is so deeply rooted that there is way to avoid that, at least on Android. I think Apple is slightly better but maybe not really. I'm sad that the whole industry got trained in that mindset :( > Couple days ago 8year olds class had a bring your parent to school day so I did a presentation mentioning a game I hacked with a debugger as an ice breaker. Forget what I actually do for next 20 minutes all I was asked is how to hack Minecraft, how to hack some online game I don't know :o and not get caught. Blew my mind, teacher was looking sideways at me :) This is really very good experience :) I guess it's also very proud of your children to have a cool parent.
foobarian 5y ago
I'm struggling with what to do about Roblox. There are many different subgames on it, some of which really focused on money, some not, some focused on grinding, etc. But restricting Roblox wholesale then misses the opportunity to get into the creative/coding side of things. But then if the focus of that is going to be monetization...