I am sure excited to teach my kids (current age, 2.5 years, and 4 months, so there's a bit of time) to use a map. I must have my old road atlas somewhere. As a

I am sure excited to teach my kids (current age, 2.5 years, and 4 months, so there's a bit of time) to use a map. I must have my old road atlas somewhere. As an engineer and product manager (and just in general) I constantly think about, metaphorically, where I want to get to and how to reasonably get there. We literally call this "the roadmap" - it's the ability to visualize a viable path. I love Google maps (I've relied for it on 6 continents for driving, transit, and walking, it's amazing) but it basically does the "how" for you and I want my kids to be able to do that. So if we're ever doing a roadtrip, I dunno, from NYC to Miami, I want my kids to be part of the planning - how many miles can we do a day? What are the natural destinations along the way? Basically, I think mapping and trip planning is a very natural example of breaking down the problem into sub-problems that are both meaningful in their own way and add up to the whole. It's also interesting to trouble-shoot this kind of stuff. If Google Maps suggests to us a route that is very different than what we mapped out - why? What is it optimizing for vs what are we optimizing for? I am excited to teach my kids to think this way.