EyeClops and IlluStory: more educational Holiday gifts for kids

A couple of my colleagues here at EDN have been busy posting Holiday Gift Guides for Engineers. Check out Brian Dipert’s post Brian’s Brain’s Holiday Gift Guide for Engineers and Margery Connor’s post PowerSource’s Holiday Gift Guide for Engineers for some really cool gift ideas for the engineer in your life.

Last year, I posted my own gift guide but this one was for the kids in our lives. That post is called “Xbox, Zombies, Lego, PC Boards and better mouse traps: educational high tech toys for Christmas.”

All the gifts mentioned in my previous post are still in great use by my kids–who are now ages 6, 9, and 11. The NXT is especially a big hit and I recommend it highly. This year, I spotted a couple of other cool gifts that have a redeeming educational value. The first one is a toy that seems to be getting a lot of praise this Christmas. It is called the Jakks EyeClops Bionic Eye. I won’t say if I bought this or not for my kids because they may happen on this post (they’re getting sneakier as they get older), but this little unit is essentially a 200x electronic magnifying glass that hooks up to your TV. Of course, one drawback it would seem is you can only check out stuff within the reach of the chord plugged into your TV. Maintaining focus, say reviewers, is a bit difficult, too. Still, it sounds cool and I’m sure it will be a bit pretty creepy to get a 200x magnified look at common household stuff. Howard Hughs would have had a good ole time with it.

The next one is for the budding author/publisher in your life. It is called the “IlluStory Make Your Own Story Kit.” Your kids write a story and create their own illustrations (with either hand drawings or by using templates and art on the web). You then send in the manuscript to the creationsbyyou/IlluStory folks and they send you the hardcopy of your child’s story (who says print is dead?). It’s certainly a good experience and it’s a great keepsake. And it really isn’t that pricy and if you want to give their grandparents a neat gift, you can order extra copies.

Those are my two picks for the hottest educational toys this holiday season. If you have any others please feel free to share them.

Oh, and speaking of the Holidays, I’m starting mine early and will be on vacation from Dec. 20 to January 3. Have a great and safe Holiday Season, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!