Suggest a coding type toy / game for my 11yo!

[OlennasWimple]

Ideally we would get him the Lego EV3 set, but it's ££££££s.

The Robo Dash toy looks good, but is maybe too young for him?

What else is out there that would require some real engagement from him (coding, building) rather than just staring at a screen?

Second hand lego from ebay? The EV3 looks to be £150- £160 for a complete set in good condition, don't know if you'd run to that?

I DD got a Mindstorms NXT set (complete + extras) a few months back for about £80, obviously that's quite old now but I we have still had a lot of fun with it (caveat - check first that the software will still run on your computer/device, my mac is rather elderly and running an old version of the system software)

Basically, I didn't buy one for me her for years because it seemed like an awful lot of money, but they really are amazing (we went on a day workshop building/programming them which was what convinced me).

Sorry, should say dd is 14, if that makes a difference. She also has a massive quantity of lego technic stuff so can use it to extend/build further, but the kit alone would actually be ample.

raspberry pi?

Thanks - I'd prefer to get it new just in case the electronics bits don't work properly (very happy to buy tubs of bricks second hand!). Good to know the Lego Technic stuff provides useful extensions though

That's true - and maybe this book or something like it. Or maybe an Arduino starter kit? Adafruit do some amazing wearable tech stuff to build.

I would say though that unless your DS is techy-by-nature lego mindstorms is probably easier for an 11 y/o to pick up and run with.

A bbc microbit is probably more his age range than a raspberry pi- it has the option of basic coding using drag and drop modules, or a more complex coding interface using java or python so can develop with their ability. There is also a lot of out of the box / built in functionality such as LEDs to play with.
I recently took my dh's 11yo boy and 9yo girl cousins to a coding event at my workplace and they really enjoyed learning basic coding.

Kano kit raspberry pi computer.

Is a Micro Bit or a Raspberry Pi more advanced?

Ozo bot

look here techwillsaveus

Might be worth finding out if his school uses the micro bits or raspberry pi. DD was given a micro bit last year and as they use it at school has a lot more confidence with that than the pi. Both are good though.

Have a look at the elegoo uno kits too, DS is getting the car for birthday/Christmas. Obviously haven't built it yet but it looks good.

The kids at my school love using makey makeys. You can buy kits on Amazon for around £45 I think.

What sort of coding are you looking at him doing? If you are thinking coding with electronics attached e.g. to make a robot move then the arduino little bits kit is good. If he gets on well with it you can buy more little bits kits to do more. These are good as the electronics just snap together and it is quite hard to actually break anything which you could if you bought a stand alone arduino and a set of electronic components.
If he really just wants to code, and not make 'real' things move, e.g. write computer games then download scratch or python onto your computer (or get a raspberry pi which comes with them pre-loaded).