£100 ish for an almost 13 yo who is tech mad?

[DoItTooJulia]

What can I buy?

As an example, this summer my ds has built a fully working computer from scratch-using raspberry pi bits, and salveaged buts from a games console.

He has a hot glue gun and a soldering iron. He uses his pocket money on pi bits.

He has an Xbox 360 (doesn't really play on it and not interested in a new one plus a hundred quid wouldn't buy one!)

He has a pc

He has a Lego nxt robot.

He only wants to code and build and create stuff from crap (he'd be awesome on robot wars/scrap heap challenge!)

Help!

Fucking bastard fat fingers.

Salvaged bits

I book marked this prima article on coding toys / gifts the other day. No idea if all the older aged stuff is already too basic mind you??

Well done your son...that's great

Could you take him round shops to pick out his own Xmas presents?

or put the money into his bank account,and go to the local tip with him in the run up to Christmas?they have loads of old tv's and consoles that would just go to waste otherwise.

Maplin vouchers?

A tool kit

You could get him something more classic to mess with. A Commodore 64 is about £100 on eBay. But if he's anything like my DH (a programmer) he'd prefer the money/vouchers to choose some obscure bit of kit himself; DH enjoys finding the bits and pieces as much as he enjoys assembling them!

3d printer... the DS of a friend of mine is using it to build robots ..

A 3D printer would be his ultimate gift! But I can't see that we can get a decent one for the money.

He is incredibly able in this respect (not a stealth boast-I am a bit frightened by his abilities in this area-I like reading and walking and know NOTHING about coding and programming and the likes.) and I can't help him, so I'm desperate for recommendations!

He knows the blokes in maplin he's there that often. And I'm often sent with a list of obscure shite he wants from there because I pass it often.

Thanks for the ideas

There's a book called Project Arcade, which is about building your own arcade machine, also some kind of nice storage for techy tools, peg board in bright colours ( lots of techy storage ideas on Pinterest ) ?

Oooh-I'll check that out, thanks!

He loves storage for his bits, and has some pretty nifty tubs/boxes etc.

I am not sure if this will help but they often have broken games consoles on eBay listed as for spares or repairs. I am assuming they would be quite cheap. Maybe he could have some broken game consoles to use in his projects. I appreciate that is quite a weird Christmas present but it's the first thing that came to mind.