My geeky 15yr DS and the weirdest Christmas list ever

[FuckingHateRats]

My son has asked for: headphones (standard), dried mango, dried banana chips, microfibre cloths to clean his glasses with, and one of those blue BIC pens that have the four coloured nibs to make notes in his classes 🤣🤣🤣 he's also added refills for his pilot BtP pens (a very specific request).

I have bought the usual slippers, a (Primark) oodie, pringles etc.

He has significantly less to open than his younger sisters.

I'm thinking of ordering Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors amzn.eu/d/9NJkl9U THIS BOOK (he loves maths and coding so seems right up his street) but would love any ideas of (hopefully useful) bits and pieces he can open. He's asked for so little and says he is really lucky because he doesn't need anything🤷🏻‍♀️

He does not care about branded clothes, does not care about his hair etc, so things like aftershave and sporty t-shirts/joggers are out.

Omg this is genius!! About to go find it on Amazon

He has one but it's long abandoned. He prefers physical books.

He does read online at school. They have one-to-one devices here and every kid has an iPad 🙄. He's downloaded our library app and reads using that at school. But at home he prefers an actual physical copy.

@lilightisnotwhite can you link to the nail clippers please ?

This! Let’s stop judging others kids 🙄

Don’t look particularly exciting

Loving this thread - have a similar D's aged 14, so have taken lots of ideas for him as his Christmas list this year has just consisted of a charting calculator he could use for further maths A-level (he's teaching himself A-level maths at the moment but wants to play with charting now), some chocolate and a cuddly toy... Reflects the old and young aspects of him but nothing particularly age appropriate!

DH is a statistician/data scientist (thanks to whoever mentioned the Bad Data book - that's going to be his present) and ds1 also loves maths, as do I so while we already have lots of the books on the Nrich list, can I also add any by John Allen Paulo's to the list - I discovered them at uni and still read them now, he has a very easy to understand, engaging style; you learn lots without noticing. I'm also getting The Maths That Made Us as a similar book to Humble Pi, that looks interesting.

I go to a local geek meet and someone once brought in an 11x11 Rubik's Cube - first break during the talk there was a longer queue to just touch it than there was to talk to the speaker (who also wanted a go!). The 11x11 version is expensive but there are smaller versions cheaply on Amazon (ds has a 5x5 and I'll get him a bigger one for his next birthday) - they provide an extra level of challenge but the principle is still the same, plus they all have a very tactile accordance that means everyone wants to have a go!

I've noted a couple of people on here have suggested a visit to the National Museum of Computing, which is next to Bletchley Park (in one of the old Huts!) - it's local to me and I can highly recommend it. During the holidays they often have a range of different activities going on, for all ages - worth checking their events page to see if there's something that is of particular interest. If you're coming a long way and want to make it a longer visit, there's a good Virtual Reality place (Vertigo) to experience a variety of different VR things, a cafe where did is delivered by robots, plus a great exhibition of lots of different robots, the National Film and Sci-Fi museum, the Pixel Bunker - basically loads of old arcade games to play on. If you're more interested in car racing, there's a slot car racing centre and Red Bull F1 HQ in MK itself and Silverstone race circuit just a few miles away, complete with new interactive museum, that seems to be popular (I haven't been yet!). So although it's probably not the first place that comes to mind for a short break, it's actually got lots of different stuff of interest if you're into geeky/techy/motor stuff!

wibdib

Thank you SO much! Based on this thread I have booked a visit to the Computer Museum at Bletchley for 28th and 29th and now you have iced the cake by talking about the VR place and robot cafe nearby. My DS is going to be beyond thrilled and DH is ridiculously excited as well! 😄