Gift ideas for 4 year old obsessed with leads, wires, pipes

[Moonshine160]

4 year old DS is obsessed with leads, wires, pipes, anything that connects to something else. Anything he can plug in and charge. Says he wants to be an electrician. He is possibly autistic and on the pathway for diagnosis. He has a couple of different marble runs and electric circuit kits already. He doesn’t like “normal” toys and does very little imaginative play. Any suggestions? I’ve seen some tube toys that you can connect on Amazon and some magnetic tiles which I will get but wondered if anyone has any ideas?

My DS has some of the Gears Gears Gears construction sets which he loves and they’re good quality. They do a ‘lights and action’ set, which we don’t own yet (as it’s rather pricey!). Learning Resources Machines in Motion set and Georello are also similar.
There are two Think Fun games that your DS might like - Laser Maze and Circuit Maze - but they might be a bit too old for him yet.
There’s also a book called Look Inside How Things Work by Usborne.

Get him an electronics set like Hot Wires. There will be something targeted for his age. My son loved this and spent ages following the instructions to make up a circuit that turned a light on / set off an alarm......

Something like the Hotwires or Cambridge Brainbox sets.

Forgot to mention Lite Brite and Lightstax

Would he like a marble run? I know it's a bit different but might capture his interest maybe?

Bath pipes can be good option? Lots on amazon

My husband, who’s an engineer, still loves playing with my daughters bath pipes. He’s 41.

Some great suggestions here, thank you!

I know you can get electrical sets for children. Could you get a piece of wood and make some kind of busy board for him, using a couple of them? You could also attach a couple of bits of pipe and give him the pipe joints he needs to connect them, as well as anything else he’d like to play with. You could attach plastic plug sockets and cut a hole into the wood behind it so he can put a plug all the way in. Maybe drill in a tool holder and put in a screw driver and a wire stripper. My brother made (a traditional) one for my DN and attached it to one side of a child’s easel so it was easy to store it when not in use and he absolutely loved it.

Not sure how complex he likes his gadgets to be but saw this on the US Amazon site and I know my son would have enjoyed it when he was little…

https://www.amazon.com/Crown-Display-Montessori-Toddlers-Pluggable/dp/B0BPTPX8N4?th=1&psc=1

https://www.brightminds.co.uk/collections/tech-toys

Bright minds have a lot of unusual stuff like that.

Yes, as pp said ... have you anyone a bit handy to make you up a Busy Board?

All clips, plugs and connectors etc on a sheet of ply that they can use. Most I've seen are homemade but I'm sure someone must have capitalised by now.

Mine is similar, he did have a busy board but it didn't really do it for him as he wanted to 'put the things together' himself really. He likes the massive vetch marble runs, Lego, we have a few electric circuits which make fans fly, simple radio turn on and tune etc, he loves that! Mine also loves gardening machinery so lawn mowers etc? Well he loves everything mechanical and everything electrical. Books on electricity and mechanics? Toys with gears you can see so all the compants are visible?

This is incredibly cool, might need some adult input but is a lot of fun.

https://makeymakey.com/

@HAF1119 thanks for the ideas. It sounds like we have the same child 😂

How about marble run/gravitrax type thing? You can get circuit sets too.

Does he like locks? If so, padlocks and anything with a lock

Ooh place marking. If anyone has suggestions for a 4 year old obsessed with tying knots in things I would like to know please!

My son liked the same stuff , any tools, pipes, keys, locks, bits and pieces and a collector of things. He is now a very well paid engineer in Australia.

There's something called Snap Circuits which my DC loved. I think it's for slightly older kids but tbh nothing can really go wrong so if he's into it, maybe take a look at that.

You can get a snap circuits for age 5 plus which would be perfect... my boys loved them. My kids also had the older age ones way before they were that actual age too I think the instructions are pretty good.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Snap-Circuits-Electronics-Discovery-Multi-Color/dp/B011M0XXXM/ref=ascdff_B011M0XXXM/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310734995700&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13772496218034098944&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045845&hvtargid=pla-436379118378&psc=1

Also his place has quite a lot of interesting and different toys/games. I have used this website a lot. Highly recommend.

www.wickeduncle.co.uk/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIsuGl84zigQMV3oxQBh2-nQmDEAAYASAAEgLiivD_BwE

Snap circuits but needs supervision.

We also love Snap Circuits.
We found a £70 kit in a charity shop on holiday for a fiver and brought it home on the plane (chucked out some of the DCs more worn out clothes to make room).

Another vote for snap circuits. We got a couple of sets for my DS (autistic!) and he loved them. We got one that was a remote controlled robot that fired foam discs.