Ideas for a building/creating gift for 10 year old boy

[missmousemouth]

DS is 10, but manages games for much older children.

He loves building things. Lego is great, but we have too much Lego now and it's costly given he does the sets in a split second.

I've bought him a book nook in the past. That worked well.

Another hit gift was a bionic hand that he built.

Does anyone have any ideas that might challenge him and keep occupied for a while. I'm really struggling.

Gravitrax. It's an advanced marble run. My 12 & 9 year olds love it. The starter set is about £50 and comes with instructions for about 30 different formations, plus they can of course create their own. And then you can get various add ons from £10, so if he gets into it they make great future gifts.
amzn.eu/d/gi5oD4x

3D pen. DD(9) has this one and has made some incredible things out of it from Christmas decorations to furniture for her teddies to little Minecraft figures.
3dpenpro.co.uk/products/3d-kit-pro

Oh and DS (11) has a whittling knife, which he loves.
www.greenmanbushcraft.co.uk/frosts-childrens-woodcarving-knife.htm

Mark Rober/ crunch labs subscription
https://www.crunchlabs.com/products/build-box-subscription
they come every month. Each one is easy to build but quite absorbing and they include interesting lessons about physics too.

Mine got into Warhammer recently, at that age. You pick your 'tribe' and then build and paint the plastic characters. You can get Warhammer in the Warhammer shops or online from places like Game.

Also look at Teifoc on Amazon - small brick and cement building sets.

He's a huge Mark Rober fan and would LOVE this. Sadly, too expensive for me.

Great idea. He has one already though and I don't think he is so into it that he'd want additions.

I'm researching Teifoc, Warhammer and 3D pens. At 1am in the morning!

Engenius Contraptions make laser cut wood things (like a "perpetual motion" marble run) to fit together. They’re time consuming but possibly too tricky

National Geographic magnetic marble run was a hit here

Not exactly building but can't recommend Turing Tumble enough - it's programming but with levers & ballbearings by following a comic book filled with challenges.

Beware warhammer 😂 we have a house full of it (more than half is DHs 🤦🏻‍♀️)

Turing Tumble ... I assume not this, which I just found on Amazon and also looks quite interesting.

Came online to create almost this exact thread. I need to spend £50 on 11 yr DD (who is into science, robots, Lego, videogames etc.). She already has a coding robot but I need to level out the spend with her younger brother as he has a much cheaper robot animal and also two sets of magnatiles which were quite pricey. She has videogames on her list but I'd love her to have something more physically creative like her brother.

Ideas that have been hits in the past include Geomag and Gravitrax. I don't have any more ideas right now so mostly here to hear what others have to say!

Sorry I can't see what "this" is on your post but would be interested to know as my 10yr old engineer could do with something else too!

this is Turing tumble https://shop.imaginationgaming.co.uk/product/turing-tumble/

K-Nex - comes with plans, but as difficult as you make it in free build.

https://amzn.eu/d/ix9M5Ej

This .... was this. Sorry.

amzn.eu/d/edG8P3H

Thank you @Arglefraster . That looks really good.

Wow!

Those ROKR builds are really beautiful.

Machine Works build your own engine?

Oh that looks really interesting! Thanks

For puzzle games my 10 loves genius square, Tuki, & azul.

For anyone interested in Turing Tumble, here's a Dice Tower review.

Wowsers. Great idea! Had never heard of these. Thank you so much everyone. My problem now is going to trying to settle on which to get.