During the holidays I buy a few Raspberry Pi’s, program them and give them to families that can’t afford computers.

Dale W

Woah! Thats true.

Those discrete components are supercool and takes lot of attention and understanding to work with!

I always like gifts that do not involve any software, it helps a lot when you understand the hardware.

There are kits for a discrete 555 timer or 741 opamp. Awesome gifts for the aspiring young hardware person.

I actually have 2 go to gifts depending on the level of the Maker and my knowledge of how much support they may get. 

My favorite that I have used for young family members is the Codebug!  They have loved being able to program easily and see quick and vivid results.  The funny thing is I just received an email saying they are upgrading the Codebug via Kickstarter and a new updated Wifi version should be out soon!

My next go to gift is the Raspberry Pi Zero.  I have donated these to computer clubs in schools when I knew the instructor would actually use them and share the experience with their kids.  I have heard great responses back from students and staff on these!

Both of these items have incredible support online and make for great Gateway Maker Gifts!  :-)

Technology toys under the tree is a tradition I began after I started getting a regular pay cheque. There is no greater big boy joy, than opening tech on Christmas morning. The opening has to be staged well after all the family has enjoyed the gift unwrapping experience or the fall-out from zoning out into tech, will last all day and sometimes longer.

Taking Christmas Tech to a separate room is the only way to enjoy the full experience. It ensures there are minimal questions and maximum focus. “What happened to the battery I put on the edge of the table? Oh, I threw it away because I thought it wasn’t working.” Ever try to find a LR621 battery on Christmas morning. If grandpa has his hearing aids with him you might luck out.

Finding a quick start guide with Christmas Tech provides the much needed adrenaline pre-burn. Without an adrenaline pre-burn you run the risk of a catastrophic failure because you overlooked something that lets the smoke out. Burn’t Christmas Tech on the morning of Dec. 25 is more depressing than no tech at all on Christmas morning.

My go to Christmas Tech gift aligns with this bundle giveqway, the Adafruit Ultimate GPS HAT for Raspberry Pi A+/B+/Pi 2/3/Pi 4 - Mini Kit. Getting the GPS receiver working is fairly straight forward. There is still hours of enjoyment exploring the host of messages that are sent from satellites as well as discovering how to use the receiver as a accurate NTP source. Couple that with a few graphics programs that display satellite constellations and you will forget about the sugar plums that didn't dance in your head.

I actually strapped the Pi, the GPS Hat and a power pack to my bike a few summer ago and took it on a cross country road trip to gather GPS data I used in the

Siretta Cellular Signal Strength Data Logger Roadtest review.

How is that for a Christmas Tech gift that keeps on giving!

My go-to gift is the Educational MeArm Robot Kit

Back in time when I was a little kid I received for Christmas a RC car, the best part It was when I opened it and play with the motors, I add a second battery in series, so the car got more voltage and the result it was more speed but with time the motors burned out.

I think the best gift you can give is time . . . . .

It seems a pretty crap gift if that's all you get to open but time is so precious.

Whether it's time with your family, like when a parent shows you the difference between a screwdriver and a chisel, because you keep breaking one or both of theirs - cheers dad - sorry.

A friend / uncle who gets you interested in electronics, and provides you with the tools to discover more (and the patience to explain when you're a bit 'hard of understanding'.

Time with a distant (or vulnerable) loved one when contact and travel have become so limited, or time to complete that project/job that has been waiting forever to get finished . . . (the downstairs floor is about 45% done, I promise)!

So I'll take up no more of yours, enjoy and appreciate what you have, it won't be there forever!

I only managed to run it once. The fact is that for my childhood she was a little old and primitive. And she required six large batteries.

Ger,

That looks a great car. And still in very good condition. At you sure you have played with it?

Dubbie

My go-to gift to makers would be a FPGA starter kit which is popular and quite costly these days. Tinkering around reconfigurable logics would be cool for anyone!

The heartwarming gift which I got was from my computer teacher back at school. I used to go to the lab and watch him opening, repairing CPU's and UPS all the time. So, one day he gave me the whole motherboard(maybe it was gone, but didn't make sense for me in 5th grade). I brought it back home and simply used to admire at it all the time, plucked some chip, caps and collected those in a box.