Asklemmy @lemmy.ml ALostInquirer @lemm.ee 8 mo. ago

Besides Lego, what other creative toys/products do you dabble with, if ya do?

Other creative toys/products that come to mind would be, say, Play-Doh as a sort of children's intro to...Clay, I suppose? But in this vein without being exclusively directed towards children (albeit I imagine many may be).

Always enjoyed a creative kind of toy to mess around with.

47 comments

I still have my K'NEX
A ton of videogames fall into this category. Minecraft is probably the most well-known, but any game with a base building element is a quick hook for me.
- I love me some Minecraft, best $10 I ever spent, 11 years of free major updates so far and still going strong.
  
  If you like the sandbox survival games Id recommend Medieval Dynasty, been playing this for the passed year, the survival part of it is pretty tame although you can adjust the setting to make it harder but I really like the village building / settler management aspect while still being a first person style game
- While videogames are great, a hobby that dabbles with real things will stimulate you very differently. Touching stuff with your hands, the gap between what you want and what comes out of your work, the search for materials and techniques and other aspects of working with real stuff and not on predefined paths, will engage with your brain in a very different way.
  
  Videogames and "real" hobbies (as in hobbies that use real stuff) are great together in my opinion, they complement and fuel each other.
  
  If you are a technical person, videogames can give you things a physical object cannot do. Minecraft with BuildCraft was so fun, engaging and stimulating in creating automated factories
I like to program microcontrollers. So that's sort of my creative toy.

The Arduino or Pi Pico are accessible and fun ones.

I like the Attiny10, but I'm some sort of cursed mercenary science hermit.
- The StemmaQt or Qwiic boards from Adafruit and Sparkfun, respectively, are more accessible ways to make physical computing projects with sensors and screens.
  
  I’m working on some simpler discrete circuits with my son, like 555 and shift registers, since he’s really good with his fingers, but only just starting to read. We get to build and test them with Tinkercad or Fritzing and then make them in real life. It’s been awesome learning for both of us.
  
  The CD4069 and LM386 are fun for discrete projects too. Also OPA2132 :)
  
  The Adafruit and Sparkfun stuff is great.
  
  Accessibility is not so much a concern for me, I don't mind reading long datasheets. That's half the fun for me. I also like KiCAD a lot, I've sent off several designs to the factories to make a few units. Was a really cool experience and I learned a lot.
  
  I'm not a super big Fritzing fan (personal preference I guess) but love Tinkercad for quickly designing something 3D printable.
I’m currently building a ship in a bottle. Though it’s a kit, not from scratch. But there is some micro-woodworking and painting needed.
I’m working on a wooden puzzle right now that’s a locked safe. The company has a bunch of neat products wood trick
- Ah, that reminds me of some similar puzzle/kits made of metal! I'm forgetting the name for the specific one right now, but there appear to be a few different companies behind them from trying to search & find the one I was thinking of.
  
  You mean Metal Earth? Though they are not the only ones who make those kinds of models but they are the ones that got me into it (for a few months)
- Is it still like a regular puzzle? Like the same skill set?
  
  It’s comparable to building legos.
- ROKR also makes a lot of cool ones.
  
  Edit: OMG THEY HAVE PINBALL!!!
3D printing and painting resin and game miniatures
- ROCK 'N' STONE, BROTHER!
  
  If you don’t rock and stone, you ain’t going home!
- Rock!
  
  And!
  
  Stooooone!
- In the near future, when my son's mother and I live in separate places, I will set up a ventilation system and get my Saturn back up. I have 4 years of minis from The Makers Cult to print
  
  I’m happy to hear that you are using ventilation. It’s wild how many resin printer owners don’t.
I never had LEGO, but when I was a little kid, my parents got me several Meccano kits (not these ones tho) and this electronic experimental kit

and, 20 years later I mess with Arduinos and Raspberry Pis.
Playdate! It’s a little yellow handheld with a crank, but every unit is also a dev kit. Seeing your project come to life on the screen is a great experience.

I also occasionally write for fun
I've recently gotten into model building, in the sense of buying those sheets of pieces that need cut out and snapped or glued together. like this

The issue I have is that I'm not really into most of the things they make models of. Most model kits in this style tend to be classic cars, military vehicles, or anime/Gundams. Not that there's anything wrong with those things, they're just not particularly interesting to me.

But I can spend hours just browsing the model kits on websites like big bad toys
I like to fabricate things (metal) though I'm an utter novice. It just feels right to make something from scrap.
Kapla!

Not my creation, just a random image I found :)

It’s mostly meant for my children, but I really enjoy building stuff with it when we’re playing together. It’s basically just wooden planks, but they’re very well proportioned and weighted. My favorite creation was a giant building balancing on only two planks.
- Play this with your kids while teaching them Klingon
I like making mini projects with Godot or Unity on the computer, or sometimes actually use my guitars or weird toy/synth instruments. 😁 Shout out to the Korg Monotron for getting me into all this!
I’m kind of addicted to building computers. I have two desktops, a mini ITX PC, and I built my wife a PC. It’s a giant waste of money, but it’s so god damn fun.
- Too bad nowadays building a computer is so much more simple and integrated.
  
  In a lot of ways, yeah, it is. It’s a lot harder to fuck it up so bad you fry something. I do miss fiddling with little jumpers to get my hard drive and CD drive working on the same ribbon though.
I used to love Erector Sets. And blending them with LEGO and junk parts to make shit that did "something." Now, I just work on diesels, drink whiskey and fish.
Playdough if it's the kind you can harden.
I do traditional woodworking as part of a medieval reenactment group. I also like games with basebuiling elements. Valheim, Minecraft, Ark, Conan Exiles, etc.
Magnatiles are surprisingly fun
- Seconding Magnatiles
  
  Also, marble runs!
I have those magnet balls and over the years (sounds more dramatic than it is) i bought 10 sets which usually sit on my desk in some fancy shape as decoration.

They can get fairly expensive (mass/price) so i opted to buy a single set every so often as i haven't found a magnet shop that sells individual balls for less.

Sometimes i get so invested i'll mess with them for hours.
Every now and then, I boot up an old Mac and get lost in HyperCard.
Kerbal Space Program and Dwarf Fortress if I'm on the computer. Crocheting, chainmaille, sewing, when I want to use my hands.

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Besides Lego, what other creative toys/products do you dabble with, if ya do?

ROCK 'N' STONE, BROTHER!