This set of lego scientists was crowd-sourced out of the LEGO community. Proposed by a member named Ellen Kooijman  who in real life is a geoscientist, it was then voted up by other members of the LEGO Ideas community and made into a product. As a parent interested in interesting my daughter in STEAM related projects and tired of buying LEGO friends it holds great appeal, at least now there is a chance for a dinolab/vet/cafe. There are other things we could do with this like recreating the scene from Bringing Up Baby with a dog stealing a T-Rex bone (older kids could recreate scenes from Breaking Bad). The set contains information about the creator with an introduction to each of the professions featured in the set which is nice. The lesbian couple on line with me at our local toy store weren’t crazy about the fact that they were wearing lipstick and mentioned that they had recently bought their son a Coast Guard kit in which the only female member of the crew also had lipstick to differentiate her. I’m still looking forward to giving it to my daughter but they have a point.

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The Christmas lights are ALIVE! Lucky for us this swarm of robots is under glass (for now) at a new exhibit at the National Museum of Math (MoMath) in New York. Museum visitors can select from five different types of programmed behaviors that the robots will execute while knowing where they are spatially in relation to the museumgoers who wear an identifying shoulder patch.  Stephen Cass explains how they work in an article on Spectrum IEEE.  The exhibit opens Dec 15.

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Wouldn’t it have been terrific if I had created a witty and oh so viral video of a MaKey MaKey enabled version of the 12 Days of Christmas but since I don’t have a Makey Makey (yet) this performance above will have to suffice. It has a wrapped present, champagne, a fish, and crab, and a small chocolate Santa among other things. I don’t think I would have been able to attach alligator clips to five gold rings let alone a bunch of maids-a-milking anyway.

I think a MaKey MaKey really makes a perfect gift for kids and adults who want to tinker in the space between the digital and physical world and if I find myself getting through the Holidays without receiving one as a present am going to buy for myself.

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