Every professional engineer was once a child. In the past, kids with this proclivity had to resort to pulling apart Dad’s short-wave radio to figure out how it worked. But today’s budding engineers can explore different types of engineering with clever construction sets that build cognitive skills such as logical reasoning, problem-solving skills, critical & creative thinking as well as fine motor skills and spatial relationships. Meanwhile they are introducing your child to fundamental concepts of math, science, engineering, physics, and technology. And what a better way to bond with your child than to work on these projects together?

Step away from Google and search no more because we have assembled a list of the best engineering projects the world has to offer:

Wooden Chocolate Factory

Willy Wonka, eat your heart out! Your chocolate factory was never this cool.

Your future factory designer can build their own wooden mechanical chocolate factory replead with a selection of miniature sweets. Then turn the handle to send the marbles up the tower to travel through the factory. Watch as the ticker at the top of the factory acknowledge each marble as it is completed the run. Little bunnies monitor their progress as the robot is busy keeping the things moving at the control panel. No factory would be complete without a bell to alert the workers of a job well done.

https://www.adventuretowntoys.com/diy-wooden-chocolate-factory.html

Country of Origin: CHINA

Recommended age: 14 - 99 years old

Bridge Building Set

The latest in dynamic modelling systems, this Bridge Building set provides a rich and rewarding STEM environment that will get your aspiring Civil Engineer ready to design the next iconic bridge like the Puente de la Mujer in Buenos Aires. With no additional tools required, your future engineer can use the 620 precision molded beams based on the Pratt scale standard unit blocks in 15 different shapes and 19 hard wood unit bricks to create, develop, re-work, and marvel at their creations.

https://www.adventuretowntoys.com/bridge-building-set.html

*AWARD WINNING TOY

Country of Origin: USA

Recommended age: 6 - 99 years old

DIY Wooden Calculator Set

Who says you need batteries to use a calculator? This set of wooden mechanical calculators that your future Mathematician can build will add, subtract, and multiply in the most fascinating way!

The Mechanical Addiator is a DIY wooden model kit based on an addiator that was invented by a St. Petersburg music teacher, Heinrich Kummer, in 1846. It’s simple design and compact size made it a popular mathematical tool in its time.

The Mechanical Multiplier is a fun wooden 3D kinetic puzzle based on a children's toy, “Consul the Educated Monkey,” invented in 1915 by William Henry Robertson, an American high school math teacher. Robertson applied for a patent for a toy that ingeniously uses a hinged mechanism to perform simple multiplication, designed "to stimulate children's interest in the study of numbers.” It is a flat hinge mechanism that accomplishes binary operations on numbers. By moving the dual slider, you can multiply and square numbers from 1 to 12, making the multiplication table fun.

https://www.adventuretowntoys.com/diy-wooden-calculator-set.html

Country of Origin: UKRAINE

Age recommendation: 8 - 99 years old

Rube Goldberg Contraption Kit

Finally, a silly chain reaction construction set worthy of Rube Goldberg. There are thousands of ways that your budding inventor can ring the bell at the end of their wacky gauntlet. This set includes straight, slotted, adjustable and hilly ramps, wooden bar bell, hoops, teeter totters, a variety of balls, hammers, and dominoes. This set is a fun way to learn STEM concepts such as gravity, force, and momentum, and how they can create a chain reaction.

https://www.adventuretowntoys.com/zig-go-48-pieces.html

Country of Origin: FRANCE

Age recommendation: 8 - 99 years old (6+ with parental assistance)

Build your own Construction Vehicles

This clever 200+ piece engineering set from Italy allows your junior engineer to build 10 different construction vehicles, as well as teach how to make transmission components such as a differential, rack-based transmission, conical toothed cogwheels, and worm screw. This set was developed to encourage children's knowledge in levers and gears. Your aspiring Mechanical Engineer can build an antique truck, differential, European lorry, truck with tipper bed, truck with crane, tow truck, dump truck, American truck, truck with log gripper, and snowplow.

https://www.adventuretowntoys.com/mechanics-lab-transport-trucks.html

Country of Origin: ITALY

Age recommendation: 8 - 99 years old

Wind-powered Machines Kit

Fascinated by alternative energy?

Your aspiring Aerospace Engineer can build six awesome bots that move without any batteries or electricity. The secret behind these fascinating machines is one of the oldest power sources in the world: wind! A full-color manual guides your child in assembling six models one at a time from 133 pieces while learning about gear ratios and wind-power technology.

No wind - No problem: Includes handheld wind generator. Start cranking the generator and watch them go!

Build a big-wheel tricycle, quadruped, soaring machine, drilling monster, walking robot, and even a wind-powered yacht. To make them all go, the kit also includes the pieces to build a hand-powered wind generator. As your engineer builds and experiments, they will learn about how gears transmit power and torque. Also learn about wind as a power-generating technology — past, present, and future. No glue required.

https://www.adventuretowntoys.com/windbots.html

*AWARD WINNING TOY
Country of Origin: TAIWAN

Age recommendation: 8 - 99 years old

Gravity Marble Rack Track

Your enterprising Engineer can use gravity to turn their own magical motor, running the metal spheres up and down the track. They can get an exhilarating introduction to the mechanical wonders of magnets while building an interest in mechanics, physics, and mechanics of magnetism.
Get the ball rolling when your child drops one of the ball bearings onto the starting track. It gains momentum before dropping onto the main track and rolling around to the magnet. Then, with a SNAP, it collides with the magnet and - WHOOSH! - another ball bearing is launched like a rocket up the slope, around the curve, and back around to start the action all over again!

Made with 76% recycled plastic.

https://www.adventuretowntoys.com/gravity-race-track-67pcs.html

Country of Origin: SWITZERLAND

Age recommendation: 8 - 99 years old

Cams & Cranks Engineering Set

Your emerging Engineer can learn how to transmit power using cams and cranks and how they can be used to convert reciprocal to linear motion with this clever set from Cyprus.
Your clever child can discover how these mechanisms are crucial elements of many machines even though they are not considered as “Simple Machines”. They can build 8 working models such as a fishing crane, an oil pump, a moving figure, a moving bridge, a sewing machine, and a flying eagle.

https://www.adventuretowntoys.com/cams-cranks.html

Country of Origin: CYPRUS

Age recommendation: 8 - 99 years old

Classic Wooden Construction Set

Introduce your littlest junior Engineer to the old school tools that their grandparents and great-grandparents used to set them on the path to engineering careers. This clever classic construction set from Austria was invented in 1901! It promotes motor and cognitive development of children 3 years and older.

This classic set comes with 108 jumbo wooden pieces and a hammer to build any of the 55 design suggestions or create their own. The pieces are sized for small hands and connect with wooden rods that can be tapped into place and removed with provided tools providing a safe way to build the fine motor skills needed for more sophisticated woodworking in the future.

This wooden construction kit is a sophisticated toy that children can use to create logical links between theory and practice early in life. By offering a fitting accuracy that is completely unparalleled among wooden toys, they create the ideal foundations for building both simple and complex models. Precision-drilled construction blocks, plus connecting rods, axles and wheel discs that fit perfectly, open a whole world of construction that has been captivating young and old for generations. Heirloom quality. Using the special pliers, the structures can always be taken apart and then re-assembled to form a new structure.

Untreated Copper Beachwood is harvested from sustainably managed, native forests. Non-toxic. No plastics or other materials that are environmentally unfriendly.

https://www.adventuretowntoys.com/wooden-construction-set-108.html

Country of Origin: AUSTRIA

Age recommendation: 3 -7 years old

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Bio:

Annamarie von Firley is the President of the beloved Adventuretown Toy Emporium located in Los Angeles. She has a BFA in Wooden Toy Design and Construction from Hampshire College and BFA in Furniture Design from California College of the Arts She was the cofounder and designer of the revered reproduction vintage clothing store, reVamp, for 20 years. Her handiwork has been seen on Broadway and major motion pictures, as well as in the Smithsonian.

www.adventuretowntoys.com