I’m in Orlando this week for a business trip, but this visit is special because my wife and son came along with me. The majority of my time will be spent talking tech in convention halls while my family gets to play in the theme parks. But we have a few days together at the tail end of the trip for some family fun.
Most families probably think of mouse ears and castles when you mention an Orlando trip. But even though I have visited this area countless times, the Kennedy Space Center remains one of my favorite side trips. We often see space travel depicted by Hollywood, but we rarely have a chance to see the science up close. When you are standing next to one of the mammoth titan rockets, you can’t help but feel a sense of awe and wonder at what man can build.
Over the past few weeks, my son and I have been building our own spaceship. Our Eitech Deluxe Space Shuttle is modeled after NASA’S Discovery Space Shuttle, albeit slightly smaller than the real thing. With 1,400 pieces, assembling the shuttle kit has been a multi-day project and a lot of fun to do with my son.
Like many children, my son often plays with building blocks and has fun constructing vehicles and creatures based on his own imagination. The Eitech kit is great because we can build the space shuttle, but my son can also interchange parts to make his own spaceship as well. You should have seen how big his eyes were when he saw all of the parts for the first time. And then it was a flood of chatter as he talked about what we could build, peppered with excitement when he saw things like the miniature wrench and other tools included in the kit.
Assembling the Eitech deluxe space shuttle kit is relatively straightforward. The hardest part is just making sure to grab the correct piece before screwing them together. The kit came with detailed printed directions, which my son followed religiously. The instructions have scale pictures of the various parts (labeled with numbers), so my son could just line them up to verify they were a match. Or like he often does with his building blocks, my son could count the number of holes on a given piece to make sure it was a match. This turned out to be a good educational toy between the counting, following directions, and the discussion about space shuttles that we had during construction.
All of the Eitech kits are designed, engineered, and manufactured in Germany. Everything about the kit felt premium, from the quality of the materials to the clarity of the instructions. Something like this would make a fantastic holiday gift for any child in your family. It is pretty darn neat, and it doesn’t require any batteries, just an imagination.
Eitech has several different kits that will give your child plenty to do when the weather outside turns cold. The Eitech Eiffel Tower Construction Set ($49.99) or Eitech Trail Bike Construction Set ($14.99) are really good entry level sets to try out. The robot, train, or space shuttle are fun to build and to play with.
Eitech Kits can be found at stores like Toys R Us or FAO Schwarz in addition to online sites such as www.eitechtoys.com or Amazon. They even have a construction kit for the Seattle Space Needle, which is calling my name.
When you visit something like the Kennedy Center, you can’t help but realize how important science and engineering is to our future. My wife and I have joked that my son will likely become an engineer based on his aptitude for math and love for building. Construction kits like those from Eitech are a great way to encourage his interests and to have some quality father son time.