Educational Insights Design & Drill Brightworks

STEM Skills targeted: Electronics, Construction, Design
Recommended age range: 3-7

This toy is one of the most creative ideas I’ve seen for a while. I love it because it combines kids love of construction and using tools (with a real electronic drill!) with creative design and there’s even a bit of an introduction to electronics included here. My kids definitely love anything that lights up in the dark so I can see how this toy construction kit would be a huge hit.

The kit consists of a 9-inch square activity board, 80 drill-in bolts in different colors and a battery-powered drill.

Kids use the drill to screw in the bolts in a pattern of their own choice or following one of the provided template designs. When finished just flip the switch to turn on the lights.

This toy helps to develop hand-eye coordination, pattern matching, creative design skills and fine motor skills. Plus it’s really good fun – if you have young children you’ll know how much they love using tools, especially anything that spins and buzzes. I’ve not been brave enough to give my kids access to a real electric drill so this provides a great opportunity that they won’t get anywhere else!

Whether you’ve got a kid who loves construction and tools, is methodical and likes working things out or is creative and loves design, this toy would be great for all of them. It’s a long time since I’ve come across a toy that has such a wide appeal. It can even be used to develop basic math skills through counting the pegs in different colors to create the various patterns.

It’s also a toy that can be played with by multiple children at the same time – they can take it in turn to use the drill but the pegs can also be screwed in by hand which helps to develop motor skills.

You can also purchase an additional drill and other design sets. Note that this is the ony set that has light-up pegs. The other sets include activity boards in various shapes and sizes and different tools but all have the same basic idea of creating designs out of different colored bolts and screws.