hmm... i think by the timie my kids are old enough to start hacking in daddys lab, whenever that is, lets say thats 10 years from now, we will be able to build today,s iphone for fun, it will be old news. witness arduino, the cool rise of homebrewed gizmos out there.... software And hardware are out there to cheaply make all kinds of cool stuff. my kids should have no problem hacking away, probably on stuff i wont even understand at some point. if they end up interested, of course.