Meccano (the steel one with the brass bolts), 300 in One electronic kit, Chemistry set, hand tools and a workbench, Modeling clay, "Magic Box": a shoe box filled with construction paper, glue, string and rubber bands, a few magnets and brushes and waterpaint. Minibrix (the ancestor of those brick contruction set. Anything that can be disassembled and then have to be ressembled. Left-over parts from car repair jobs.

Another idea might be designing coffee table doodads that show off scientific phenomena or engineering tricks. Thereby sowing the seed of doing science in _many_ young minds. Way to go !!!

Use your acquired talents and abilities to guide you intot he subject. I am pensionned off and next year I intend to do just what you mentionned: do lab work. My strongest abilities are draftting, programming ,and machine shop practice (lathe and milling) so I'll be replicating some machine I saw on the net and try to see if they do work and then make them way better. Ever heard of the Clem engine...or that magick magnet motor from Japan. How about that Stanley Meyer hydrogen car...you get the idea.

I'm retired and have been working on some game support app for some time. I would never had done it during the time I was working. There is a lot of "old" programmers around who might be put to contribution. The grey revolution is coming. Only old programmers have the time: the young one don't have any!!

Maybe gravity is like slow water: it piles up behind the moon when obstructed then start to flow faster on release (see the first graph) as in when the moon moves out fo the way, then goes back to normal.