Comment Arduino (Score 5, Interesting) 372
Seems to me like you can do an awful lot with the Arduino platform. I recommend buying from the Make guys, as you'll also see that they've published a book recently with the Arduino developers/creators that maybe your kid would like as a follow-on? They are only $30.00 and the only requirement is a computer to plug the thing into for programming.
I'm asking my wife for one :-).
For project examples:
http://www.instructables.com/tag/?q=arduino&limit%3Atype%3Aid=on&type%3Aid=on&type%3Auser=on&type%3Acomment=on&type%3Agroup=on&type%3AforumTopic=on&sort=none