David Eckold: Mission to the bedroom ceiling

Designer David Eckold has sold more than half a million of his Ultimate Robot Kit, Robot Warrior Kit and The Way Things Work Kit, all developed with Dorling Kindersley. He returns this autumn with two new offerings: Ultimate Spy Kit, which uses different electrical devices to set off various alarms, and Ultimate Rocket Kit, an indoor rocket kit which fires a series of increasingly complex space missions at your bedroom ceiling.

"I've always been particularly interested in that borderline between something you learn from and something you play with--I don't see why there has to be such a strong division. The world is a wonderful place and it shouldn't have to be cut into boring little segments in order to understand it.

"The Ultimate Spy Kit is a good example of introducing a principle of science in a way that engages the child because they have fun, and it has a purpose. In the classroom, learning about electricity, you might make a simple circuit attaching a small light bulb to a battery, and the bulb illuminates--but so what? There's a purpose in the spy kit--it might be to trap your little brother snooping around in your favourite toy box, but in order to do that you construct a circuit with a detector that detects the movement of the toy box lid. There are five main devices in the kit, and they follow principles we use in the real world for burglar alarms.

"The aim is to supply not too much that is ready-made, but to illustrate that by assembling relatively simple components you can make things that can achieve surprisingly complicated results. With the Ultimate Rocket Kit, you make rockets that can carry out a series of missions, but you make them out of foam capsules and sections of paper. The action of just rolling a sheet of paper into a cylinder, and experiencing how rigid a shape you end up with, and how it can be put to a new use as part of a rocket, is different from getting a ready-made plastic tube out of a box.

"I think the Ultimate Rocket Kit is our most adventurous kit to date. We wanted any rocket in the kit to have a purpose, as the robots did, so they have missions.

"The child makes a series of air-powered rockets: in mission one, you launch it at the ceiling and it launches a little space probe. The real fun starts at mission three, when you stick planets on your ceiling and land the rocket on a planet, while for number four you move on to the ultimate mission, which is to deploy your own space station. When the rocket hits the ceiling it separates in two places, and a space station folded into the rocket is pulled out, and solar panels unfold.

"You learn about pneumatics, and jet engines, and how different materials have different uses. We've had four test pilots for the rocket kit, ranging in age from five to 12, and the response has been very enthusiastic. And in all the times the rockets have been launched, by myself or others, it always raises a smile."

David Eckold Ultimate Rocket Kit (Dorling Kindersley, 4th September, £25, 0751369713); Ultimate Spy Kit (DK, 25th Sept, £19.99, 35673)