The Week in iOS Accessories: Rule Your Room Kit aids budding inventors

This week’s roundup includes a kit that helps your kids master the basics of engineering, science, and math—and, oh yeah, it’s fun to boot. Read on!

The Rule Your Room Kit ($99.95 MSRP, same price on AmazonRemove product link) is for your innovation-obsessed kids—it’s a box of electronic doodads they can use to build eight different inventions, letting them have fun and helping them build engineering, science, art, and math skills along the way. The LittleBits Invent app on your iPhone helps guide the invention process.

The Stanley Stand ($50 MSRP, same price on AmazonRemove product link) is a flexible leather stand for your iPhone, with bendable sections so that you can view the screen at a comfortable angle. It’s available in aqua, black, brown, gray, lime, and red. 

The Magnetic Car Mount ($12 MSRP, $9 on AmazonRemove product link) is easy to use: Attach a metal plate to your iPhone, clip the mount to your vehicle’s air vent, and you’re ready to place your iOS device in a spot where you can easily view and use it while on the road.

The NightStand for Apple Watch ($29.95 MSRP, same price on Best Buy) has a “low-profile, minimal design” made of medical-grade silicone. It’s also stable: It has a suction-cup base to make sure your watch doesn’t go sliding all over your countertop. It’s available in seven colors.

The Gamevice Controller for 9.7-inch iPad Pro/iPad Air 2/iPad Air ($99.95 MSRP, same price via Apple) provides a console-style gaming experience with “all the triggers, buttons and joysticks you need to defeat your competitors and get that high score.” It includes a 800-mAh battery, as well as a power pass-through for your iPad so you can keep gaming for hours.

The I-1 Instant Camera ($299 MSRP) is billed as “analog instant photography for the digital age.” What does that mean? Well, the camera functions as a Polaroid-style instant camera, producing on-the-spot prints of the pictures you take. Digital? Use the I-1 Camera app on your iPhone to manually control the camera’s aperture and shutter speed. Is this the best of both worlds?

The Riva S ($249 MSRP, same price on AmazonRemove product link) is a “premium” Bluetooth speaker, one that offers 13 hours of battery-powered playback time, 30 watts of power, a USB port to charge your mobile devices, as well as a couple of cool modes—“phono” mode to offer the best playback for your vinyl, and “party” to allow multi-user control. And at 1.5 pounds, it’s portable.

Want to take touch typing to extremes? The T-Blade ($179 Indiegogo pledge) is billed as the “world’s first back-typing keyboard for iPad.” That’s right: The keyboard is on the back of the iPad. Where you can’t see it. Is this something people want? We’ll find out soon: The makers have three weeks left to try to achieve their $50,000 production goal.