The last few weeks I’ve wanted more and more to have the free time of a teenager. There are lots of toys out there right now:

There’s an open hardware/microcontroller platform:
http://arduino.cc/

An open programming language with an art bent:
http://processing.org/

An open mote platform:
http://www.libelium.com/squidbee/

Swarm robots:
($800): http://cs.gmu.edu/~eclab/projects/robots/flockbots/pmwiki.php
($200): http://www-bsac.eecs.berkeley.edu/projects/cotsbots/
http://www.swarmrobot.org/

iRobot opened up their platform:
http://www.irobot.com/create/

Open humanoid robot:
http://www.symbio.jst.go.jp/PINO/OpenPINO/open_pino.html

An open mobile platform:
http://www.openmoko.org/