Reddit mentions of ThinkFun Rush Hour Traffic Jam Brain Game and STEM Toy for Boys and Girls Age 8 and Up – Tons of Fun With Over 20 Awards Won, International Bestseller for Over 20 Years

I'm sure you could go down to PM and say exactly what you've said here and get more recommendations than you can handle.

There are lots and lots of cool, challenging and beautiful puzzles out there - and you live near a warehouse full of them!

I assume there's a retail store, too? and the guys who do their videos must work there as well as Allan Stein who founded the company - I'll bet they all love to recommend stuff.

That said, browsing the site is fun once you find your way around and can avoid the things you don't like

Here's my standard "how to get started" rap (a little old, so some items might be unavailable):

I'd say you probably want to check out several different categories of puzzle:

• Disentanglement - This includes the wire puzzles, but also the various metal, wood and rope and wire and string varieties. I'd look at a couple of the harder wire puzzles as well as one or two metal and string or wood and rope puzzles. If you're new to these, ThinkFun put out a "Houdini - Master of Escape" set that's actually like a step-by-step course in disentanglements
  
• Packing/Assembly - Usually wood or plastic, these range from the ever-popular Soma Cube and other "make this shape from these pieces" puzzles to really complex packing problems - often in the form of "put these pieces into the box so the lid will close" or "fit these pieces in the frame" There are also some interesting hybrids like the 4L puzzle from Cubic Dissection or the LUV puzzle from Rombol (a Stewart Coffin design that's pretty tricky)
  
• Interlocking Burrs - My favorite category. Includes the traditional 6-piece Burr and variations by the thousands. I highly recommend the work of Stephan Chomine and Osanori Yamamoto in this area, but there are lots of great designers. Baumegger, Demirhan, Eyckmans, etc. Do a search for Pelikan (a manufacturer) on various puzzle sites. This is a pretty deep category with lots to explore - one subgenre is the TIC puzzle (Turning Interlocking Cube) which BurrTools won't solve (look for work by Ken Irvine, Jeff Namkung or Jos Bergmans). See more below
  
• Puzzle Boxes - Lots of fairly shoddy ones around, but some very nice things out of Japan (check the Karakuri Creation Group). The good ones tend to be expensive.
  
• Twisty - Rubik's Cube and its descendants - not my thing, but there are a million variations out there.
  
• Sequential Movement - sliding block puzzles and various sequencing puzzles (sometimes an overlap with the Twisty or Disentanglement categories). A great, cheap example is Rush Hour from ThinkFun that, like the Houdini set mentioned earlier is like a graded course in sliding block puzzles
  
  Anyway, I'd say try a couple of disentanglement things (both wire and wood), a packing puzzle or two and a few interlocking burrs (I recommend trying a relatively traditional one and a couple of the fancier ones from Pelikan or Cubic Dissection). See what sort of things appeal to you and follow on from there.
  
  Do check out the links in the sidebar, too. Allard's Blog and PuzzleMad are great, Rob's Puzzle Page is vast and you can learn a lot just by browsing PuzzleMaster and some of the other shops.
  
  Here is a list of wooden burr-type puzzles under $30 that I have played with and enjoyed - I made this awhile ago so thy may not all still be available, but this should get you started
  
  **Open Box Packing aka Deadly Romance - a really nice caged burr
  
  Cross Cage by Tom Jolly - a burr? 3D maze? Pretty cool
  
  Four Caged - a really tough little caged burr
  
  Epsilon - a knockoff of Vertex Burr #1 , originally designed by Yavuz Demirhan in 2012 - great puzzle
  
  Shape Shifter - very tough assembly puzzle - soma cube on steroids
  
  Sarcophagus - surprisingly challenging. I have a thing for "3 sticks in a box" puzzles like Tribord
  
  Matchbox aka Oscar's Matchboxes- tricky and a cool idea
  
  Double Saturn - similar to some of Osanori Yamamoto's classic work, this is tough little Pelikan-style puzzle on the cheap
  
  Four L - like The Double Saturn above
  

• NOT to be confused with the **4L from Cubic Dissection (which is a truly great puzzle,but OOP now)
  
  Quadstair
  
  Four In The Box - just above the $30 limit, but it's pretty fun and two puzzles in one
  
  Feel free to ask questions on the sub about specific puzzles or categories
  
  Puzzlers are a pretty supportive community - welcome!

I used to play Rush Hour when I was a kid. It's a puzzle game where you move cars/trucks around in an attempt to get your red car out of the traffic jam. They get progressively harder as you go along.

https://www.amazon.com/ThinkFun-5000-Rush-Hour/dp/B00000DMER

It is called Rush Hour ;)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Think-Fun-5000-Rush-Puzzle/dp/B00000DMER

I think this is the bun version for the Rush Hour Traffic Jam game...

https://www.amazon.com/ThinkFun-Rush-Traffic-Logic-Girls/dp/B00000DMER

There are lots of great gender neutral toys for all ages! I'm especially fond of building toys, especially for younger kids. Blocks and tinker toys are great (I looooooved mine), and legos (especially those open-ended sets) are good for when they get a little older.

Educational toys are also a good one. A three-year-old isn't gonna realize that a set of Go Fish Alphabet cards will help them learn the alphabet. They think it's just a fun game. Older children can move into board games and puzzle games like Rush Hour.

A lot of arts and craft kits are gender neutral, too. Remember those Klutz books? Sure, they've got Glitter Face Paint While You Do Your Nails and Have a Tea Party kits (which, tbh, I actually don't think are that bad), but they've also got some awesome kits for paper airplanes, origami, learning magic, and learning to sew (a skill that everyone should have).

Also, science toys and kits. Chemistry sets are perfect for older kiddos, and younger ones are happy with dinosaur action figures or solar system plushies.

Finally, books. You can never go wrong with books.

What did you enjoy playing with as a child? Does the giftee have any particular interests (e.g. crafts, music, reading, science)? I'd start with those two questions and go from there.

Where is the red car?

• Rush Hour 1P
  
• Rush Hour Shift 2P
  
• KingDomino

Reminds me of this "Rush Hour" game from my childhood.

I bought this game for the daughter of a friend of mine in China. So I guess she should be prepared when this happens.

With ThinkFun, were you looking at games like this? I played games like that in the gifted classes I had in elementary school, and they were a lot of fun. These days, you can even download that type of game for an iPhone or iPad for 99 cents, or for free.

For older kids (say, 10 and up), the card game 24 is great for building critical thinking and math skills.

Classic games are always good as you are familiar with them and you can re-use components for some. My favorites in no particular order

Games

Hangman
Read a list of words from a file, randomly select one, and play a game of hangman!

War
Model cards and a deck of cards, give the 'AI' half the deck, the player the other half, then keep drawing with user interaction. Doesn't really require AI and is a pretty simple simulation

Tic-Tac-Toe
Self explanitory. Bonus points for functional AI

Rush Hour
See classic rush hour games. Get the player's car to the other end of the traffic jam. Bonus points for a hint system where the next move is given to you.

Sudoku
The classic numbers puzzle. Again, bonus points for a prediction system. bonus points + 1 for a solver (given any soduku puzzle from your favourite puzzle book, it will automatically solve it for you)

Applications

Tip Calculator
Calculate tips. Bonus points for not using any buttons (I.e., the tip is automatically re-calculated when you move a slider / edit a value)

Grocery List
Create a list of grocery items for going to the store. Be able to save out and read back in Grocery Lists. TripleQuadruple bonus points for being able to print.



Edit: I would like to add -> you shouldn't focus on projects for python. Think about what you want to do, then think about the best tool for the job. All of these can be done in python. But you should be focusing on the overall process, not the specific language you are learning if that makes sense. For example, if you learn to do it in Python, you should be able to do it in C# and Java as they have pretty similair (relative) mechanics. Write down a lot of crap before you write a line of code. What objects do I need? How will these objects interact? Am I even going for an OOP model, or can/should this be implemented functionally?

Can't go wrong with Rush Hour.Link
Another one I've enjoyed is called Solitaire Chess Link

It's been a while since I've played them, it might be time to play again

My 4 year old understands Set if I limit the variables a bit (like picking only 1 colour to play with) so your 5 year old could probably play. She also likes Rush Hour which is a solitaire game, but I set up the scenarios for her. She’s starting to get into Quarto which is a bit like Set mixed with tic tac toe.

Labyrinth is a pretty easy game, though she lost interest in it pretty quickly (probably due to the overwhelming cuteness of Pengeloo which came home shortly after).

ThinkFun Rush Hour anyone?

https://www.amazon.com/Think-Fun-5000-ThinkFun-Rush/dp/B00000DMER

more like Rush hour

The same people who designed this

this guy:
http://www.amazon.com/toys-games/dp/B00000DMER

The same guys who made this. How do we make parking...fun?