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A Home Lab/Shop For Kids?
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Jun 01, 2008 07:50 PM
from the treasures-from-edmund dept.
from the treasures-from-edmund dept.
sharp-bang writes "When I was growing up, my Dad let my brother and I have the run of his wood shop, and kept up a steady stream of Lego kits, Estes model rockets, chemistry sets, Heathkit projects, and other fun science stuff from the Edmund Scientific catalog, and the rest was history. I'd like to give my kids that kind of experience. If your kids were interested in science, computers, robots, and building stuff, how would you build and outfit a lab/shop for them (and you) to play in?"
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Submission: How would you build a home lab/shop for your kids? by Anonymous Coward
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hmmm (Score:4, Funny)
Re:hmmm (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Don't laugh (Score:5, Funny)
It all starts with the magnifying glass and the ants, then it moves on to dousing G.I. Joes in lawnmower gasoline. Later, when they get older, firecrackers come into the mix.
Lord help you if you hand-load your own ammo: gunpowder(a mix of fast-and-slow burning ^_^ ) and primers, with some match-heads all poured into a metal can creates a louder and much more exciting(read: dangerous) projectile than an Estes rocket. Speaking of Estes rockets, screw the rocket and put just the engine on the pole.
Oh crap, I'm guilty of terrorism for posting that. Who's that knocking at my door?
Parent
Re:Don't laugh (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can get your hand on the substances needed at all anymore. Regulations of explosives has really gone berserk, they now argue whether to outlaw ASA (ya know, the aspirin) because it can be used to create TNP.
Parent
Re:Don't laugh (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Don't laugh (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Don't laugh (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Don't laugh (Score:5, Funny)
You can order a series of tubes, for example, on the series of tubes: http://www.made-in-china.com/china-products/productviewjmQxfKEEUJpH/LM-3B-Launch-Vehicle.html [made-in-china.com]
Note the little "+ add to basket" button.
Mind you, I do find that a little frightening.
Parent
Re:Don't laugh (Score:4, Informative)
As the government, their argument was that he, as a chemist, knows other applications for ASA, too, that he has access to the other necessary ingredients for malice (he's working at a chem factory) and they wanted to know which one he had in mind. Fortunately he could produce a certificate explaining chronic migraine.
Paranoia isn't a trait only possessed by the US feds. It has become a global pandemic in governmental circles.
Parent
Re:Don't laugh (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Starter Fluid. [youtube.com] It's designed to burn. No extra hair setting crap. Tossed directly into a fire is quite entertaining as well. I think I broke a height my model rockets didn't even break. Remember kids. When it comes to compressed cans, Bottoms Up. Otherwise the lid just melts and shoots out. Different effect but not as cool.
2) Fire crackers. [youtube.com] Sure in small doses they're "cool". But if you spend an hour un wrapping them and setting them in a drain pipe arranged in packs and then use a roll of paper towels + lighter fluid as a wick it's pretty entertaining.
Entertaining enough for Campus Security to come over and ask "What was that, no, really. You're not in trouble. That was awesome?"
3) Propane Tanks. No video (yet) but a 35 lb propane tank on a fire sounds like a jet taking off when the pressure reliefs are hit. Lights the area up like daylight and looks awesome. Next up is a
Parent
Re:Don't laugh (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:hmmm (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Most importantly (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Most importantly (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm ... I have to disagree. First find out what they're passionate about (if anything at this age). If they're young enough to be undecided, then you can go with what you like--but be prepared to completely change course if they discover something else.
My dad is an industrial engineer, so I got the whole math/science schtick, with a Heathkit computer and lots of stuff to build. However, when I turned 10, I turned on to music. Music is still a passion of mine ... but unfortunately, Dad didn't understand how I felt about it, so he was still pushing for the hard sciences. I never even learned to read standard notation, much less the music theory I wanted to take in high school.
Needless to say, this caused some friction, and to this day my passion for music is a lot greater than my knowledge for music.
Parent
Re:Most importantly (Score:4, Insightful)
It can hardly be described as a passion if it lacks the strength to motivate you to educate yourself.
Parent
Re:Most importantly (Score:5, Insightful)
Give them some catalogs (Edmund, Estes, Allelectronics, Smarthome, etc.) and see what floats their boats. I think I'd try and start them with something that sparked their interest, and in the course of exploring with them and 'guiding' their early efforts, I'd answer their questions about the hobbies I was passionate about. I joined a local model rocketry club in 9th grade, and attended meetings a few times a month. We were involved in regional competitions - parents took turns schlepping us around to weekend meets a few times a year.
At a minimum, you need a hobbyist (clean) jawvise, flat and sturdy cutting surface, setting gluding surface(s), someplace to sand stuff, good lighting. Basic tools, like X-Acto handles and blades, steel rule, smallish drivers. Over time, I added a Dremel and specialty tools I saw others using. For electronics tools, a low-wattage soldering iron, a DVM, needlenose pliers, hand tools, desoldering tools, and some fun kits to start. Even before the kits, something simple to practice soldering and desoldering, to learn how not to fry components (always my gumption trap).
Parent
Re:Most importantly (Score:5, Insightful)
That's key. Even though parents know what's "best", a lot of being young is exploration unhindered by authority breathing down one's back. Doing stuff with mom or pop can be fun, but there are constraints. Some children don't want to be babied but it helps to have a parent in the know if a question does arise. YMMV.
Parent
Re:Most importantly (Score:5, Interesting)
My daughter liked K'Nex and Lego, so I bought Mindstorms and she loved it. However, I let her work on it herself and only jumped in when she needed help. This year she designed a robot for a competition and asked for some help. I own a hardware store and I'm pretty handy with tools and building "stuff" and we actually put together a cool robot. Came in sixth out of ten, but she did most of the design and testing with me helping with the construction (especially the cutting and drilling).
Parent
Re:Most importantly (Score:4, Interesting)
Once you take a lawnmower apart, the next step is to build something, errr, put it back together with some new parts, and cleaning of some old parts. The same can be said for VCRs and old cake mixers. If you can take it apart without explosives, you can learn from it.
The world, it seems, is just one giant erector set with some pretty cool pieces.
Read some Heinlein. He has a theory about how a man should know enough about everything to do at least a half decent job. Not many people will pay for a broken model airplane, but they make a great way for young kids to learn how the various parts of an airplane work, then you can move on to that $500 christmas present if he wants to fly.
In summary, I'd have to say that bringing in new 'junk' every now and then to play with and examine would be healthy. As for the one that did it for me? I cut every part out of a 1967-ish color console television, then stared at the box and wondered for days how in the hell that box of stupid parts ever made a picture? Finding out took quite awhile but then I started off at the age of 9.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Capsela (Score:3, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsela [wikipedia.org]
They have little plastic spheres containing motors, reduction gears, worm gears, etc. You can build stuff from their designs, but it's even more fun just to build things of your own imagining.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Frikken cool. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Frikken cool. (Score:5, Informative)
Isn't there a name for that? Isn't it called "marriage"?
(disclaimer: It's a joke. My wife's actually pretty cool, and no she doesn't read slashdot)
Parent
Egads Man (Score:5, Funny)
Me, I say give em a can of coke and some pop rocks.
Now that is entertainment for hours.
Follow it up with a bowl of rice crispies.
Each time they ask why these things do what they do... lie... lie a lot and change it each time.
Re:Egads Man (Score:4, Interesting)
"A long time a ago son, the poprocks ambushed the coke tribe at the Valley of the Overflowing Beaker, since then..."
Parent
What did your dad do? (Score:5, Insightful)
We live in the kind of world that Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick used to write about, where kids think meat comes "from the supermarket" cause they've never been on a farm and think cars are made by robots with no human hands involved.
Many young inventors are shocked to discover that you can't just design a part using CAD-CAM and email the design off to a factory in China to be mass produced.. that often even the most sophisticated computer controlled milling machine produces parts that you have to get out a file to finish.
Re:What did your dad do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:What did your dad do? (Score:5, Informative)
Many young inventors are shocked to discover that you can't just design a part using CAD-CAM and email the design off to a factory in China to be mass produced.
Sure you can. [emachineshop.com]
Parent
Re:What did your dad do? (Score:4, Informative)
That's a business problem, not an engineering problem.
Parent
Older kids build stuff - R/C aircraft, telescopes (Score:5, Informative)
- Combustion engines
- Mixing fuel (some chemistry)
- Radio gear
- Flight dynamics
- Assembling and building, where care is needed to avoid major mistakes that would render the model unflyable
- Woodwork and metal work (and you'll aquire the tools for these if you don't already have them)
- The importance of measurement in the real world
- Importance of safety and developing good practice and procedure to make things safe
If you go with the above, make sure you join a club and practice on a simulator as it does take quite some time for most people to get the hang of controlling a plane and nothing will cause a child to lose interest quicker than a toy that takes a month to build and breaks (crashes) in under a minute. It's definitely harder than r/c cars which don't fall out of the sky if you slow down too much, aren't affected by the wind etc. (In fact petrol engine cars - not the $10 toys - are a simpler alternative with less of a learning curve BUT there isn't as much reward either).
Also when they're old enough, you could get them to build a dobsonian telescope. It's not particularly difficult, and you can choose to do it from components. Again you learn about woodwork and metal work, but also add optics and astronomy to the mix.
The point is that while the above are in a sense toys, in another they are not. You have to be rigid and disciplined because you are creating a real working piece of equipment where tolerances are important. Kids unfortunately grow up in a schooling environment today where they are taught whatever they do will be just fine. Great for the child's confidence, but the trouble is that's not how the real world works.
These hobbies aren't something they can't be left to do unsupervised - you'll actually have to learn yourself and help teach them. You might even end up doing classes together (telescope making), or taking tution together (learning to fly r/c). It does require that the child can follow direction, has some patience and doesn't just lose interest in a week. They also have to be interested in the end product or they won't want to do it.
The other thing that should be obvious to people here if you like the idea of building things together is to teach them to build a computer from scratch. That's actually a practical skill they can use whether or not they wind up in IT.
Re:Older kids build stuff - R/C aircraft, telescop (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, I like RC planes and it's a great hobby, my dad's the prez of the local club and we spend a good deal of my (and his) spare time there together. It's basically the only thing we have in common (him being a die hard conservative non-technical bureaucrat, me being a liberal computer geek... there ain't much we agree on but model plane
Give them... (Score:4, Interesting)
Sounds like a good idea (Score:5, Informative)
Try to add some design elements to the area by painting with colors or maybe a mural. You could paint the mural with your kids for more fun. You can add wall hangings, tapestries, medieval collectables, gel lamps, electronic knick knacks, and mood lighting to make it cool. Buy a nice radio and speakers so you can have music playing, but keep the TV and Wii/Xbox out of that room.
I would also consider putting in a sofa and nice cushy chairs so you can have a reading section. Place that near a window to let the light in.
FIRST Robotics (Score:3, Interesting)
For younger kids FIRST Lego robotics is the way to go.
Either way it's great to see the kids get involved, geek out in a social way and have lots of fun.
I highly recommend it.
r
my 2 cents (Score:5, Informative)
american science and surplus near Chicago [sciplus.com]- I would highly recommend a visit to the real store, if you are nearby.
Creativity loves junk... (Score:4, Informative)
The type I think you're thinking of is me. And It seems to be rare outside of
As for furnishings? Maybe that's something the kid will know themselves. I'm 20, and it's really only in the past few years that I've started salvaging stuff from broken stuff (saving that stuff from being thrown out, of course) and building cool stuff...
So *give your kid the broken stuff in the basement for his birthday*... cd player/radio boombox, VCR, electric blender, broken plastic containers for raw material...
Slightly OT, but I have to say it (Score:5)
Thank you kdawson for all those links. I didn't even know most of those companies were even in business today. And seriously - I loved every single one of those when I was a kid.
I've bookmarked them all for my son for when he's ready. Can't wait to launch rockets, or look at stuff under microscopes, or look at the moon with a telescope with him.
Gawd.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like my childhood, pretty much.... (Score:5, Insightful)
A good low-cost way to develop mechanical skills and encourage curiosity about how things work is a basic set of hand tools and a pile of discarded appliances/electronics. Let the kids tear them apart, and maybe even find out what failed. If you are lucky enough to get hold of older electronics (before VLSI/ASICs took over), you can even scrounge enough useful parts to build your own circuits.
I trashpicked TV's for years as a kid, and eventually taught myself enough about electronics to fix and resell most of them, earning enough money to buy my first real set of electronic test gear (mostly Heathkits),and land a summer job as a bench tech at a local TV repair shop while most of my peers were flipping burgers or delivering pizzas.
Lego Mindstorms (Score:4, Informative)
I have always thought that Lego was the best toy for children. The Lego Mindstorms [wikipedia.org] kit includes USB and Bluetooth capabilities, amongst a hell of a lot of other cool stuff.
I think it would be a great thing for a young kid to have. That and a fabricator.
Some of EVERYTHING (Score:3)
I also have a bunch of prototype boards, OScopes etc
That and a Full sized lathe and Mill. We will be doing a "rebuild my 8" Dobsonian scope into a truss tube dob" this summer (probably)
Half of the innocent stuff I did as a kid... (Score:5, Interesting)
I doubt you can even buy the same science kits anymore.
My brother and I had hours of fun doing all sorts of "science", but it usually ended it burning or blowing up something.We probably took years off our lives hacking out great clouds of purple smoke from god knows what... but it usually involved sulpher and potasium chloride, and magnesium (gotta let the retinas get some fun too - no use ruining just your lungs.)
We did eventually develop an appreciation for goggles, ventilation and gloves.
Back then, the cops would just say "don't launch rockets in your yard anymore" and that was it.
I also remember carrying .22 rifles thru suburban San Diego, on the way to a gravel pit for plinking. Only once were we stopped by a sheriff, who admonished us to make sure those weapons were unloaded and to go home.
This was all just a couple of years before Brenda Spencer of "I Don't Like Mondays" fame. Talk about ruining it for the rest of us.
I think we even had some Jarts.
If we did that now, we'd be surrounded by SWAT and branded terrorists. Same stuff, different perceptions.
Oh yeah, Get off my lawn!
My dad and grandfather did that posthumously.. (Score:5, Interesting)
By the time I was ten, I was listening to the shortwave radio and learning about ham radio by reading about it. The librarian noticed that I was checking out books about radio and introduced me to her brother, who was a ham. I passed my first FCC test the next year and have now been a ham 50 years. Because of this early influence, I also pursued an electrical engineering career that has been very good to me.
My point is that it only takes a nudge to see where interests lie. I was very lucky that my family went with the flow and encouraged me. The times are different now, but the principle applies.
Make Magazine (Score:5, Informative)
Fun Education Resources (Score:4, Informative)
Anyway, he did a talk on "Make Your Own School" which was about his tinkering school he runs for kids, as well as "the Five Dangerous Things You Should Have Your Kids Do" Both were very informative and common sense. Write him and see if he has any publications you can read.
On his site he had a link to his five dangerous things talk at ted: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/202 [ted.com]
Scitoys you can build (Score:5, Informative)
This web site is full of cool stuff you can build. Available in dead-trees versions [sci-toys.com] if you prefer. Seriously, check this out; this site makes me want to start building things.
Example: build a home-made radio [sci-toys.com]. He starts with a trivial radio with only two parts, then adds another part to improve it, then improves it again... eventually he has you rolling your own capacitors! Each step illustrates something cool. By the end you are building a crystal radio like the ones soldiers used to build during World War I.
steveha
First, set the ground rules (Score:4, Interesting)
You start with a concrete floor, impact-proof walls and a "No Housekeeping Allowed" sign. My buddy couldn't get something like this to work until he had flat-out banned his wife from the garage.
In order to do that, he had to pretty much cede control of every room in the house. That included the rec room, where suddenly the bar had to be spotless, lest a (female) guest lay fault-finding eyes upon water rings and make sniffy comments.
He and his sons own the garage, and it is nerd heaven.
Edmunds/Efston used to rock. (Score:4, Insightful)
A three stage water rocket, that was so cool; each stage would use up it's water/fuel, separate, and the next one would blast off. I think the final stage even deployed a parachute for effect. Nowadays, I think they might have a boring one-stage water rocket (I can make one of those out of a coke bottle, big deal.)
But the coolest kit was an optics kid with hundreds of parts; lenses, tubes, housings, photosensitive paper, and so on. It had plans for telescopes, microscopes, periscopes, and the final project was a full functioning SLR camera with zoom lens that worked! Truly amazing. I'd love to find a kit like that again for my kids (okay, okay, and me), but they don't seem to offer much like this any more. Sigh.
Even anticipating and reading their catalogue brought many hours of enjoyment each year.