Ask Slashdot: a Good Geek Project For My Arthritic Grandfather? 122
An anonymous reader writes "My grandfather is a retired electrician whom I've been trying to keep mentally busy. Together we've gotten an Arduino kit and have been working on some simple projects. He does the wiring and I've been writing the code. Recently his arthritis has been getting worse and he's been unable to work with the tiny components that the Arduino projects require. Does anyone have a recommendation for something similar we could work on together that would be easier for someone with his compromised manual dexterity?"
Non-grandfather here also interested (Score:5, Interesting)
As an early 40s person who already experiences some of these problems due to 3 decades of arthritis and worsening hand tremors, I'm also interested in geek projects folks can recommend the asker. Especially if they are things I could also work on with my pre-teen sons.
Re:Non-grandfather here also interested (Score:4, Interesting)
Virtual designs - software - FPGAs, get frustrated by the build environments instead of your soldering iron.
LittleBits (Score:5, Interesting)
http://littlebits.cc/
Saw these on a TED talk, looked pretty neat. (They are very expensive, though)
Re:Non-grandfather here also interested (Score:4, Interesting)
What about a tesla coil? Those should have big enough parts and will be really impressive to an 11 year old boy.
Pinball games have bigger parts (Score:5, Interesting)
Pinball games have bigger parts
Re:Non-grandfather here also interested (Score:5, Interesting)
I have arthritis in my hands that has altered a lot of things for me, the best "geek" project I've found has been learning to play jazz on the chromatic harmonica. Now, I've been a musician since very young, but the chromatic harmonica was the only instrument I have found that does not require a lot of digital dexterity. There's one button on the side, that's it, and it can be pressed in lots of ways - with the tip of the finger, at the joint, even the side of the finger.
And if you've ever heard the music of Toots Thielemans or Gregoire Maret or Larry Adler (or even Stevie Wonder) you know that you can make some extremely sophisticated music with the chromatic harp. Personally, I play jazz, standards, ballads, but I know players who are into classical, blues, Brazilian music. It's easy to start, but you can spend a lifetime learning it, and there's nothing like learning some music to extend the useful life of the brain. The intellectual part of learning music engages like few other things. It's like mathematics, except you can dance to it.
And chicks dig musicians. No matter how old your grandpa is, that's always a bonus.
Re:Non-grandfather here also interested (Score:4, Interesting)
The obvious geek project: a gripper/manipulator that discards jitter in its input. I believe I read something about robotic surgical tools using this strategy. It has the added benefit of enabling scaled-down control, so you could e.g. write something on a grain of rice.
If I had the time I'd do it myself!
Re:Non-grandfather here also interested (Score:5, Interesting)