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A Home Lab/Shop For Kids?
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?"
...a computer running Linux to experiment on.
-Nemo me impune lacessit-
As the coach of a FIRST FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge - for high school kids) team I can say that FIRST is a FANTASTIC way to help your kids "Geek Out". As for building out a lab, that's the beauty of FTC. You don't need the big equipment (or money) that you do for FRC. Just some hand tools, maybe a drill and some room to design, build program and test. A large room, 15x15 is more than enough. For the 2008-2009 season FIRST is going to a new kit. Total expected cost should be about $1k.
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
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!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Tough to tell if that will work or not. Sometimes kids avoid what their parents are passionate about. I know this definitely happened with music.
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).
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
They were both dead by the time I was three in 1949, but between them they left a few boxes of electronics parts, a Hallicrafters shortwave receiver and a nice pair of WW2 headphones. My dad was a radio operator in the Air Corps who opened a radio repair shop after the war, but passed away from cancer almost before getting it started. My grandfather was a tinkerer in his spare time with a variety of interests.
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.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
the only reason cars arent 100% robot made is because in some steps humans are cheaper than building more robots. And that just refers to assembly, pretty much all the fabrication has no humans involved. Though so you know people wouldnt do any milling in most places... They run a laser across all products to check for deformity... if there is any they just get rejected and recycled. So no humans involved there. And to be honest you should be able to email cadcam designs and get the product back.... i worked in a place that milled wood products and you could put your own designs in after hours so long as they matched the capabilities of the machine.... and boss didnt catch you.
You hit it on the head. When I was a kid no one would tell me why the vinegar made the baking soda go all foamy, so I had to find out myself (used to love the library trips when I was a kid). Oddly, I just mentioned the coke and poprocks thing to my wife, she knew *what* they did but not *why*. I think I know what my toddler is getting for his second birthday now.
"A long time a ago son, the poprocks ambushed the coke tribe at the Valley of the Overflowing Beaker, since then..."
Say bad words about my book, in cold oatmeal, or I shall sue!
I wished I'd learned how to solder, put together circuits, weld, use machinery, etc. as a kid. Those things would come in handy now that I'm an undergraduate physics student (especially since I'm considering an engineering degree as well) It's hard to work on a reasearch project when you have no idea how to build the experimental setup you need! Not to mention that the university doesn't have the budget for us to have any part we need ordered/machined
When I was an undergraduate physics major our department had a few-weeks class in the summer on machining. We learned how to grind our own lathe tools and turn things on the lathe, how to use a milling machine to make all kinds of stuff out of aluminum, how to cut screw threads, etc. It was a blast, and when I went on to grad school I made all kinds of parts for the experiment I worked on in the shop. If your department has a machine shop you should ask if they have a class like this, it's pretty fun.
...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
You don't need fancy explosives to have fun. Plenty of stuff that will keep you off the list too.
.308 to release all the propane at once.
1) Starter Fluid. 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. 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
While that is probably good advice, the one thing that I would advise is the one thing that got me on the track that I'm still on some 35+ years later. There is nothing so fascinating to young boys IMO, than blowing stuff up and on the more docile side, taking things apart. Even if the taking apart is destructive, it is often critically educational. Once you build a flame thrower, the next step is to burn something.
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.
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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.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.