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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?"
diesel fuel, fertilizer, and a copy of 'the turner diaries'?
the united states is a nation of laws; badly written and randomly enforced -- frank zappa
Kit it out with stuff that you're passionate about. Only then can they get your passions...
Depending on the ages in question, these are great toys:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsela
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.
Are you interested in adopting a 38 year old?
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
Buy em anything. Anything except from that catalogue. The prices are rather horrid.
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.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Not to put too fine a point on it, but there was a time where the majority of workers were involved in actually using these tools, and so it was normal to have an old set of them around the house. Nowadays, with globalization pushing most manual labor out of first world countries, high school kids who take metal shop are more likely to be familiar with manufacturing than their parents.
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.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Get them into remote control aircraft when they're old enough. It's not a cheap hobby, a few hundred dollars to get into it, but you get to learn about:
- 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.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
...a computer running Linux to experiment on.
-Nemo me impune lacessit-
Young boys(and, okay, maybe some young girls) like to burn stuff.
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?
I would reserve a place in the basement (assuming it's dry) or attic and build a configuration of work benches along the wall. If the walls are unfinished, I'd put up drywall to make it more homey, and make sure it's well lit and maybe buy one of those magnifying glasses with the light. Place power outlets on the back edge or nearby so you could have a computer lab section, a model building section, and an art section. Whichever you're into. If you have a computer lab, I might consider not hooking it up to the net so your kid won't be surfing YouTube or IMing friends on chat all day. You could also get into model train building or more artistic stuff. Buy some metal shelving to store the project kits and supplies.
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.
Camping on quad since 1996.
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
interesting new book about home science labs"
american science and surplus near Chicago- I would highly recommend a visit to the real store, if you are nearby.
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
breadboards, chucks of wires, gears, any old bits of junk and spend time *together* deciding what improbable circuit on the internet you will build
If anything this will teach them that just 'cause its in "print" in aint 100%...
At best it might just get them modifying other peoples circuits changing bits of code etc...
Make sure they know how to use the basic tools... (basics include soldering iron, dremel, exactoknife, glue, drill) Make sure they know how to improvise with what tools they have (witness me stripping wire with teeth or exacto-knife)
/. ... Though the two guys like me that come to mind also have the same first name x_x
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...
Gever Tulley: 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do
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.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
You should probably mention that the initial investment can reach the 1000 bucks easily. Unless you want some equipment that gives you more troubles than fun.
:)
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 planes), but be aware that it can be very quickly very expensive and time consuming. Not to mention that I wouldn't recommend it as a hobby for children under 12. It can be quite some time until you can handle a plane that is really "fun" to fly, the trainer planes certainly ain't much fun.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This is a fundamental flaw in today's science fields. I see it time and time again. People become so caught up in the "high" tech. Never bothering to learn the roots of it.. don't get them a lab. Don't get them a kit. Get them a damn book. Then get some resistors, IC's, diodes, ETC. Let them learn eletronics that way. Chemistry?? Same approach. Let them learn how to do everything, I gaurentee that the kid who knows the roots of everything will forever be better then the guy can write the Java code for a robot.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
Legos, model rockets, heathkits, and chemistry sets were all big influences (and my son and I STILL launch model rockets).
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.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Computers are central to our future, the next generation should view programming skills as like the ability to use a screwdriver or drill. Sites like MySpace are already establishing basic (mis)understanding of HTML and JavaScript across non-programmer types.
I have always thought that Lego was the best toy for children. The Lego Mindstorms 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.
"There is nothing nice about Steve Jobs and nothing evil about Bill Gates." - Chuck Peddle
I have a bunch of my old 150 in 1 and 300 in 1 kits (have to get my kids a bit more interested)
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)
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
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.
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
Get a subscription to Make magazine. Also, check out some of their kits. http://www.makershed.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=20
Yep, sounds a lot like my childhood!
:P
Need not dive in to the expensive airplanes right away... I built a rubber-band powered, balsa wood and tissue paper Spitfire (~$20 + ~$40 of basic wood tools, baseboards, and paints) and then a 2 channel R/C glider (~$60 + ~$100 for the radio) as practice for the 4 channel gas powered trainer (~$100 kit, ~$100 engine, and shared the same radio as the glider). It was very educational, gave me a lot of time to work on my woodworking skills, and was quite motivational and therapeutic (I'd often start working on them in the mornings before school, so the glue could set during the day, and it was quite relaxing to spend time sanding and filing late into the evening).
Actually spent much more time working on the cheap rubber band airplane, since it used more old-fashioned but cheaper construction methods.
I eventually made it through an aerospace program at an ivy league school. My grades were quite threatened by my side hobby of playing with computers. The irony is that my entire professional career has revolved around doing reasonably fun stuff with Linux & Windows on pretty nice computer hardware, and I pretty much only get to play with aviation things for fun on the side. As a minor consolation, at least I'm doing computer stuff for an aerospace company.
I agree that it can get very expensive very quickly.
I don't agree that a trainer certainly isn't much fun to fly. I had a Worldstar 40 ARF. Large plane, very stable. Been in the hobby for a couple of years and only just recently crashed it for the first time - unfortunately a total loss of the airframe. (Crashed doing inverted spins, almost recovered but stalled coming out and fell right back into a spin). I was definitely pushing the limits with that plane, but basic IMAC was certainly doable, and it was a lot of fun to fly. I've been busy building planes since (I got given the Worldstar second hand by my wife's family who've been into it for years. I had to learn to build after learning to fly).
I loved that Worldstar, even though in some ways I'd outgrown it. I'm in the middle of building another one anyway. The one I had was modified with better control rods so working out how to do that properly has slowed me down a bit since I refuse to put in balsa rods. I've completed 3 other ARF aircraft in the meantime.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Too bad there's not a sort of MMO that lets people do this kind of stuff. It could be pretty fun.
Other things to note are that:
- Because it's expensive, the time and money are both spread out over time
- As another poster noted, no need to start with R/C. Rubber band power and gliders are a gentler, cheaper entry into the hobby.
Still some parents will spend that $1000 on toys without giving it a thought.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I highly recommend a VEX kit. http://www.vexrobotics.com/ The starter kit doesn't require machining, just bending metal and cutting it with some good scissors. With it they can also learn to program. With the different wheels you can teach them about friction etc. I love the kit and it taught me how to program. If you don't want to program get the EasyC add on and you will be able to use pictures to program your robot and with the provided instructions it will be VERY easy. AND if you want you can even enter VEX competitions and stuff all for under a few hundred dollars and come away with even MORE VEX goodies as they hand out kits and stuff as prizes. You can do anything with VEX with very little knowledge and in the end you will think in a different manner and it teaches you a new way of solving problems. Have your kids try to move a soda can one day, and then purchase some bigger motors and have your kids try to mechanize your lawn mower for even more fun. (I'm doing this right now.) Also if you have any problems the Innovation First Inc. (IFI) staff is great. I have had problems and IFI helped me out. Their forums are top notch and their service is very hard to beat! Try it out, your kids will LOVE it. -Junx
One day the world of robotics will have the answer.
Gotta put in a plug for Make magazine, which is a fun read, and full of good projects that anyone can do.
I teach an undergrad course in computer organization (basically beginner architecture), and I've gotten lots of ideas from Lady Ada and Evil Mad Scientist. We use AVR microcontrollers, and the cheap-o USB programmers from Lady Ada, to do a bunch of fun and easy projects.
My kids are 8 and 5, and are playing around a lot with LEDs and magnets. I probably won't let them solder until they're teen-agers (lead in solder sucks, but solder without lead also sucks), but they are getting to breadboard some stuff.
And of course, mentos and coke is always a good idea.
The owner of the TinkerSchool site - http://www.tinkeringschool.com/blog/ spoke at the last Maker Faire http://www.makerfaire.com/ this year in San Mateo(something you should look into attending with your kids, theres also another one in October in Texas)
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
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
I would: let them 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
The problem with this approach is that Lego kits are all pre-fab models these days. Model rockets are not really a city friendly hobby. Chemistry sets either don't exist, or don't have any of the really fun chemicals anymore. And Heathkit no longer makes kits.
Everything is being dumbed down. My parents bought me a 50 in one electronics kit, the kind with the springs that you clip the wires into. I was too young to understand what "forward biasing the collector-base junction of the transistor" meant in the section that explained how the circuit worked. Years later I acquired a 200 in one kit. Unfortunately, they had already dumbed down the instruction manual by removing the circuit explanation. I wish I could find the manual for my old 50 in one, because I'd love to learn how these circuits work.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
In Europe there are some great bench-top and hand-held tools available from Proxxon. In North America Sherline tools are a little more expensive. Alternatives include: MicroMark and Mini-Mate tools (the Mini-Mate is especially designed for hobbyists and older kids. We've got one.
http://scitoys.com/
This web site is full of cool stuff you can build. Available in dead-trees versions if you prefer. Seriously, check this out; this site makes me want to start building things.
Example: build a home-made radio. 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
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Step 1: Foster curiosity from age 1 month. Really work at it. Remember a dog on a lead can't be pushed and if you pull it it will get resentful. Some people find they need to develop patience and put up with small disapointments in order to get this right.
Step 2: Reward study because if you don't you'll end up with a child with the attention span of a gnat.
Step 3: Expose to lots of different stimulii. This is a 'horse to water' situation. With any luck they'll be drinking at the well of science, splashing in the brook of adventurous exercise and swimming in the stream of dealing with life.
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.
I remember as a kid spending hundreds of hours with Edmunds stuff that my dad bought us.
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.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I understand your quest :) I have a 6 year old boy and a 4 year old girl and these are things which I have in fact already been working on since... before they were born. When I found out my wife was pregnant, I started building this type of educational environment. Unfortunately, here in Oslo Norway, it's hard for an American to track all those good things down, especially the Estes model rockets (which I did manage after a long time).
Throughout my house, you're likely to encounter the biggest classic erector sets (at least that's what it said on the box).
We have at last count over 25,000 lego bricks because we don't reuse, be just buy more to build new things.
We have Capsula, a large selection of small tools, bits of wood, glues, etc... for constructing small things.
We also, so far as I know have the only functional model rocket "lab" in town. Since rocket engines cost me about $20 each here in Norway, I've taken to shipping them via surface mail (REALLY SLOW) through hazmat shipping lines which actually costs me a bundle, but cuts the cost to about $5 an engine. We buy 4-5 rockets each time we're in America and spread out the task of building them.
We also have robotic components which I tend to either track down through online catalogs or design in solid works and have a local school produce (they make me buy one per student in the class, but only charge for materials).
I also keep a work bench with soldering equipment and a selection of about 2500 different electronic components, including breadboards and such.
For a chemistry set, I've been lucky, my father-in-law was a chemist (old style pharmucist) for nearly 50 years. He donated a tremendous collection of glassware, microscopes and even some controlled chemicals (his license is still valid). For a bunsen burner, I rigged one up, but it appears to function well enough.
I have just begun planning the biology and botony "lab" but since this is not my area of expertise, we're dependant on kits from educational suppliers. If it weren't for wikipedia and a subscription to britanica (it's has a fabulous children's version) I'd be lost in these areas since I don't like leaving questions unanswered for the children.
At the local technical museum, there's a huge selection of science kits, so I tend to purchase one or two each time I'm there. Too bad it's going a little too mainstream now and is carrying $5 crap items which are more likely to sell and less higher end educational components.
I hope the description of my lab helps you to plan yours since I believe that thus-far mine has been extremely sucessful in spurring scientific interest in my children.
Oh.. P.S. don't forget computers, and don't be cheap. I found that providing each child with a relatively high end computer makes them more interested in using them and asking questions about them. Building a computer with a 4-year old was a blast since I let him do most of the work.
As with anything you'd like your kids to do:
- Lead by example: If they watch you repairing/building/fiddling with things, they will want to do it as well.
- Enable: place to make a mess!!! Tools. Raw materials. Things to take to bits and to combine
Let them find what they'd like to fiddle with.
Don't jump on them with instructions and help, Even if you mean well. Wait for the moment when they are ready to invite you, then share the project.
Not confused enough? http://translate.google.com/translate?u=www.slashdot.jp&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=ja&tl=en
Start out with the simple PCV, Hairspray, BBQ ignition. Engineer smaller, bigger, longer, shorter versions. Try new fuels like propane or lighter fluid, and learn about air/fuel ratios.
Or go the compressed air route. PVC seals well, but you can move to metal pipes and soldier them together. Use mechanical valves opened by hand, or electronic actuators (lawn sprinkler valves work good).
Try different materials as the projectile. Potatoes, apples, eggs (usually hard boiled, but raw are fun if you do it right), or melt down plastic pop bottles in a toaster over and mold your own slugs (use it outside, because you'll eventually need to learn what temp is too hot and burns the plastic at.)
The best potato gun launch I've see was conducted by my old HS chemistry teacher. We wrapped a chunk of sodium in aluminum foil, loaded it into hollowed out potato, and launched it into the swamp behind the high school. Sodium + Pond = cool. It was his last year teaching there, so with retirement 2 weeks away he let us get away with a lot of cool stuff.