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Kids Archive: Kids

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August 14, 2009

Captain Yo brings the yo-yos

All photo by Ed Troxell

There are good days and bad days here at the MAKE offices. Mostly good, although sometimes the days can be long and very, very busy -- like 2 days before the next issue goes to the printer or a week before Maker Faire.

The day Captain Yo came to visit was a good day.

The Captain had read that one of our talented engineering interns, Eric Chu, was a yo-yo enthusiast and since he lived nearby, he'd contacted us to arrange a meeting. We'd, of course, invited him over to meet Eric and show us his wares.

Captain Yo (aka Don Watson) is an author, inventor and award-winning yo-yo player. His visit to our offices turned into a show-and-tell, a physics lesson, and a performance or two. At first just Eric and he were conversing, then slowly but surely more and more of us in the office came into the conversation to have a look inside his several yo-yo cases; listen to a story or two about past events and his inventions; and glimpse a fancy trick or two.

All in the name of work!

August 10, 2009

Scratch-built vintage rockets

There seems to be a growing number of hobbyists out there who are scratch-building the model rockets of yesteryear. Many of the instructions from the original commercial models are available online (copyright champions, look away) and some folks sell nosecones, decal sheets, and other parts for these models. One popular theme is the sci-fi movie and TV rocketships, such as those from Star Trek, Star Wars, and Battlestar Galactica.

Hobby rocket couple Verna and Randy scratch-built a fleet of Colonial Vipers from Battlestar Galactica, based on the old Estes kit. A friend of theirs, Jim Neubauer, made the decidedly more imposing 1/15th scale Viper (seen in the last photo).

Verna's Vipers [via HobbyMedia]

August 6, 2009

In-camera hair F/X on a Diana camera

The folks at Ideo Labs celebrated the awesome hair of their intern, Alex, by modding a Diana plastic camera so that it adds his hair to whomever is photographed. They gave it to him as a going-away present.

Modding a Toy Camera to an "Alex Cam" [Thanks, Dave!]

August 5, 2009

Spin your children, for fun and photos

Here's a fun project you can do during the family MAKEcation (or vacation, for that matter): create a chest-camera rig so you can spin your kids around and take photos of them in flight. (Maybe if you get them super dizzy, they'll forget the fact that you're not taking them off the family compound this summer.)

Give 'Em A Spin - A Fun Family Photography Project [Thanks, Udi!]

August 3, 2009

Home science projects from Exploratorium

Julie Yu, a post-doc at San Francisco's Exploratorium, has a really good collection of unusual home lab activities on her page, including a home column chromatography experiment using common materials, which is the first of its kind I've seen.

August 1, 2009

Cardboard Tube Fighting League

Coilhouse has a fun piece on the recent Cardboard Tube Fighting League tournament in SF.

Carboard Dueling: Through A Series of Tubes

July 21, 2009

Cubical hard-boiled egg mold

That inner emptiness you've been feeling lately is probably due to the fact that you don't own one of these.

July 20, 2009

Altoids tin trebuchet

And with this "Curiously Strong Trebuchet" I think we've reached some sort of unholy singularity where everything that can possible go in or on a mint tin has done so. Now I think we're all going to die.

The Curiously Strong Trebuchet: A Pocket Sized Medieval Siege Engine

June 30, 2009

Keeping their cool

Over on GeekDad, Dana Bostic came up with this simple backyard cool-the-kids "hack" -- a hose sprayer set to "shower," zip-tied to a tall step ladder pouring down onto a trampoline -- so the kids can work up a sweat and cool off at the same time!

Keeping the Kids Cool This Summer [Thanks, Shawn!]

June 27, 2009

Heavy Metal II at MOS

Heavy Metal II, Amped Up is the culminating event, hosted by the Boston Museum of Science and the Lemelson-MIT Program, is part of Eurekafest, a multi-day celebration designed to empower a legacy of inventors.

Watch teams of high school students from across the country compete in an all-day challenge to build wind turbines that can hoist empty garbage cans to the ceiling of the Blue Wing. Explore a range of "windy" activities with Museum Exhibit Halls interpreters and educators from the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation.

Go check it out, and take a wander through the Museum of Science, which has lots of great exhibits, and an educators' library. Take some photos and share them with us in the MAKE Flickr pool.

June 24, 2009

Vibrobots at Honey Creek School

The 4th and 5th grade students at Honey Creek Community School in Washtenaw County, Michigan made vibrobots as part of their Design & Technology curriculum. The looks of pride on these kids' faces are amazing. Vibrobots are a great project for kids this age (kids of any age, really) 'cause they're easy enough for anyone to build, but just mechanically and electrically involved enough to give you that joy-of-making sense of accomplishment.

4/5 tech: Vibrobots!

More:
Vibrobots piece in the MAKE digital edition
Vibrobots in MAKE, Volume 10

June 23, 2009

"Cause I'm a Rocket Fan..."

Ryan Bavetta, of Crazy Builders, bolted a 3.7 HP model airplane engine onto the back of a skateboard to create this rocket board.

Propeller Powered Skateboard [via PopSci]

June 22, 2009

Take Flight for Kids events, Aug 8th

This came to us from Dean McCully, by way of Jake von Slatt:

Take Flight is a hugely popular flying festival series at Northern California airports. We recruit up to 100 volunteer pilots of small airplanes and helicopters, and provide free flights for about 750-1000 young people with disabilities, at risk youth, homeless kids, foster kids, etc. Most of the kids get to take controls of the plane during their 30 minute flights, to experience the empowerment of being in absolute control of a complex flying machine.

We host simultaneous huge festivals at the airports, with 4000-5000 attendees expected to enjoy a fun day of hands-on stuff. The emphasis is on hands on STEM science/tech/engineering/math, pretty much precisely what Maker Faire is all about, just with a huge kids-fly-free component added. 200+ nonprofit agencies are expected to join us on August 8 and party with the crowds. We expect up to 4000 people to join us for the festival, making this the biggest aviation-based STEM science/technology/engineering/math festival in the Bay Area.

Everything is FREE to all attendees, all volunteers, and all nonprofits/vendors get FREE BOOTH SPACE! Free admission, free parking, free BBQ at noon, free airplane rides to kids 8-17 years old (must be pre-registered online), free live entertainment, petting zoos, hot air balloon rides, helicopters, radio controlled aircraft, model rockets, science experiments, games, rides, fun, fun, FUN!

To reserve a (free) booth in this hottest gig in town, all you have to do is RSVP online. We'll take care of the rest.

For more info, check our website.

June 20, 2009

Secret ink smorgasboard

Here is a nice round-up of some simple sneaky inks. The old favorites like lemon juice and vinegar are there, but also some more sophisticated systems using stuff like cerium oxalate and iodine fuming.

From the pages of MAKE:

Mike Golembewksi shows us how to make an invisible inkjet printer in MAKE 16 - Spy Tech.

More:

Kidlaunching!

kidlauncher from connors934 on Vimeo.

Kidlaunching is a variation on the slip and slide model of backyard/park fun. What we did this day was lay out a hundred feet or so of plastic sheet on the grass, tied a gigantic elastic band to a tree and poured water from a park fountain over the plastic to reduce friction. Once the kid is on a pool toy or other suitable vehicle, hold by the ankles, pull, count and...RELEASE!

This was an activity at Camp Kaleidoscope a few years ago.

June 13, 2009

A sightseer's guide to engineering

If you are looking for a way to smarten up your travels, you may want to look into the Sightseer's Guide to Engineering provided by the National Society of Professional Engineers and National Engineers Week.

From the entry on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge:

To engineers, crossing the Tacoma Narrows presented more of an economic challenge. Originally it was hoped the federal government would help pay for an $11 million bridge that would cut at least 40 miles off the trip between Tacoma and Bremerton. After the federal government refused, the state turned to Leon Moisseiff, who calculated that a thin-plate girder type bridge could be built for only $6.4 million. The collapse of the bridge shocked the engineering community, and the lessons learned did a lot to shape future American bridge building. The replacement bridge, built in 1950, is one of the largest suspension bridges in the world.

There are entries for each of the states, though it appears that they could use some suggestions for additional places for engineering minded vacation spots. Via Celeste.

June 12, 2009

Students enjoy MAKE, build styrofoam speakers

David Veloz Jr., an engineer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, told us about a unique class he was teaching over the summer. His company conducts an outreach program for local high school students who show an interest in science and math. David was teaching them about his job and electronics in general.

Thinking that his class sounded like a worthwhile effort, we were happy to send some copies of MAKE out to his students. Afterward, David was kind enough to send us some photos of his class reading the issue, along with this nice note:

I've been meaning to get back to you guys, attached are some photos of the class reading their magazines. They absolutely loved them! I tried not to bore them too much, so I kept my bit short and quickly got them started on their project (Styrofoam speaker). We talked about magnetism, magnetic fields, and current, it was fun for everyone! A handful of the kids finished after our 2.5 hrs were up (we went over). They said that it was the best class!

During the class, David helped the students build the styrofoam plate speaker from MAKE, Volume 12, and gave away a couple of multimeters as prizes. What a great way to teach young people about the world of making!

You can still pick up a copy of MAKE, Volume 12, and other back issues of MAKE in the Maker Shed.

Preschoolers love artbots

I built a bunch of vibrating marker-legged artbots with the kids at my son's preschool the other day, and it was great fun. We taped motors with an offset weight on their shafts to the top of some plastic cups, chose different colors of markers for the legs, and set them in motion creating beautiful artwork. I've never seen groups of five-year-olds so focused as they were during the artbot session.

June 4, 2009

Paper Yachts book contest

I've always been fascinated by origami, but never had the patience for learning it. If you think you do have what it takes to model the world in folded paper, here's an opportunity to get a free copy of a unique origami book. Our pals over at Potter Craft have given us three copies of their new Paper Yachts book to give away to MAKE readers. Created by origami masters Nic Compton and Nick Robinson, the book has origami models of four famous racing yachts. You get sixteen water-resistant templates of the four models that you can use in the tub, in a puddle in your backyard, or other miniature waterway.

If you'd like a copy of one of these books, tell us why in the comments, tell us some of your origami experiences, making paper boats, or related tales. Link to pics if you have them. Next Tuesday, we'll choose three winners.

Simple fabric soft synth

Instructables user pstretz made this Arduino-based simple soft tone generator for another user (carmitsu) who wrote:

I teach music in elementary school. We play a lot of recorder music. i.e. the kids play little flutes...... I have several special needs kids who can are using these black poster boards with circles that have the name of the note on them. These students push on the circles with notes names at the same time the rest of the students are playing a song..... Most of the special needs kids can do this fairly well and in time with the music.

What I am looking to to is build a very simple sound generator so that these kids could play the same pitch as those being played by the students on their recorders. I would only be a few pitches. I thought I could attach some kind of small button to the bottom of their round circles so that when they push on them the sound would come out of a small speaker, loud enough so they could hear.

And that's just what this is, a simple tone generating soft circuit. It's a great simple project to make, and it warms my heart to see makers helping teachers helping kids.

Kids Home | Next >

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