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  • Author Author: spannerspencer
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Father's Day Badge-a-Thon: The Maker

spannerspencer

According to my dad, there's a correct tool for every job. And it's called a hammer.image

 

It's a life lesson that's always stuck with me and has helped me get through a great many difficulties in my days as an engineer, a maker and a DIY desperado. So as we plummet deeper and deeper into our Father's Day Badge-a-Thon rabbit hole, we're now looking at ways that dads can pass along their lifetime of invaluable knowledge and wisdom as their kids blossom into dedicated hammer-wielders themselves.

 

Today's badge asks for thoughts on the new project ideas for parents to do with their kids that could indoctrinate them into the exciting world of electronics, and making.

 

For inspiration, here are a few projects from around element14 that I feel would make particularly father/parent/son/daughter projects.

 

To get today's badge, remember that you first need the previous days' badges, and then...

1) Post your idea for a brand new parental project in the comments, and...

2) Bookmark your favourite project from anywhere on the element14 Community that'd serve this purpose for other parents looking to inspire their kids!

 

You have until 26th June, 2016, to get all the badges, so don't delay!

 

You don't have to bookmark one of these, but for inspiration...

 

Top Comments

Parents

  • About 40 years ago I was introduced to the world of Fischertechnik construction kits which probably started off my interest in making as it is now known today. It was mainly static building blocks and chunky motors back then and batteries that never lasted long enough, however in the catalogue they did have some electronics hobby kits which included logic gates allowing you to build a working elevator and a car wash. Unfortunately the parentals back then saw no real benefit in the word of logic gates and alas my 'programming' remained via manually operated switches.

     

    Today, it's still on the market and they now produce several robotic kits

    fischertechnik GmbH - ROBOTICS

    including a new 3D printer kit.

     

    I still think it's an excellent platform for the young maker in the family and one of its advantages is that you can purchase aluminium extrusion in the same profile as the nylon building blocks to make larger projects with. So it's a bit like Meccano in that respect but with building block elements of Lego.

     

    Speaking of Meccano, it was sad to hear one of the company executives report that kids today were no longer interested in assembling 100's of parts with nuts and bolts and that most of their newer more popular kits are pretty much pre-assembled with only a couple of screws required to complete the build.

     

    What I think would make an excellent project idea however would be to try and expand the range of sensors, actuators, and controllers that would work with the likes of the Fischertechnik base platform. Perhaps start by 3D printing some enclosures that could allow something like a Seeedstudio Grove sensor module to easily integrate with the existing building blocks. This would allow the young maker better equipped to explore the world. Similar with the micro:bit some sort of holder that allows it to integrate with the building blocks and an appropriate interface to allow it to control the standard construction set motors and sensors. What they learn at school they can then apply to their working models.

     

    I have bookmarked the LEGO Train Schedule as it appears to be in the same spirit of enhancing an existing educational platform.

    LEGO Train Schedule - OLED & Arduino

Comment

  • About 40 years ago I was introduced to the world of Fischertechnik construction kits which probably started off my interest in making as it is now known today. It was mainly static building blocks and chunky motors back then and batteries that never lasted long enough, however in the catalogue they did have some electronics hobby kits which included logic gates allowing you to build a working elevator and a car wash. Unfortunately the parentals back then saw no real benefit in the word of logic gates and alas my 'programming' remained via manually operated switches.

     

    Today, it's still on the market and they now produce several robotic kits

    fischertechnik GmbH - ROBOTICS

    including a new 3D printer kit.

     

    I still think it's an excellent platform for the young maker in the family and one of its advantages is that you can purchase aluminium extrusion in the same profile as the nylon building blocks to make larger projects with. So it's a bit like Meccano in that respect but with building block elements of Lego.

     

    Speaking of Meccano, it was sad to hear one of the company executives report that kids today were no longer interested in assembling 100's of parts with nuts and bolts and that most of their newer more popular kits are pretty much pre-assembled with only a couple of screws required to complete the build.

     

    What I think would make an excellent project idea however would be to try and expand the range of sensors, actuators, and controllers that would work with the likes of the Fischertechnik base platform. Perhaps start by 3D printing some enclosures that could allow something like a Seeedstudio Grove sensor module to easily integrate with the existing building blocks. This would allow the young maker better equipped to explore the world. Similar with the micro:bit some sort of holder that allows it to integrate with the building blocks and an appropriate interface to allow it to control the standard construction set motors and sensors. What they learn at school they can then apply to their working models.

     

    I have bookmarked the LEGO Train Schedule as it appears to be in the same spirit of enhancing an existing educational platform.

    LEGO Train Schedule - OLED & Arduino

Children
  • in reply to beacon_dave

    One of the local stores sells Fischer.. kits, I might have to investigate once the nephews are a little older. I saw this cool Arduino-ized line-follower busily doing its task at the Computer Museum in Bletchley, UK.

    image

  • in reply to beacon_dave

    Interesting and fascinating! I owned in past almost all that was including the word "electronics" It was a electronic components cube set from Philips (sounds nice, now I am a consultant for NXP image), the I owned in '79 the second prize for the Philips young researchers, Lego electric, Fischertechnics and more ... I see that it seems that they evolved but to be really competitive and join to the today world of the STEM I think that they should also well understand the lesson of the Open Source concepts...

     

    Enrico