We had our Maker Faire over the weekend. We thought it a good time to present the project to a wider audience. A photo resister, a phone handset speaker some caps ,a 555 and we had a simple circuit to demos. It had to be simple because getting ready for the event cut into any time we had to work on the project.
I'm psyched and pumped.
We had the circuit setup on the board with a couple of real size boards and components next to it. The idea being we could get people to copy the 10x in real scale. So I'm sitting at the table and a boy and his mom walk by. Mom is interested in the next table and the kid not so much. He walks up and looks at the 10x, then looks at the smaller ones, looks at the 10x, looks at the smaller ones and looks at me. Not saying a word I give him the OK if you want to shrug. He picks up the 555 glancing at me, I nod, he looks at the 10x board and puts the 555 on the real scale board. I'm floored, the concept works as he builds the circuit I want to jump and shout.
A small incident but it says it all.
As the day rolled on I came to see that it will also work the other way. Smaller kids also want to make it blink and beep. Kids capable of understanding but just not quite in control of their body enough to put the puzzle together without getting frustrated. Now they can have a pathway. I had always thought of going from big to small, ow I realize that small to big is equally valid. Watching Mike explain to a child how changing this would change that I deeply regret that I didn't have more 10x components ready so they could get their hands on it. I also wish I had enough rime to assemble the materials for construction. But all in all a good day.