41–50 of 86 posts
1. Carpentry project
2. CNC machining project
3. Microelectronics: assembly from ready parts
4. Drone or aviation related project
if he is into computer stuff, just teach him how to hack computers and websites, the pentesting stuff.
Buy a Bambu Lab A1 Mini 3D printer. They're amazing. Then look at examples of what you can do on Youtube. Amazing! Kids nowadays have it so good.
Perhaps it's too simple, but I like https://elenco.com/snapcircuits/
My kiddo has a couple of those, and I'm still in two minds about some of the choices that they provide in those kits. It feels a little like "Follow these instructions exactly" without requiring understanding in a lot of cases. For example, the music IC doesn't have any of it's terminals labelled. The same with the transistor; it doesn't seem to explain exactly why you'd need to use it, why you'd need a resistor on t…
I certainly would not WITHHOLD Snap Circuits from a kid because they might not know what's inside the IC.
If I had kids, I would probably subscribe to KiwiCo ( https://www.kiwico.com/us/store/cp/12-plus-years-old ). Lego? Unfortunately, my limited (geographically-constrained) contact with my nieces and nephews has severely impacted my ability to influence them towards technology. :( Exposure is one thing that is helpful, but in the end, you have to find something that your son is so enthralled with that he wants to pursu…
Fun, quick project. With my kid, I healed the iron and they held the solder. I’m guess a 13 year old could do more (or all) themselves.
Then there are options for tweaking the program, like different patterns, a “count down” to Christmas, etc.
My father is an electrical engineer. Growing up, he had countless components in the basement, including a whole slew of 7400-series DIP chips, as well as a bunch of (powered) breadboards and spare wire. In highschool I had so so much fun building things from scratch - I recall building a basic adder by drawing out the truth tables and doing boolean algebra to come up with the circuit diagram, eventually evolving it i…
I so miss the basements of my midwest youth and early adulthood. They were the place for projects. I built so much. My west coast home since 2010 doesn't have a basement, and we've not much interior space for projects (esp when you're talking construction, tools, soldering and such). My spouse is stickler about the inside staying nice, too. The garage is the alternative, but it's so inferior. There's a car there, it'…
You can get a mirror set very cheap on ali, eg https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005098614936.html
You'll need to buy an eyepiece or two, and hardware, bolts, etc, but everything else can be made or 3d printed.
I designed and made, with my kids, a 76mm 'cheapscope' using PVC pipe, 3d-printed mirror-holder, spider. focuser and camera-tripod connector, here: https://imgur.com/a/cheapscope-4KtPgoN
I meant to post the 3d-print designs but haven't got to it, let me know if you're interested.
For sure it's not the best scope (or design) ever (and the 3d prints warped a bit), and no phone/camera eyepiece mount so the pictures are shaky, but it works, it was fun, and opens up a new world(s).