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Ask HN: Great maker projects for 8th grade kids and above?

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Re: Ask HN: Great maker projects for 8th grade kids and above?

#61

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

GianFabien wrote: post #57

It might be a good idea to discover what your kid is really interested in. It is a common trap for adults to project their unfulfilled childhood desires onto their children. It used to be fathers buying and building model railways which the kid ignores and chooses to go outside and play football.

Seconded.

One of my kids explicitly said that he really didn't care what we did, he just wanted to spend time with me. Which reminds me that we haven't done that much together since the summer ended...

Re: Ask HN: Great maker projects for 8th grade kids and above?

#63

Post by postalrat »

radicalbyte wrote: post #24

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.

I'd recommend getting a prusa kit for anyone interested in building stuff. The instructions are easy to follow and broken up nicely. IMO it's also fun to see the parts and a glimpse of the design you wouldn't see buying a complete printer.

Re: Ask HN: Great maker projects for 8th grade kids and above?

#65

Post by panda888888 »

Building a computer from the components. Bicycle maintenance and/or building a bicycle from the components. Building a skateboard. Car maintenance. Doing a project in your house, like installing a new toilet.

I can think of a million things, but ask him what he's interested in doing.

Re: Ask HN: Great maker projects for 8th grade kids and above?

#66

Post by throwup238 »

philipkglass wrote: post #16

I loved doing chemistry experiments and demos at home as a kid. I had books like the Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments [1] but this is a modern guide that I would gladly recommend: Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture by Robert Bruce Thompson https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Home-Chemistry-Expe... [1] https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/Brent_GBC.p...

> Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments

This book is an absolute classic. I've got a hardback copy from my childhood and doing the experiments as a kid was magical. Nowadays most other chem experiment books are watered down because the old stuff could be quite hazardous and getting some of the reagents is a lot harder without a parent who can order from Sigma Aldrich.

I've got a decent number of scars and even some chemically induced skin discoloration from those days. The book itself is quite valuable now.

Re: Ask HN: Great maker projects for 8th grade kids and above?

#67

Post by rightbyte »

Keep it simple. I think your examples might be too advanced. Failing is boring.

You know these 'sticks' that you hold an ice cream with?

Bend those into a propeller. Wet them with water if they crack. Drill a hole (or cut with knife) through the middle and put it on a small electric motor and attach a battery or power source. Spin it up and watch the propeller fly off.

Just give him or her the things and say the goal. And that you don't know if it will work. The hard part is figuring out to bend with water and to get the right fit on the hole to the axis.

Re: Ask HN: Great maker projects for 8th grade kids and above?

#68

Post by salgorithm »

You can have a lot of fun with a tiny traffic light using an Arduino and three different color lights. There are bunch of things you can do to build on it.

- 3d print a stand (here's one I did https://github.com/SalvatoreT/howmm/blob/master/week06/Traff...)

- incorporate an infrared sensor + infrared light to simulate triggering the red -> green flow

- make an intersection with each of the lights working together to show the right thing at the right time

- add a crosswalk

Re: Ask HN: Great maker projects for 8th grade kids and above?

#69

Post by BenjiWiebe »

hex4def6 wrote: post #18
gus_massa wrote: post #3

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 had one of those when I was maybe 8. Got some enjoyment out of it, and then a couple years later I got RadioShack's Electronic Learning Lab, which was much more advanced. After receiving and opening it, I was actually in tears (IIRC) because it looked so complicated and I didn't even know how to get a wire into the breadboard.

That ELL gave me probably 100s of hours of fun and learning over the next 5 years.

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