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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?

#71

Post by RyanOD »

coreyp_1 wrote: post #23

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…

We did this and our girls enjoyed them, but I found it doesn't really teach much. It's mostly a "can you follow simple instructions" task.

I feel like having them complete simple breadboarding / soldering projects where they are actually seeing how things work at a pretty low level and developing a physical skill was more valuable - or get them going on simple Rasp Pi projects if they have an interest in programming.

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

#72

Post by RyanOD »

sunshinesnacks wrote: post #46

I soldered one of these with my 6 year old: https://thepihut.com/products/3d-xmas-tree-for-raspberry-pi . They seem to be out of stock, but maybe you can find them somewhere else. 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, e…

There are a lot of these simple soldering projects out there.

Our daughters completed a few. At a minimum, they now know how to solder and have an appreciation for electrical components. That was all I was hoping for at such a young age.

Should either ever decide to study electrical engineering, I feel they will be less intimidated having had this experience.

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

#73

Post by RyanOD »

saulrh wrote: post #42

Buy a $20 RC car off Amazon and replace the radio receiver with a raspberry pi for a quick and dirty driverless car platform. Might have to do some surgery to reuse the motor drivers or you might have to add your own, but it's generally not too bad.

The most memorable project I ever did as a teenager was building a Tamiya Frog RC car with my older brother.

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

#75

Post by SentientOctopus »

pandemic_region wrote: post #74

Typically these threads make me feel useless as a father. Like everyone's kids are contributing patches to the Linux kernel at the age of ten.

That sums up the internet for me, constant feeling of not doing enough to get your kids ahead and personally not amounting to anything because everything has been done better than you can do it.

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

#77

Post by sudahtigabulan »

nogridbag wrote: post #55
freeone3000 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no “correct” pronouns for you — just choose the ones you like.

I know there's no correct answer. But I legit wanted to understand what my answer actually means and why we are presenting seemingly duplicate options. I tried googling "capital he him pronoun" and all the references were about god. From a UX point of view, we tried to eliminate non essential questions like "choose 3 items that interest you" from forms years ago. There's also no correct answer for that but some users…

Letter case in pronouns is sometimes used in BDSM context to emphasize dominance (or lack thereof).

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

#78

Post by nogridbag »

sudahtigabulan wrote: post #77
nogridbag wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know there's no correct answer. But I legit wanted to understand what my answer actually means and why we are presenting seemingly duplicate options. I tried googling "capital he him pronoun" and all the references were about god. From a UX point of view, we tried to eliminate non essential questions like "choose 3 items that interest you" from forms years ago. There's also no correct answer for that but some users…

Letter case in pronouns is sometimes used in BDSM context to emphasize dominance (or lack thereof).

Hah I saw that reference in my search results but eliminated it as a possibility because the target app is for middle schoolers. But if that's the accepted underlying cultural meaning of why someone would select that now people reading my comments above might understand why I felt the need to Google this. Choosing an option is signaling something and in this case it might imply I'm into BDSM.

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

#79

Post by hakfoo »

The SDR is fun on its own (I've browsed the local airports' signals and decoded APRS signals with DireWolf, using a nothing-special TV-style dipole antenna that comes in the box, and you can always use it as a decent FM reciever on your PC), but an interesting step up might be to also promise a basic handheld transciever (like $30) if the kid wants to get on the air rather than just flipping channels. (Studying for and getting a license is an activity in and of itself)

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

#80

Post by rkuodys »

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.

My 6yo had 3D printer in school and now is super excited about 3D printing. I'd like to get one of these but have no clue what are the criteria when purchasing one. Can someone help in assistance what to pay attention to while choosing such device? Obviously one of the main criteria user friendliness so that 6yo could quickly start using himself.
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