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Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

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Re: Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

#131

Post by aldebran »

sircastor wrote: post #108
social_quotient wrote: post #65

Might be off topic but a nugget from having two girls (5 and 11). Kids don’t care about budget or how much things cost. We have toys we’ve spent hundreds of dollars on only to have the near free to free one be a hit. I say this to make sure you know your employment status likely only effects your kids if it effects you. Or said differently, to the extent it effects you it will effect them. Kids will generally have fu…

My wife frequently says to me “this is why I don’t buy my kid toys” as we watch our Son playing with some random bucket or cardboard box around the house.

I laugh my ass off so many times I see this. The toy is on the side and the box that the toy came in is apparently more fun. That or Costco boxes. They’re sturdy and can fit kids inside them. Lol

Re: Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

#132

Post by dhosek »

thendrill wrote: post #119
brailsafe wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been programming for 15 years and had to google what NAND was. Had a sense of XOR

You would be surprised how much more relevant info programmers miss... Example, most programmers I know have no idea when a variable gets allocated on the stack and when it's on the heap. Let's not talk about how many dont even know what a (stack overflow)[ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_buffer_overflow ] is...

I remember being shocked to discover that a recent CS grad could not implement a factorial function using recursion. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to do that, but to not be able to do it?

Re: Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

#133

Post by dhosek »

wongarsu wrote: post #124
brailsafe wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been programming for 15 years and had to google what NAND was. Had a sense of XOR

To be fair, AND, OR and NOT are enough to compute any function, and you can make all the other operators out of a combination of those three. For example A XOR B is just (A OR B) AND (NOT (A AND B)). Knowing things beyond AND, OR or NOT is useful, but not strictly necessary. XOR has useful properties though: with random inputs you get TRUE 50% of the time, allowing you to chain it without trending to 0 or 1; also it'…

Nah, all you need are nand gates. Everything else can be implemented from those.

Re: Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

#134

Post by 0xedd »

credit_guy wrote: post #76

My son is 12 y/o, and he's into Minecraft. Yesterday he discovered the server mc.openredstone.org. He spent all day yesterday and about one hour today, and he ended up building a 4-bit adder. On this server players learn how to build logic gates, and mix them so they eventually build CPUs. It's fully gamified, so beginners are called "students" and more advanced players are called "builders". To become a "builder" yo…

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Re: Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

#137

Post by solardev »

If she likes electronics at all, I thought these were super cool... wish they made those when I was a kid!

Snap-in educational and fully functional circuits: https://www.elenco.com/snap-circuits-2/

Science & crafts toys: https://www.johncoproductions.com/collections/4m

Green & renewable energy toys: https://www.johncoproductions.com/collections/green-science

(Edit: For the second two links, apparently that is a non-US vendor. Sorry about that. But those toys are also commonly available in the US, at toy stores and often, museum gift stores)

Re: Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

#138

Post by OJFord »

wongarsu wrote: post #124
brailsafe wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been programming for 15 years and had to google what NAND was. Had a sense of XOR

To be fair, AND, OR and NOT are enough to compute any function, and you can make all the other operators out of a combination of those three. For example A XOR B is just (A OR B) AND (NOT (A AND B)). Knowing things beyond AND, OR or NOT is useful, but not strictly necessary. XOR has useful properties though: with random inputs you get TRUE 50% of the time, allowing you to chain it without trending to 0 or 1; also it'…

You only need one of {AND, OR} too.

((a or b) is (not ((not a) and (not b))), and vice versa.)

Re: Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

#139

Post by mikepurvis »

analog31 wrote: post #61
FerretFred wrote: post #56

Maybe look at building up manual skills if possible. When my daughter was 11 y/o I as doing a lot of DIY plumbing in the house and I taught her to cut and bend (copper) pipes, and solder pipe joints. We used a gas torch, much to the horror of my S.O, but it was a useful skill learned and she got really good at it.

I think learning to "think with your hands" is not a recognized academic skill, but yet there's something real about it. If at all possible, teach her to ride a bike and to actually be able to get around on one if your locale is suitable for it.

My kids (11, 8, 5) all ride bikes, and are competent enough to ride on the road on quieter streets. I've found it to be a wonderful bonding experience, and also a growth opportunity since they're learning to get around, read signs, navigate, plus it's laying the groundwork for later independence.

Re: Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

#140

Post by unixhero »

stevekemp wrote: post #27

Being unemployed probably means you don't have a huge budget, but some for our child I've tried to do a little bit of "everything" to see what he enjoys. When I ask him what he wants to do he says "I don't know", so I say "We're going swimming in the sea", "Lets plant some seeds", "Today we're cooking / sewing", "Lets pick a spot on the map and go visit it by bus/tram", or "Lets draw pokemon evolving". (maps are kind…

Hey I will use these tactics in my wife, thanks :)
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