Kids building things.

[tomwalz]

Kids building things.

When I was a kid we built a “soap box derby racer” (entirely unofficial, but that’s what we called it) out of scrap wood and wheels off an old baby buggy. We also built forts and tree houses with pulley systems, etc.

We had a lot more mechanical and structural odds and ends around the house then than people do now. They used different manufacturing methods then, mostly.

Anyway, my grandkids are interested in building “stuff”. What would be good things to have around for them? We start them with the Rockenbok toys and they are great but I am looking for materials to build forts, and pulley systems, conveyors, “soap box derby racers and so on.

I would appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks,
Tom



Thomas J. Walz
Carbide Processors, Inc.

http://www.carbideprocessors.com

Good engineering starts with a Grainger Catalog.

 

[kingnero]

an old go-cart and lawnmower engine (and a direct drive system - haha) kept me and my friends busy for hours.
Starting the thing, lowering the wheels to the ground and beginning to run to jump into it... (and driving it until you run out of fuel).

ofcourse back then (and I'm not even 40) there was almost no traffic, I could see it being more dangerous on today's roads...

I always favoured wood, as it's easy to work with, building racks, tracks and bridges for a RC car, even started on a boat but couldn't finish it back then,

a bit older I bought a nitro RC car, which got me started in modifying mechanical things. and I am basically still doing that everyday...

 

[Twoballcane]

Nowadays we are such a throwaway society that you’re right about not much stuff is around the house these days for kid’s imagination to take place and build things just for the heck of it. But, you can still pose a problem or design and then walk into a Home Depot and try to figure out how to build with what is there.

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
“Luck is where preparation meets opportunity”

 

[IRstuff]

The adage about leading horses to water applies here.

How old are they?

Fischertechnik stuff are pricey, but pretty good:

http://www.fischertechnik.biz/

Lego Technic and Mindstorms stuff are also pretty good. Mindstorms is based around a general purpose microcontroller that can control motors, read sensors, etc.

The Parallax robot kits are a good stepping stone into embedded systems:

http://www.parallax.com/tabid/524/Default.aspx

They have a set of mini Sumo bots.

Which leads into the 21st century analog to derby racers, thefull-blown sumobot competitions. There's a whole cultural subclass here:

http://www.chibots.org/

http://robotevents.com/robot-competitions/vex-robotics-competition

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/first-family-of-programs?id=18493

Note that the latter is REALLY pricey.

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize

 

[ornerynorsk]

Do they still make erector sets? Model rockets are also great.

Teaching kids to use basic hand tools (saws, hammers, tin snips, and the like) and teaching them the basic hardware (nails, screws etc) and then turning them loose on a pile of junk to see what they do is a great way for them to whet the imagination.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[1gibson]

Step 1 for me was always finding stuff to take apart. Modifying or building into something else was step 2.

Gutting a cheap RC car and making a new one out of lego/knex/etc. is always a fun project.

 

[imagitec]

I can't imagine what I would have come up with had I known about and had access to aluminum framing systems as a kid - erector sets for big kids.

It would be expensive new, but I'm shocked by what companies toss in the trash every day. I've never had occassion to look for some myself, but it's worth asking around if you know people at R&D or manufacturing firms.

Rob Campbell, PE
Imagitec: Imagination - Expertise - Execution
imagitec.net

 

[ornerynorsk]

rjcjr9 - Dumpster Diving! Oh, the stuff we used to find. It's getting harder and harder these days, especially in the larger metro areas with the trash hauling companies locking up the containers and hiding them inside of security enclosures.

I was 11 or 12 years old when I found an old chunk of railroad rail about a foot and a half long. I somehow managed to carry it home on my bike without killing myself. It was my first anvil, and a darned good one at that! I miss those days.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[MiketheEngineer]

My Dad never threw anything away. So we always had an old lawnmower or electric motor around. Of course the lawnmower leaked gas and the electric motor was never grounded. We never got hurt too bad.

We would just pick ourselves up off the ground and go back to work or wash the gasoline off and itch the rash for a few days. You WOULD NEVER tell your mom - because she would have banned the activity or maybe she just wanted us to kill ourselves?? Never sure.. Even burned my self rather badly on the fuel from four fire crackers that I lit at once. Was able to hide it for a week until it healed!!

Took an old lawnmower engine - vertical shaft and bolted one of the mower wheels to the shaft. Drilled a hole in a 2x4 and slipped it over the bar holding my bike seat on. Mounted the motor on the 2x4. Had to prime the cylinder with oil (to get the piston ring to seat a bit better and get the compression up - IT WAS OLD) and raw gas - just so it would start. Got on the bike - got it up to about 10 mph - pushed on the 2x4 and engaged the wheel which was now rubbing on my back bike wheel.

Went like a bat out of hell - right until I cashed. You want your kids doing stuff like that?? I was about 10 at the time. And I went on to more adventuresome endeavors - like making a parachute out of bed sheet (got spanked for that) and mounting it on my bike. MAN - they will slow you down FAST!! - like enough to throw you over the handle bars. Still have that scar. But true to tradition I took a piece of paper towel and scotch tape and made me a bandage. Mom never knew!!

But I do ADMIRE your ideas!! I try to teach/show my g-kids as much as possible. Just have fun!! Rockets, kites, small electric motors, paper airplanes, rubber bands, balloons. YOU can have a BLAST!! We spent a whole rainy afternoon making paper airplanes. We had more planes than the USAF!! Electric helicopters are GREAT!. Buy a good one - at least $100 with gyro stabilizing and 4-axis control. My 8 year old can handle it.

 

[tomwalz]

There is an episode of King of the Hill where Bobby’s scout troop is building fires indoors. They use a fan and colored paper to simulate flames. When Hank complains the troop leader asks him if he wants his kid to get burned. Hank looks briefly nonplused then replies “Yeah, a little”.

I do remember skidding quite distance on asphalt and having to wear long sleeve shirts for about a week in the summer until the scabs came off.

But I am old. Thirty years ago I was a “Good Dad” because I put my kids and the neighbor kids in the back of the old pickup and went for ice cream. Now that would be criminal negligence.


Thomas J. Walz
Carbide Processors, Inc.

http://www.carbideprocessors.com

Good engineering starts with a Grainger Catalog.

 

[DubMac]

Ah yes the good ole days. We had a Burroughs Business machines office near us and their trashbin was filled with old worn out electric adding machines, typewriters. We were always in there tearing apart machines to salvage motors, levers, gears, you name it. A gold mine it was.

Building our own mini-bikes and go carts was always huge in the hood.

Attaching model rocket engines to model cars (occasionally with a frog or two in the car) and shooting them down the street until they were obliterated. We quickly felt sorry for the poor frogs and ended that one and learned on our own about compassion, not from a PC manual.

Built and rebuilt tree houses until we were sick of them.

Started getting a little dangerous when one of the big kids showed us how to make gunpowder. Thankfully never went too far with that.

Probably would be arrested for most of the stuff that was commonplace back then (I am somewhat aged).

It is such a shame to see overparenting to the extent you see today. Parents schedule every second of kids lives lives now.

My fellow cohorts agree that the best thing our parents did for us was to throw us out the door and say "be back for dinner, not any earlier".

Sitting around with nothing to do was the breeding ground for creativity and taught that sometimes just laying there contemplating things is OK to do.

But I digress...... to your point, pulleys, yes definitely pulleys, lots of them and about 200' of sash cord. Small cheap hydraulic jacks can be fun to learn from. And as mentioned earlier, you'll never go wrong teaching the basics of working with your hands and basic shop tools.

 

[MikeHalloran]

Never discard a horizontal shaft engine (edger, chainsaw, etc.).

Keep a pile of lumber around.
Use some of it to build a sturdy workbench.
Install a vise and good lighting.

Designate a decent suite of hand tools as usable by young-uns.

Issue eye protection that fits to each and every young-un, along with a stern lecture.

Issue a personal toolbox to each and every young-un.
Filling it should solve any dilemmas about subsequent gift-giving.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[Compositepro]

Trash day in the neighborhood was a gold mine of parts and appliances. these would be dismantled to find what was wrong and fixed, if possible. If not, the parts would be saved for something else. Dumpster diving behind businesses would yield more sophisticated treasures. I still can't imagine anything more educational than taking things apart to figure out how they worked and seeing how and why they had failed. The most important thing that my parents did was that they left me completely alone and had no involvement in these activities as long as I stayed out of trouble.

 

[SnTMan]

Garage sales and flea markets are full of interesteing stuff. Might be a good way to buid up some basic supplies. Nuts, bolts, nails, v-belts, wheels, pieces of metal, whatever catches your (or the young'uns) eye.

Regards,

Mike

 

[DubMac]

Need to get back to the basics of teaching our kids proper dumpster diving techniques.

 

[rmw]

Apples came in nice wooden crates and oranges did too, but it was a different size and style crate. Between the two, I built many a tree house, back yard hut, etc.

I would think that if you had a source for some old pallets you could knock those down and start building something.

One of the hardest things I ever did was to sit inside and watch my oldest daughter cobble together a tree house of sorts from some scrap lumber she found around the house. I wanted so badly to go out and participate but I knew me well enough to know if I went out there I'd soon be telling her how to do it and taking it away from her so I just peered through the window and watched her. It wasn't really fancy, but it was functional and she was proud of it because she built it.

When we were kids, we had all these little plastic soldier, cowboy & indian figures and we would build fortresses at the scale of the figures, complete with moats, defensive breast works, etc. We would use natural wood and parts of bushes for the "logs".

Then (and I don't encourage this) we would raid our neighbors fort that they had built in their back yard - while they raided ours. I found that if I took some charcoal lighter (and that was the days when it wasn't inhibited) and sprayed their fort and set it ablaze, they would come running home and leave my fort alone.

I loved the parts above about how much we concealed from our parents, mostly our mothers. As I tell my wife some of these things, she says she knows why God didn't give us any sons. I'd have either killed them being too hard on them, or they would have killed themselves being like me.

But Tom, you have set me thinking because I have a grandson who is just approaching the age where I have to start thinking in that vein. I look at two tall stand up tool chests full of tools in my garage and think that someday they will be his, but if I don't start him on a path to know what is in them and how to use most of the tools, they will be worthless to him. His dad isn't the sort to get him started down that path.

rmw

 

[btrueblood]

"It is such a shame to see overparenting to the extent you see today. Parents schedule every second of kids lives lives now.
"

Mike and rmw had good things to say - staying out of it until asked is a good approach. You've got to teach them enough (how-to and safety) to feel comfortable when they use the tools without your supervision, then back off and let them have at it. I teach the cub scouts some simple building tasks (like making their own toolboxes, a really subversive way to spread engineering to other families, kinda like a virus), but make sure to have enough spare material (and clamps, and glue) on hand to help them fix things when they overdrive or strip a screw, or bash something a bit too hard with a hammer.

More importantly, knowing how much to let the kids "get away with". Watched my sons and neighbor boys spiriting some old plywood shelves out of the garage, and off down the street. A casual walk to a place overlooking the school yard showed what they were up to - a bike ramp of course. They were in a good spot, protected from any traffic, so I said nothing, and made a note to pick up some more plywood for my shop shelving project. Similarly coming home and seeing some gold paint all over the garage floor - one son had "steampunked" his rubber-band gun, which I found later in his room. He did a pretty neat job of it, wish I'd taken before/after pix. Note to self: pick up some more gold paint. 2nd note: digital cameras for the kids as Xmas presents this year.

 

[SnTMan]

When I was a kid my dad would take me and my brother to the "junk yard" (scrap, not dump) on Saturdays now and then. They would let us just wander around. He was an electonics hobbyist and would buy radio chassis and so forth, or what ever else he wanted, and would let us get things as well. In those days there were always lots of beautiful big chrome hood ornaments. Endless entertainment for very cheap. I doubt you could take children in these days. What kind of world we living in?

Regards,

Mike

 

[SnTMan]

Another difference, stuff made of metal is a lot easier to re-purpose than the crappy plastic everything is made of now days.

 

[potteryshard]

Civilized life (and the requisite inventiveness necessary to support same) is not possible without a welder at hand. I completely fail to understand how some people can live without a small MIG and a portable band saw at hand... Positively stone-age! I'd suggest that some basic metal-working skills and tools are less dangerous than equivalent wood-working equipment due to slower speeds, and also do more to encourage the understanding that building things that do something leads more to the innate understanding of how to change the world.