I asked to some friends if they have great project idea that could be done by an 8th grade kid with or without support. I personally like to do it with him as it is a privileged time to build something together (for me) and learn new skills (for him).
The purpose of this thread is to assemble some ideas for Christmas presents.
I’m starting…
1. DIY LED Christmas tree kit for soldering (https://www.az-delivery.de/en/products/diy-weihnachtsbaum-kit-alles-inklusive-versandkostenfrei)
2. Software Defined Radios kit (https://www.rtl-sdr.com/about-rtl-sdr/ and https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CD7558GT)
3. DIY Internet Radio Alarm clock with touch screen control (https://www.az-delivery.de/en/products/radiowecker-mit-dem-az-touch)
Any other ideas or suggestions?
Also, I like to reinforce the concept of “dreaming it up”, tell my kids to think of a thing to make and we break down the steps we think are needed to build it. At first, it’s like their imagination wasn’t big enough. They’d have an idea and I’d show them how we could build it pretty easily. Now, it’s gotten to where they know the skies the limit and anything of kind of possible so they start big and then work their way back down to a realistic scope of features. All to say, ask your kid what they want to build!
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...
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.
You could build a sonar system, listen to ultrasound, or almost anything you can imagine, thanks to Moore's law and the massive amount of compute we have these days.
It’s free and nonprofit. There are 60 locations. Maybe one is near you?
I used to have a passion for UX and read books like "Don't make me think" and here I was stumbling with this silly field and didn't complete the form. Instead I was googling about pronouns to see if I should select "he/him", "he/him/his", or "He/Him". I didn't even notice there was an "any" and "other" value until I started writing this comment!
Hope you don't mind the question. This is a serious Q as I'm responsible for the UX of a public facing application and might at some point be required to add this field to our pages. I find it odd and kind of against UX best practices to make the field required. And presenting so many similar options "made me think" which used to be considered a bad practice because it's an obstacle to users completing a form. I now realize the target audience is school age kids. Do they automatically know what to select? I'm a xennial that somehow went into some time freeze spending every second of the day raising two kids with little time for social media. So please excuse my ignorance.
A lot of old school maker projects are fun, but they're also basically E waste making kits now that phones do almost everything.
Not having a bunch of low tech gadgets laying around is really nice, they can easily become the biggest clutter challenge in a space, the same way paper used to back when more people still used it for things other than books.
Building a small solar energy system is fun and easy, and also practical.
3D printing is fantastic.
Meshtastic has a lot of DIY and learning potential and is like the lite edition of ham radio. What's really cool is that range testing gets you outside.
Maybe design something together with JLCPCB and have it made(Leave off any through hole connectors and solder them yourself for both fun and pretty decent cost savings).
Permanent installs that work unattended are slightly scary and have to be done right so something doesn't leak or start a fire, but the portable folding panels are usually similarly cheap.
You could get one of those plus a charge controller and LiFePo4 for not too much.
Everything still needs to be done carefully though, and unfortunately almost all cheap charge controllers have a ton of idle power draw, they're kinda crappy compared to the tech built into a random cheap solar generator, I don't think you can make anything as nice as a commercial generator for cheap.
Most the DIY education kits for kids type stuff seem pretty crappy too.
An ESP32 module with onboard lithium charging plus a USB-C folding panel has a lot of possibilities though, if you have any projects ideas that could be done with such things.
I bought the Ender for my son, and he put it together and helped me do some mods to it and print some things, but after about 3 months he never touched it again. Just gave it to his school when I got the Bambu.
The A1 seems to be quite a capable little printer.
Beyond just printing things you find online, learning CAD is a really fun way of turning ideas into tangible objects.
The new CoreXY Prusa One is also a very good buy when it comes out but the A1/A1 mini in particular are just such a good deal at the moment.
Bambu are cheaper in Cap Ex but based on reliability they will likely have a similar TCO after a year. Also as a Chinese brand Bambu are risky. If we get tariffs or some kind of international situation then things could be problematic.
I recently wrote an article that might help you decide: https://blog.bambulab.com/why-a-3d-printer-makes-the-perfect...
When choosing a 3D printer for your 6-year-old, user-friendliness is definitely key, and that’s an area where Bambu Lab excels.
* P1S: enclosed printer which can print most types of plastic and is extremely fast. It's a CoreXY printer meaning that the print head moves in XY position and the print bed only in Z. This makes it faster and take up less space. Controls via buttons and old style LCD display (3rd party touch panels are available). Available for 560 EUR base, 772 EUR with the AMS.
* A1: open printer which moves the bed the Y position, known as a "bed slinger". It's slightly slower than the P1S due to the bed moving but is still very fast. Controls are an integrated touch panel. This is their most modern design so it's easier to maintain. Priced at 300 EUR base, 450 EUR with AMS Lite
* A1 mini: small version of the A1. Main attraction is the price of 200 EUR base, 350 EUR with AMS Lite (+20 EUR postage).
Now the AMS (for the P1S) and AMS Lite (for the A1/A1M). These are their multiple material system. They allow you to use multiple different materials (colors, different plastics) at the same time. The AMS is enclosed and can be used with materials which must be kept dry (25% humidity in my AMS vs 80% out in the open). I have both and they're both awesome but not 100% required.
Prices in the US are lower as EU prices include 21% sales tax.
What to do? Buy the A1 mini if you're budget constrained or aren't sure. It's fantastic, it prints fast and the 18cm x 18cm size is fine for what kids will do with it. If you can stretch to the P1S then I'd highly recommend it. I brought all 3 for my business and have been running them together pretty much all the time I've been able to have them running. I use the mini for fast prototying and the other to make "production runs". Although I'll probably end up either moving the mini to private or buying another mini - as soon as the kids get started we won't be able to stop.
If you're in SV and have an SV budget for toys then Prusa are releasing a new CoreXY printer early next year. Their printers are more sustainable then Bambu Labs, they're not Chinese and are the market leader in quality. They're more capable than any of these printers too as they can print pretty much anything out of the box. I'm not sure if they have a multi-material system.
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...
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 the base, etc. On that note, It's also possible to potentially damage stuff if you just try to experiment without understanding.
I feel like they could have made some of the parts a bit more flexible -- have current limiting resistors built into the LED & transistor units for example, provide point-to-point wires rather than rigid 1/2/3 unit connectors, etc etc.
That ELL gave me probably 100s of hours of fun and learning over the next 5 years.
I certainly would not WITHHOLD Snap Circuits from a kid because they might not know what's inside the IC.
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 pursue it on his own. It begins with curiosity about something, of course, but ultimately requires him to develop the skills and then the confidence to where he wants to begin doing things on his own.
The problem is in the things that parents subject their children to that actually drive the children away from those things... like piano lessons! (I say this as a pianist that has taught many children over the years, and it's obvious which kids are being forced.)
What does he like to do?
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.
For each hour they "make", they earn "Doubloons" which they can spend on things they need for more projects - like soldering irons, Raspberry Pis, Framework Laptops, and more.
There are about 900 teenagers coding each day and working on different projects. He might be inspired by some of the things they're working on, like this personality quiz (https://personalityquiz.kittycat.hackclub.app/) and this overly aggressive cat-themed study timer (https://study.sticks.gay/).
One good beginner activity could be making his own homepage, which he'll earn a boba tea for: https://boba.hackclub.com
Building a fender-style guitar first is the easiest route, especially if you use a double-truss neck rod (get it from Stewart Mac). I recommend buying a pre-cut fret board as well. Also, you can use tung oil instead of clear coating. Trying to do an opaque spray job was my biggest regret. I could have oiled my beautiful mahogany body with much better results.
Tools:
* Flexible edge (for pegboard and body profile https://shop.pacificarc.us/products/flexible-edge-curves)
* Bandsaw (body and neck shape)
* Drill Press
* Router (For the neck and body cavities)
* Thickness planer (only need this once to plane the body wood before gluing)
* Curved carving knife (Like this https://ramelson.com/product/curved-hook-carving-knife/) to profile the neck.
* Pipe clamps
Nice to have tools:
* Oscillating spindle sander
* Belt sander
* Router table
I recommend using an easy to work wood like maple for the first attempt. I found mahogany to be a lot of effort to work. Expect the project to take quite a wile. I think mine took 200 hours.
I think sort of "choose your own adventure" projects like that are great, and they also force you to really understand everything you're doing. You can also scale the scope of the "project" to whatever you want; it can even be a sort of iterative process. More importantly (imo) you're left with a bunch of components that he can tinker around with endlessly :)
I believe SparkFun has a similar ecosystem of products and projects as well.
I'm not affiliated with either of these companies.
- 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
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.
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.
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.
Here's my method: https://jsnow.bootlegether.net/cbg/cbg.html
Like, I was making games in Visual Basic. Made a little Tyrian clone. It had total of two levels :D
The key is to spark something that creates an obsession IMO.
For the drone I just bought the parts over time and one day he asked if he could put it all to put it all together. It was a bit of a bitch debugging his mistakes but I’m glad he took an interest and applied himself
https://www.autopi.io/blog/raspberry-pi-can-bus-explained/
This is a great way to get Linux experience. One student used these skills to work on Medtronic GI Genius via YOLO AI.
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).
I can think of a million things, but ask him what he's interested in doing.
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.
I prefer to give my kids opportunities in things they wouldn't otherwise have known about, or had the resources to discover. They can then decide if thats something they want to go deeper on.
This notion of "let kids be kids" minimizes their development needs and exposure to important learning experiences.
8th graders need to make noise.
Good luck.