Interesting Sunday Projects

5 Simple Ways to Stretch Your Gaming Dollar By Z.

November 07, 2008 | 7:00:00 AMCategories: Culture, Games, How-To

Image by Simon Davison via FlickrBeing a geek is both time-consuming and expensive, and being a gamer-geek even more so. Sadly, with our economy in perpetual shambles, the latter seems to have become an even more difficult issue than the former. So how’s a gamer supposed to afford new titles as well as incidentals like, y’know, food?

Subscription-based rental services like GameFly can alleviate both the sting of current generation game prices and the hassle of driving to your local retailer to stand in line with the rest of the yahoos, but this comes at a cost. That cost, of course, is the lack of personal ownership. The disc isn’t yours; it’s merely in your possession. While renting is a fiscally responsible move, it goes against that innate nerdy urge to procure, to collect. But for those of us who are unable to resist that damnable desire to acquire there is a solution. To paraphrase Ash Williams, one merely needs to shop smart.

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Your Costume Automatically Loses By Chris Radcliff October 31, 2008 | 6:30:00 AMCategories: Hacking the Holidays, How-To, Star Wars I'm not one to talk; if I make a costume at all this year, it's likely to be something that's geek simple, like MC Frontalot. Still, I think everyone can agree that this AT-ST costume by Cheston wins the geek costume contest hands, or at least articulated legs, down:

Design and construction are described in great detail on the MY350Z forums, so I expect to see a whole platoon of these next year.

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Geeks Getting Off the Grid By Bruce Stewart

October 02, 2008 | 7:30:00 AMCategories: How-To

So you think it's hard being a parent in today's society? Try having a newborn in a one-room house you built out of mud and rocks! Actually, my brother-in-law Abe and his wife Josie, are doing just that, and he tells me that little Leo fits quite nicely into their off-the-grid lifestyle. And they're happy to share the details of how they're getting off the grid so others can benefit from their experiences. While the topics they cover may not fit into the normal definition of "geeky" technologies, learning how to harness your own energy from the sun and the wind, building shelters out of compressed earth, and creating aquaponic systems (the practice of growing vegetables and fish together in a man-made ecosystem) seem pretty darn cool and geeky to me. If this sort of thing intrigues you, Abe and Josie have just updated their Vela Creations website with a ton of useful info and resources on things like wind-power, solar power, water storage, grey water, composting and much, much more. They are truly "walking the walk" when it comes to getting off the grid and trying to live their lives using sustainable means, and they are documenting all of their projects and research in the hope that others will be inspired to adopt more sustainable lifestyles. I know reading their site has inspired me to get back to that water collection system project I've been talking about for too long now...

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Making a Pirate's Treasure Map By Russ Neumeier

September 19, 2008 | 4:55:00 PMCategories: How-To, Pirates

You've got the eye-patch. You've got the peg-leg. You've got your sword. You've got a Jolly Roger ready for hoisting. Your voice is hoarse from talking like a pirate all day yesterday, but you don't have a treasure map...What do you do? Make one. It's what we did on a rainy Saturday morning. And you probably already have everything you need at home right now. It starts with a paper grocery bag, and ends with a bit of playing with fire.

Curious? Just follow the Wired How-To Wiki article Make A Treasure Map From A Paper Bag. Better yet, try it out and add details to the wiki page when you're done.

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How To Build a World: Working with Wikis By Michael Harrison Projects, RPGs

September 06, 2008 | 10:00:00 AMCategories: Games, How-To,

In this third post in my series on world building (start at the beginning if you are so inclined), I'm going to talk about process. Specifically, how you can build your new world one article at a time using a wiki service. A wiki is simply a type of web-based content management that employs multiple pages and cross-referencing for knowledge management. In plain English, it's a way for you to unload all your fancy ideas into a centralized bucket in an organized and easy fashion. Better still, you can share access with friends and players. There are a number of free wiki services available. I've used PBWiki and Google Sites to moderate success, but the one that I've settled on for my weekly Dungeons and Dragons game is a site called Obsidian Portal. A wiki provider and Web 2.0-style social networking site all rolled into one, Obsidian Portal is designed specifically for RPG campaigns and is perfect for world building. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, and video is just a whole bunch of pictures strung together, I put together a screencast of my process for using Obsidian Portal for my world building campaigns. Check it out: World Building with Obsidian Portal from Michael Harrison on Vimeo. See also: How To Build a World, Part 1: The Basics How To Build a World, Part 2: Questions to Ask

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How to Build a Paper Cup Waterwheel By Kathy Ceceri

September 05, 2008 | 7:30:00 AMCategories: Environment, How-To

I live in an area -- near the confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers in upstate New York -- that was once booming with water-driven industry. Today hydroelectricity is still an important source of energy. In fact, in place of the old mills on the creek that lies on the other side of our street there's a small hydroelectric generator. The plastic cup waterwheel, right, is one of many designs I showed the students in the Solar, Wind and Water Power class I taught last summer. I just added the directions to Wired.com's How to Wiki. Using only masking tape, styrofoam plates and pencils, it's a perfect project for little kids who aren't ready for hot glue guns or power tools. I adapted the paper cup waterwheel from Wheels at Work: Building and Experimenting with Models of Machines by Bernie Zubowski, illustrated by Roy Doty. (I used to love Doty's "Wordless Workshop" home improvement comics when I was a kid.) The wooden wheel is my version of this kit, and the small foam wheel in the center is based on directions for a fully-functioning mini-hydroelectric generator. I tried making the turbine but couldn't get it to work. If you have better luck, let me know!

Kathy Ceceri is the author of Around the World Crafts: Great Activities for Kids who Like History, Math, Art, Science and More!

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Making Fireflies By Dan Olson How-To

August 29, 2008 | 10:30:00 AMCategories: Electricity, Family, Fun,

In busy times, it takes a certain combination of inspiration, spare time and a little cash to stop dreaming and start making. I was inspired to make a cheap solar light back in June based on an Instructables post involving deconstructing solar garden lights and reinstalling them in mason jars. My inspiration held out long enough to search fruitlessly for some cheap solar lights but not long enough to make anything.

Fortunately for me, Evil Mad Scientist attacked the concept again recently, further reducing the time and money required to get something made. Inspired again, I picked up 12 CR2032 3v batteries and a bag of 25 diffused 5mm yellow LEDs at my local electronics store. A twenty-five cent roll of tape from the bargain bin completed my purchases. Total cost was under $20. One firefly was about $1.50. I made the first firefly at a stoplight on the way home. Unwrap the battery, slide one leg (lead) of the LED onto each side of the battery and you have a firefly. A little tape around the battery covering both leads keeps it lit. If it won't light up, flip the LED around for a quick polarity lesson. The longer leg is the positive anode. At my house, proper presentation is the key to early adoption. You can't be too excited about a new project or they'll go back to the couch. Casually toss a lit firefly on the table and instruct them to stay out of your bag and they'll have ten of them glowing before dinner's ready. True to their nature as little makers, they started testing multiple LEDs on the same battery. Luck (and some bent LED leads) taught them about switching the power on and off. We put one firefly in an empty widemouth drink bottle and made a garden lamp, no glass jars required.

This project was painfully simple, requiring absolutely no skill and little cash. It was fun to see the boys light up their fireflies and run around in the dark. Inspiration, time and cash all came together. LED's, Fireflies, Li-ion Battery (Grab some multi-LED's and switch the polarity, they'll switch colors)

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GeekDad Rates 7 Methods for Learning to Ride a Bike By Dave Banks Activities

August 27, 2008 | 9:00:00 AMCategories: How-To, Outdoor

We've been trying to get our kids to ride their bikes for about a year and a half. It hasn't been a constant battle -- we would try for a bit, then take a month off. Rinse. Repeat. It's been tough, but that's what makes today so rewarding. Today, we have success. All three kids riding: spinning around the driveway, hair waving in the wind, ear-to-ear smiles on their faces. Life is good. Last year, Geekdad Dan Olson took a look at how to encourage kids to ride bikes. Dan made a lot of great points addressing the psychological aspects of motivating kids to ride. Today, I'm going to evaluate a variety of physical methods for getting kids on two wheels.

Like many parents, we had our children riding tricycles at an early age. This gave them two necessary skills that would carry over to bike riding: pedaling and steering. These very early experiences paid off too. When the time came for a bike with training wheels, they weren't afraid and understood what they were supposed to do. In researching this post, I was amazed to find that quite a few people feel very strongly that training wheels on a child's bike are an unadulterated evil on par with letting kids play with loaded automatic weapons in the middle of a highway during rush hour. We don't subscribe to this school of thought. Rather, we believe that just getting the child on the bike is the most important thing. Our kids aren't going to be commuting to school on bikes anytime soon. So bicycles - for them - are a tool for exercise and fun. And as long as they were riding around outside instead of lounging around watching Spongebob, we were happy.

When it came time to ditch the training wheels, I did some research on the best practices for getting kids rolling on two wheels. I was surprised at the variety of methodologies people had for getting kids to ride by themselves. Here are seven of the most popular ways, plus a rating on how each works:

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The Styrobot By Kevin Kelly

August 25, 2008 | 4:22:41 PMCategories: How-To, Projects

For years I've been saving the styrofoam packing that protects the new devices that arrive in our American household. Computer gear especially is sheathed in custom-fit styrofoam armor, and I hated to throw it out because it was beautiful stuff. I took the little bits to the recycling center, but the large, intricate, weirdly organic pieces I stockpiled in my basement. I was just looking for an idea of what to do with them. A year ago I saw pictures of two styrofoam robots created by Michael Salter at a museum in North Carolina (before he exhibited one in San Jose this past June). They were stunning. Not only was it art from junk, but it looked easy to do. My son and I could handle this. A recycled styrobot would be the perfect geek dad project. I had five years' worth of foam accumulated. I had some space in my studio to assemble it. I got my foam cutters handy. So we began designing. The bot had to fit in one story. I also wanted it to disassemble easily so I could move it. I decided to make it in five parts: a torso and four limbs. I would cut the foam when I needed to, but did not want to spend much time sculpting it. I discovered the fastest way to glue the pieces was using silicon seal. The final Styrobot looks like this:

The Styrobot is made entirely of the foam packaging material that arrived at our house in the last five years. I learned that a styrobot consumes a huge amount of this stuff so several times I was tempted to grab pieces I'd see in other people's garbage. But the monster was already getting too big. Once you started adding the detail work, you can go through a lot of styrofoam. So I committed to depleting the pile I had, and to use every bit somewhere on the bot.

We worked on it off an on for many many months. This delay was necessary because the silicon glue needs one or two weeks to fully set. It took me a while to figure this out, even though the sealant instructions (which of course I did not read at first) clearly spell this out. I figured that like most glues it would set overnight, but it really does take several weeks for the silicon glue to set if there is any stress or weight on the joint. We used Lexel silicon sealant, which is very sticky, clear, and cheap. I think we went through four tubes of it.

The second major tool needed for a Styrobot is a foam cutter. On Amazon I purchased a Woodland 4-inch hobby version running off a low-volt transformer. The thin wire heats up when the the switch in the handle is slid on. The hot wire slices through the foam easily. It takes some practice to cut square and even, but even kids can get the hang soon enough. There's always plenty of foam scraps to practice on. There was no replacement wire included with the Woodland, which is a shame because you WILL break the wire eventually. I replaced it with some nichrome wire I had on hand. Overall this tool is handy. Heats up instantly, and for 95% of the time is all you need. The drawback to the hobby cutter is that it can't handle foam wider than four inches in its smallest dimension. Some big screen packing overwhelms that dimension, so I built a really fast-and-dirty foam cutter from some steel piping, guitar strings and a model train transformer.

Any number of plans for large foam cutters can be found on Instructables and elsewhere on the web. Main thing is to have a sturdy frame to stretch the wire, and connect the wire to a low volt transformer. I thought a variable transformer such as used for model trains would allow me to adjust the temperature to the proper degree, but I found that it didn't matter for the set up I had. For the cutting wire I used cheap guitar strings. The thinner strings make a nicer cut, but I found they tend to break quicker. The broader the cut the more pressure you exert on the wire, which tends to weaken when hot. My son and I had a lot of fun making it. Pick up a piece and glue. Cut and glue. Styrofoam is pretty light, so the entire robot can't weigh more than 20 pounds. The two legs of the robot are free standing. The torso sits by gravity up the two legs. The two arms

hang on the torso via a small styro shelf on the arms. I can move the whole body in pieces in a few minutes. Maybe I should rent him out. Here the Sytrobot hangs out in my office.

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Summer Project: Brewing Root Beer By Anton Olsen

August 19, 2008 | 2:00:00 PMCategories: How-To

Nothing says summer better than Root Beer floats. This weekend the kids and I started on the first half of that magical concoction. Hopefully we can find an ice-cream maker to borrow for the second half next weekend. We started out with a kit from MrBeer.com (aka Mr. Root Beer). We might consider graduating to other sodas and getting our ingredients from cheaper sources, but the price of the Mr. Root Beer kit isn't much over $20 shipped. I have brewed a few batches of their beer in the past so had the handy 2.5 gallon keg for mixing the root beer and a box of empty bottles for bottling.

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How To Build a World: Questions to Ask By Michael Harrison Projects, RPGs

August 17, 2008 | 10:00:00 AMCategories: Games, How-To,

Last week, I posted an introduction to world building. In this second post of the series, I wanted to address the first step that any worldsmith should take in their journey of creation. Before you draw a map, before you write up a mythology, before you start naming plants and mountains and seas, you need to think about what questions to ask. This might seem a little backward. Shouldn't you be answering questions about your world? Well, yes, of course. In time. I've found that it helps to first collect a series of questions to ask about your new world. Making up an entire world from scratch isn't easy work, and if you're like me, sometimes you don't even know where to begin. There are a lot of great resources out on the web with questionnaires and checklists for just this purpose:

•

• •

Novelist Eliza Wyatt, who opened the invitation for August as World Building Month, posted a handy list of world building topics that can guide your own questions. The Wikipedia entry on Worldbuilding has a section of Construction Steps that provide fodder for the brain. James Wyatt, award-winning game designer and author of the 4th edition D&D Dungeon Master Guide, has a column in the now-online Dungeon Magazine called Dungeoncraft. Wyatt embraces the game's new default "points of light, world of darkness" setting: the world is a vast expanse of wilderness with flickering beacons of civilization. This gives every world builder the chance to fill in their area with whatever strikes their fancy. Read every column if you can.

Once you've built up a list of questions to answer, you have a checklist for your world building pursuits. Now you can start to answer those questions: •

• •

Write out your answers by hand in a notebook. GameMastery makes a nifty prefabricated Campaign Workbook that you can use for this purpose, but some paper and pen work fine, too. Type everything out into Word, or even better, Google Docs. Then you can share it with others. My personal favorite: create a wiki! I'll discuss this in more detail with the next article, but nothing beats your own wiki for world building purposes. Get a free account with PBWiki, Google Sites, or even better, Obsidian Portal, a wiki/social site designed specifically for roleplaying campaigns and world building.

Next up: building your world with a wiki. See also: How To Build a World, Part 1: The Basics How To Build a World, Part 3: Working with Wikis Photo by Bill in Ash Vegas

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How To Build a World: The Basics By Michael Harrison Projects, RPGs

August 06, 2008 | 1:00:00 PMCategories: Games, How-To,

Kids love to build their own worlds. They do it without prompting as they "play pretend" with toys and with one another, but some excel and go on to greatness. Everyone takes joy in a good story, but one that is set in a dynamic, believable world really stands out. When he was a young boy, C.S. Lewis and his brother created the world of Boxen, inhabited by anthropomorphic animals. Lewis later went on to integrate many of his childhood creations into his Narnia books. At age 8, Ed Greenwood wrote of the "stoic swordsman Durnan, the blustering old rogue Mirt, and the all-wise, ancient wizard Elminster." Today, those denizens of the Forgotten Realms are familiar to millions of Dungeons and Dragons players worldwide. Both authors are well-known for their stories, but they're even more renowned for the worlds that they created. Since August is World Building Month and I've been hard at work on creating the setting for my new D&D campaign, I'll be detailing the hobby, discussing some well-known created worlds, and outlining some tools and tricks that modern worldbuilders can use to craft their own imaginary universes. Read on for an introduction to the basics.

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Introducing Your Kids to the Web: Shopping By Dan Olson

July 25, 2008 | 9:00:00 AMCategories: How-To, Lego, Web

I wasn't paying much attention to how my boys were using their computer time last week. The laptop hummed on the dining room table as they plotted together. Over three daily sessions, they covered an oversized sheet of paper with Lego products, quantities and prices copied from the website. Their list was heavy with Bionicles and Indiana Jones sets. A recent birthday money purchase got them into Mars Mission. They were still developing their distribution plan for the wish list when the cleaning happened. The list was an accidental casualty, consigned to the bin in the alley. They moaned about the time lost on the list, but quickly sat back down and asked for more paper to start all over again. Then Dad stepped in and drew their attention to the glories of web based shopping sites. "Guys, look at the buttons on the Lego site. You can create online wish lists and save them. You could print them or even email them when you are done."

Point and Click is much more efficient than handwriting. The list was recreated (and expanded) in one session on the web. My nudge helped them explore the site, adjusting quantities and figuring out how to remove items from the lists. Sometimes I forget that they don't always know instinctively how to use the web. I'll just have to remember not to leave my credit card laying around.

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How to Keep Your Geek Cred After Seeing WALL-E By Matt Blum

July 07, 2008 | 11:00:00 AMCategories: How-To, Movies

As any proper geek, or anyone who's ever seen a movie with one, knows, it is absolutely essential to nitpick every movie you see. The amount of nitpicking should always be in inverse proportion to the quality of the movie, because that way you avoid ruining really good movies and you make lousy movies more fun by picking them into little, tiny pieces of nonsensical plot. To fail to nitpick after seeing a movie is to lose a certain measure of geek cred, particularly if you saw the movie with other geeks. To prevent this catastrophe from befalling our readers who see WALL-E (which by the way is the best movie I've seen this year and you should all go out and see it right now), we hereby provide a list of things you can nitpick about after seeing it. Send it to your iPhone/Blackberry, or—if you must —print it out for your hipster PDA and take it with you so you can sit back and enjoy the film without having to find the little things you can find fault with later. This list does not contain any spoilers for anyone who has seen a trailer for or read any review of the movie.

• • • • •

• •

•

Robots falling in love? Please. Sound doesn't travel in space. Everyone knows that. The space scenes would be kinda dull without the sound? Doesn't matter. EVE stands for "Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator," right? So how come she's looking for plants on Earth? It should be "terrestrial," not "extraterrestrial!" Could the 2001: A Space Odyssey references have been any more obvious? The Axiom has been jettisoning its trash into space for 700 years? Where does it get the raw material to fix the machines, feed the people, keep the engines going, etc.? I know the movie's trying to make a point about excess, but a ship like that just couldn't keep going that long without recycling! The waving? Seriously. It's cute and all, but it got a little out of hand. Pun intended. Why does EVE have to have a "female" personality? Just because WALL-E has a "male" one? It's OK for robots to fall in love, but homosexual robots are just unacceptable, obviously! If WALL-E and EVE reproduced, would their offspring go off to other planets, find plants, and then crush them into blocks?

Please understand that I hold the movie in the highest regard. That's why I could only think of eight things to list. If you have more, feel free to mention them in the comments.

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Duct Tape Bullwhip Looks Cool, is Just Dangerous Enough to be Fun By Ken Denmead

May 30, 2008 | 10:00:00 AMCategories: How-To

We got a cool nudge from Cindy Hopper, via our main man Chris, pointing to an awesome DIY post on her website demonstrating how to make a great Indiana Jonesstyle bullwhip at home from brown duct tape. You will need: • • •

1 roll of brown duck tape (we found this at Wal-Mart) cut into 3- 12 foot lengths 10″ piece of 3/8″ wooden dowel rod a foot or so of twine for the “popper” if desired

Begin by placing two chairs 12 feet apart. Place three strips of tape between the chairs.

Check out Cindy's blog for the rest of the instructions. And watch out, you could cause a welt with that thing!

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RFID Tags: Invasion of Privacy or a New Kind of Art? By John Baichtal

May 08, 2008 | 3:16:40 PMCategories: Art, Electricity, How-To

You've heard of them, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID, pronounced arfid) tags, little transmitter chips that broadcast your identity to airline check-in stations as well as to anyone who has a RFID snooper. The phenomenon has all sorts of people up in arms over the possibility we'd be tracked wherever we go, or that criminals could clone our identities from nearby. Some people use the technology to make art. This year, the Dana Centre's festival has asked us to run a 1 day RFID workshop on May 14th. Lead by Alex Zivanovic and Nick Weldin, this intensive 5 hour workshop will be followed by an exhibition of the work produced. Registration is free and open to at least 30 people. You will get to play with RFID modules, antennas and tags and an RFID shield for Arduino. These components will be sold on site. To be able to get something out of it, we advise people to have a solid understanding of Arduino already as 5 hours is very little time and Alex and Nick won't go over the basics. If you're a newbie but desperate to get going, do email me and I'll make sure you're put in a team with people who will help you get there faster. "Technology and design consultancy" tinker.it is offering the class in associated with the TakeAway Festival. To learn more go to http://www.takeawayfestival.com/node/129. (Note, the class is in London!)

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GeekDad Wayback Machine: Radios That Work for Free By Ken Denmead Experiments

April 21, 2008 | 9:38:00 AMCategories: How-To, Physics, Science

One year ago, you were reading this on GeekDad, by Kevin Kelly: Crystal Radios are an old standby of GeekDads. For the early mists of time GeekDads have been showing kids how to pull radio stations from thin air with the barest snips from the basement. Here are some very simple radios that you can have your kid make in a few hours. They seem too simple to work. But unbelievably they can hear music or talk programs coming out of this scraps of metal. How does it work?

Ken Reitz's cool crystal radio Aha! Glad you asked. They use the ingredients of the first radios, solid state bits of matter wired up in various circuits, including long antennas and coil tuners. There are an amazing variety of crystal radio types, some of them very sophisticated, and worthy of midnight engineers. The best source for instructions and books and a newsletter and kits for crystal radios is the Xtal Set Society. They sell the classic book Radios That Work For Free, and many other plans books. They also sell a bunch of very cheap but effective starter kits, like this one, the XS500 Basic Crystal Radio Kit, selling for $15.

Another great starter project for kids is the Quaker Oats box set broadcast AM crystal radio. You use the cardboard cylinder of a Quaker Oats box for the wire coil. Download the free PDF free plans. They even give some useful science fair hints for this project.

And for those who get into it big time they issue a paper newsletter with new circuits every six months or so. There's hours and hours, if not years, of things to play around with here. I've found that kids can at least get a weekend of curiosity from one of these.

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Hacker Collective Offers Nerd Classes By John Baichtal

April 10, 2008 | 3:56:00 PMCategories: How-To

Hacker hangout NYC Resistor is offering a bunch of great classes for those who want to get into hardware hacking.

Saturday, 4/12 -- Game Boy Software Development 101 Tuesday, 4/15 and Wednesday, 4/16 -- Soldering 102 and Electronics 102 If you miss out on those sessions, check out their calendar for more. They also have Soldering 101, Electronics 101, Rapid Prototyping and three Arduino classes. Makes me wish I lived in NYC! Someone tell me there's something as cool as this in Minneapolis!

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How-To Wiki: Kid-Proofing Your Home Theater By Brad Moon To, Television

March 31, 2008 | 7:57:20 PMCategories: DadHacks, Furniture, How-

It's not just a grilled cheese in the VCR to worry about these days... Advice from a GeekDad who has gone through an awful lot of time, energy and three sets of speakers in a quest to come up with a kid-resistant home theater set-up.

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Old Toothbrushes Never Die

By Dave Hinerman

March 26, 2008 | 7:43:14 PMCategories: How-To

While it's good to dream, many of us realize it'll be a long time before we can build our own Predator UAV. Or maybe we just want to start small. Thanks to YouTube and Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories we can build our own micro robot for cheap: Pager motors are available from a number of surplus electronic parts outlets such as BG Micro, or you could salvage one from an old pager or cell phone. (You do have old pagers and cell phones lying around, don't you?) While this may seem like a simple toy to entertain the kids for a few minutes, it actually demonstrates what may be up-and-coming medical technology. According to Gizmodo, scientists are proposing to build nanobots that use a similar means of propulsion to travel through a person's arteries, delivering medicine to clear blockages. Hows that for fighting plaque?

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Discover the Earth's Magnetic Personality By Dave Hinerman March 09, 2008 | 4:08:08 PMCategories: Earth, How-To, Science Experiments, Space

A gigantic spot, large enough to swallow the Earth in one gulp, slides into view on the edge of the Sun's surface. It creeps over a period of days across the Sun's visible disk, growing ominously. As it nears the Sun's

center a massive solar flare erupts from the spot, triggering a coronal mass ejection that hurls billions of tons of hot plasma directly at our planet! Is this the end of life on Earth? What can save us from being baked like cookies? Actually, this scenario has played out countless times in the Earth's history. The reason we're not all just crispy spots on the ground is that the Earth has a powerful magnetic field that deflects the solar plasma toward the North and South Poles. The only visible effect of this process is the aurora, which occurs when the energetic plasma strikes the atmosphere. But it's possible, with a little know-how and some easy to find materials, to see the effect solar plasma has on our protective magnetic field. As part of its public education efforts NASA has developed a series of simple classroom experiments that illustrate a number of principles from planetary and space science. This article, A Soda Bottle Magnetometer, describes how to make a device to measure how much the Earth's magnetic field flexes when it's struck by a coronal mass ejection. The magnetometer is essentially a very sensitive magnetic compass, and it's quite easy to build. It's also an easy project to "set it and forget it." You can set one up in a quiet corner and look at it occasionally; if the kids notice some activity you can take them to the NOAA Estimated 3-hour Planetary Kp-Index Web page to see if the professionals have seen the same magnetic activity. Strong fluctuations in Earth's magnetic field can indicate aurora activity, too. If you see a large change in the magnetic field in the evening, give a look to the sky outside. You may be rewarded with some visible aurora. Sunspot activity should pick up over the next five years or so, since a new 11-year sunspot cycle has just begun. So keep this little project in mind to show the kids that it's possible to see the invisible if you know how to look.

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Make a Tron light for your room By Russ Neumeier

February 25, 2008 | 7:01:00 AMCategories: How-To, Movies

Here's a fantastic Instructibles - a DIY light that looks like it came from the movie Tron.

The Instructibles post is here - How to Make a TRON Style Lamp. The instructions are very detailed, and my first thought is a bit much for a Geekdad with his kids...but I'll leave that up to you - after you've viewed each of the steps.

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Build Your Own Kaleidoscope By Dave Banks

February 15, 2008 | 10:42:00 AMCategories: How-To

I found this great video on making your own kaleidoscope out of basic household items. The best part is that it's so easy to do, you can experiment with different objects that you place in the business end of your kaleidoscope. You could build several in an afternoon. There are a few steps that require adult supervision, but this is a great hands-on project for kids! The possibilities are wide open - any suggestions for items to place in the kaleidoscope? Old LEDs ... Legos ... what do you think?

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Marshmallows: Not Just For Roasting Anymore By Brad Moon

February 14, 2008 | 11:37:00 AMCategories: Food, How-To, Models

My son, Adian’s, kindergarten class was learning about three dimensional shapes and objects last week. His teacher opted to bypass the usual visualization tools (Tinkertoys, LEGO, K’NEX, etc…) and used marshmallows and toothpicks instead. This actually worked out pretty well. The toothpicks can be stuck in pretty much any which way and the whole thing eventually hardens to a surprisingly strong finished product. Can’t really beat the economics of the supplies either, although I’m not sure how she got little pointy wooden sticks past the same school board that’s removing playground equipment because of insurance liability issues. But I digress… Aidan brought home his creation and I think it’s a pretty complex little model for a five year old.

I was curious about the possibilities inherent in this technique (what can I say, it’s been a slow week), and had a look around the Internets. Turns out, there’s quite a community of marshmallow builders out there. Not just primary school kids and their teachers, but engineers and MBAs seem to be rather taken by the marshmallow challenge. Who knew? Here's a Toronto marshmallow and toothpick building contest, for example, or how about marshmallow molecules? Once I started digging into the hidden realm of marshmallow-related activities, it became more and more difficult to ignore the cooler (I mean darker) side of the web. Of course, I can only be referring to the Laser Guided Marshmallow Blaster and its ilk. A link to instructions for building a variation on one of these devices was posted last year by Geekdad’s Bruce Stewart. If you don’t feel handy with the PVC, there are even companies that specialize in ready-built marshmallow armaments. Apparently you can eat these things too, but that doesn't seem to be as much fun...

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Star Wars Crafts for Kids

By Bill Day February 13, 2008 | 10:21:00 AMCategories: Art, Culture, Family, Fun, Geek Girls, How-To, Projects, Star Wars, Toys The Craft Magazine blog recently posted a video of Bonnie Burton talking about how to make Star Wars crafts. These ideas coud fuel a fun Dad+geeklet (or Mom+geeklet, or whole geek family) craft day.

Click To Play Read the Craft blog post and check out the StarWars.com Kids section for more.

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GeekDad Review: Eccentric Cubicle By John Baichtal

January 15, 2008 | 4:24:29 PMCategories: How-To

O'Reilly's Make series of books has made a name for itself with how-to books that present all manner of crazy projects that we are -- theoretically -- able to build ourselves. With Eccentric Cubicle, they deliver once again. However, as it's written by Kaden Harris, you get a delightfully eccentric slant as well. Harris is Canadian but doesn't use the Metric system. He worked as a graphic designer, a sewage treament specialist, and as a scrap yard worker ("My scrap fu is STRONG," he says on his web site.) Funny and extremely knowledgeable, you find yourself drawn into Harris's narrative while being continually amused by his banter. The projects comprise the bulk of the book so I'll start off with them. Let me just preface by saying that these projects are hard. While beginners will definitely enjoy reading the book, actually building the projects might require a decent quantity of tools and materials, not to mention considerable handiness about the workshop. Allegedly Harris sent out the plans to a number of beta testers but I have the feeling that these daring individuals were no slouches with the drill press. Here were my three favorites:

Liquid Light Meets the Disko Skull: Think of those gadgets that project trippy light effects, kinda like having a pan of colored oil and water on an overhead projector. Only the projector is stuck inside a PVC segment and pointed at a rotating mirror skull! Haze-o-Matic 3000: Basically a fog machine, but this one is steampunky and ornate with bellows and tubes everywhere. Way cool. Hammerhead Live Mechanical Drum Machine: Amazing-looking analog drum machine that bangs on drums and cymbals with wee drumsticks. The other projects in the book include Active Deskchop (a guillotine!), BallistaMail (a desk-mounted crossbow that shoots mail tubes), Maple Mike (golf ball launcher), DeskBeam Bass (turns your desk into a giant speaker), the Gysin Device (psychadelic spinner that allegedly induces an alpha state in your brain) and iBlow USB Bubble Machine (a quickie bubble maker). Densely packed with information, Eccentric Cubicle supplements the amazing projects with a series of "nano projects" that read as small tutorials. One covers home brewed wood finishes. Another helps you make a retractable electrical cord. This sort of thing can only add value to an otherwise outstanding read. One quibble: The book is called Eccentric Cubicle but I gotta say the connection to the workplace is a little thin. However, these projects are plenty cool wherever you build them. Anyway, as I've often said about DIY books, you can have tons of fun simply reading the book. Harris is an engaging and downright funny writer who is constantly including sassy asides, historical trivia, and jokes. For example, on the bubble machine project, he included 6 large grapefruits and a volleyball net into the parts list, just for yucks. A lot of DIY books are dry and to-the-point. Not this one. Eccentric Cubicle is an educational and entertaining read, whether or not you want a mail-flinging ballista on your desk.

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Toy Hacking Workshop By John Baichtal

January 01, 2008 | 11:26:30 AMCategories: Gadgets, How-To, Toys

I'm guessing at least a couple Robosapiens are busted already. Or maybe last year's gifts are long forgotten and destined for the trash bin. Well, what better to do with the junk than pop it open and play with its electronics? For those who are too scared or success-oriented to DIY, there's a cool-sounding Toy Hacking workshop being held in London this month. Don’t know what to do with those spare toys lying around post-Christmas season? This workshop just might be the thing for you. After a successful Pimp my Gadget workshop in Budapest, we have the pleasure of having Adam Somlai Fisher and Massimo Banzi lead his 2 day fun workshop during which you will be doing some wire bending, learn about basic electronics and hack toys! Put on by Tinker.it, a "technology and design consultancy" with offices in London, Milan and Amsterdam, they also offer workshops on Processing and Arduinos. No electronic knowledge is necessary but you do need to bring a laptop and a toy to hack. Tickets are 90 pounds or 75 for students. What I wanna know is, why can't we get cool workshops like this around where I live? (Note, the picture is of a similar event put on for students of the Willem de Kooning Academy.) Photo by Danja Vasiliev

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GeekDad Review: D.I.Y. Kids By John Baichtal

December 20, 2007 | 4:50:34 PMCategories: Art, Clothing, How-To

Observation #1: It's hard for male geeks to understand the difference between he-geek and she-geek. Every fiber in my body wants my daughters to like computers, electronics and gaming. What I have to accept is that girls have different interests and aptitudes that are, in their own way, just as geeky. Observation #2: Crafting is how girls connect to their inner geek. Recently I read D.I.Y. Kids (Princeton Architectural Press) by Ellen and Julia Lupton, identical twin sisters. One is a curator at the Cooper-Hewitt design museum, the other a professor of English at UC-Irvine. Together they've created a really neat book that helps young people with crafty, creative projects. With sections focused on Graphics, Home, Toys, and Fashion, the book's 90+ projects range from making your own stuffed animals to printing a zine or designing an alphabet. Graffiti wristbands, decoupage purses, book plates! All of the projects described were actually done by kids and the results displayed, giving the book a genuine feel. My favorite involves helping kids create their own tiling computer wallpaper. Most kids are content to download their wallpaper from the Internet, feeling like they can't create anything cool on their own. With the a technical how-to and some creative encouragement, whatever they create will be far more original and unique than anything found on the internet. None of the activities in the book are too crazy or difficult for the average kid.

I should note that, despite my weighty intro on girl geeks and craftiness, the fact is that most of the projects in this book can appeal to pretty much any kid, and these sorts of activities are a great precursor to more advanced geekiness. The most important skill to learn, of course, is the confidence that you can "Do It Yourself" and you don't need to buy something or limit yourself to a product's intended uses. D.I.Y. Kids inspires with its genuineness and creativity. If you're looking for geeky activities for kids too small for the "big stuff" or more interested in the crafty end of the spectrum, you could do worse than this book.

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Review: The Best of MAKE By John Baichtal Projects

December 16, 2007 | 5:32:34 PMCategories: Books, How-To,

"Void your warranty," MAKE Magazine urges its readers. The best DIY magazine ever, MAKE has been engaging and inspiring thousands of readers for the past two years. Now, in the The Best of MAKE they have collected their coolest 75 articles thus far. Here are a measly ten that caught my eye:

Your Electronics Workbench: What you need to get started in hobby electronics by Charles Platt. A lot of people interested in getting into electronics find themselves facing the puzzle of what equipment they need. This article answers those questions, and it's followed by a comprehensive list of various gadgets and where to get them, Rumble Mouse, by Greg Lipscomb. Add a cell phone vibrator to your mouse to let you feel those caps you bust! Two BEAMbots: Trimet and Solarroller, by Gareth Branwyn. BEAM robots are, like, a kajillion times cooler than those battling robots you see on ESPN 6. Among their many unqiue attributes, BEAM bots are built without expensive microcontrollers, which, until the development of cheap units like the Arduino, was a huge stumbling block to amateurs trying to break into the hobby. Hack a RoboSapien, by Dave Prochnow. As I mentioned in a previous review, Wowwee's line of robots -- including the Robosapien -- were largely created by Mark Tilden, a robotics guru who encourages the hacking of his creations. Gun-Operated Alarm Clock, by Roger Ibars. Forget banging the top of your alarm clock to turn it off, shoot it with a video game light gun. VCR Cat Feeder, by James Larsson. Hack a VCR to dispense kitty food at a certain time. Everyone over thirty just made a joke about flashing 12:00s. Making Biodesel, by Bob Elam. Make diesel fuel out of french fry oil! Rocket-Launched Camcorder, by John Maushammer. Anything rocket launched is cool. Add a disposable drugstore camcorder to the mix and record your flight for all time. Building an Ornithopter, by William Gurstelle. Author of such classics as Whoosh Boom Splat: The Garage Warrior's Guide to Building Projectile Shooters, Gurstelle describes how to build a model aircraft that flies by flapping its wings! Microcontroller Programming, by Sparkle Labs. One of the most mindboggling innovations of the past few years, and which has not gotten a lot of press, is the development of dirt cheap microcontrollers. Granted, it's not the sort of story that can be sandwiched between "puppy saving kid" stories on the 5:00 news, so I suppose it's not surprising it hasn't sent weeping crowds into the streets. But trust me, it's big. Plus 65 others! Whether it's inspiration or just enjoyable reading, this book is chock full of cool stuff. Each story includes a description of equipment and supplies you need to do the project, followed by step-by-steps. But my favorite parts are the writers' asides where you get a flash of the DIY spirit that made these projects possible in the first place.

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GeekDad Review: The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide By John Baichtal

November 28, 2007 | 12:51:38 PMCategories: How-To, Lego

A lot of LEGO builder books are intended for power users. They employ obscure Technic parts in their projects and assume a level of sophistication beyond the ability of most casual builders. The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide (No Starch) is not one of them! ULBG is directed firmly at beginners, but doesn't neglect aspiring power users. Author Allan Bedford starts out with the basics. What's the correct terminology for the flat pieces and the wedge-shaped bricks? (Plates and slopes!) What are the best ways to connect bricks to maximize your model's stability? One section goes into detail about brick storage. After a certain point, the whole "big tub" approach begins to be inefficient because you spend a long time search for the right brick. Bedford offers tips on how to organize your collection.

ULBG is extremely readable, and part of the reason is that Bedford intended his book for two audiences: first, kids in the 7-10 range who had built LEGO products but needed a gentle nudge to create their own designs. Secondly, he thought adults might like it. "I knew that there were latent adult LEGO builders who just needed a bit of information and encouragement in order to be able to begin working on their own models." To Bedford's credit, he does not talk down to his younger readers. In true geek tradition, the book is equally readable for both kids and adults. Continue reading "GeekDad Review: The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide" »

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Fire in the Sky: Collecting Iron Micrometeorites By Dave Hinerman Space

November 27, 2007 | 9:05:00 AMCategories: Astronomy, How-To,

Perhaps as a child you made a wish on a falling star, and perhaps as a parent you've encouraged your young ones to do the same. But wouldn't it be neat to have a falling star you could carry in your pocket, to make a wish on whenever you wanted to? Falling stars aren't stars at all but meteors - bits of rock or iron that have drifted through space until they were caught by the Earth's gravity and pulled into the atmosphere. Most meteors burn up as they hurtle through the upper atmosphere, making the familiar bright

streaks we call shooting or falling stars. Some meteors are large enough to survive the trip and become meteorites - meteors that have reached Earth's surface. Finding and collecting large meteorites is challenging, but micrometeorites can be collected in your own back yard. Micrometeorites are tiny bits of meteoric material that survived the trip through the atmosphere not because they're large, but because they're so small they travel slowly through the air and don't get hot enough to burn up. This article at Bizzarre Stuff tells how to collect iron micrometeorites anywhere using distilled water, a magnet, a microscope, and a few household items: http://bizarrelabs.com/met.htm This article, a lab assignment for a Physical Science class at California State University, Fresno, gives a simpler method: http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~fringwal/09-The-Hunt-for-Micrometeorites.pdf According to the Bizzarre Stuff article, the best times to catch micrometeorites is during a major meteor shower. One of the best showers is the Geminid shower, which is conveniently just a few weeks away. Also, a contributor to the article says that another good way to find micrometeorites is to melt fresh snow. Snowflakes usually form around dust particles, but in a pinch any tiny piece of rock or iron will do. Since winter is fast approaching us northern geeks, we're coming up on prime micrometeorite hunting season! So the next time you see a falling star, don't just make a wish - catch it!

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DIY Cardboard Castles By John Baichtal

November 21, 2007 | 6:55:38 AMCategories: How-To

A recent GeekDad post mentioned a UK company that will send you a cardboard rocket for 30 pounds (around $US62) plus shipping. For those of you who found that deal less than titillating, I have a better deal for you: A company called Mr. McGroovy's Box Rivets sells kits for building cardboard castles, pirate ships, and other designs. Basically you supply the cardboard and McGroovy's supplies the instructions, patterns and rivets. The latter are the company's signature product. They are plastic attachments that permit you to connect two pieces of cardboard far more efficiently than tape or staples. In addition, they are easily removable (with a special tool) and reusable.

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Homemade Speaker By Don Shump

November 09, 2007 | 1:31:08 PMCategories: How-To, Projects

Just in time for the weekend: a homebrew speaker using a plastic cup, business card, Legos, wire and a magnet.

How it works? The coil generates a magnetic field when electricity is applied to it. The magnet attracts

or repels the coil and makes it to move. The vibration generates the sound that we hear thanks to the air. Most of today speakers have a resistance of 8 ohms. This homemade speaker may have less than 8 ohms and may not be able to make loud sounds but basically it shows exactly how it works. Using different materials, may cause the sound to change, even to make it louder. I'm certain that you could replace some of the bits with what you have on hand. Let us know what sort of hacks you come up with! How To Make a Speaker (via BoingBoing)

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GeekDad Review: Making Things Talk By John Baichtal November 08, 2007 | 8:40:04 AMCategories: Gadgets, Hacking kids, How-To, Projects

About the time home computers became commonplace, people got the bright idea that this wondrous new gadget could interface with everything electrical in your house. Why couldn't you control lights and temperature via a computer? Why can't your clock radio talk to your toaster? Ultimately, while fascinating, the home automation phenomenon never really took off. Part of the problem was that the microcontrollers needed for interfacing between analog and digital worlds were prohibitively expensive. No longer. A couple of years ago a half-dozen developers collaborated on a microcontroller project that eventually came to be called the Arduino. Affordable, open source, programmed by freeware and easy to use, the platform's popularity has grown exponentially since its introduction. Already tinkerers have begun expanding Arduino's horizons beyond anyone's expectations. For instance, Leah Buechley developed a wearable Arduino and accompanying clothing-based power supply, actuators and sensors (connected with conductive thread, how cool is that?) Clearly the idea has expanded far beyond smart homes. Enter Making Things Talk: Practical Methods for Connecting Physical Objects. Written by Tom Igoe, one of the original developers of the Arduino microcontroller, the book is a guide to this exciting new platform. In some respects the technology can intimidate because it such a huge idea: interfacing the analog with the digital, or as Igoe puts it, making things talk to other things. And while the Arduino has made these onceimpossible tasks attainable, there is still a learning curve. Igoe pulls no punches; while there is some introductory info, the book assumes you have a basic familiarity with electronics, as well as experience programming microcontrollers. The Arduino platform uses Processing, a free and open-source programming language designed for artists and hobbyists, so the learning curve is relatively low compared to some other languages.

Igoe's book takes the reader step by step, beginning with tools you'll need, covering various networking theories, programming tips and other techniques. Along the way he outlines 26 projects that are the meat of the book; the first is a pink monkey that has been hacked to serve as a computer mouse. Project 13 involves relaying solar cell data wirelessly. Project 19 shows you how to determine a heading using a digital compass. Some of the projects serve mainly to illustrate many of the different possibilities of the technology rather than to be "cool" -- for instance, Project 8 shows how to make a 19,200 baud infared transmitter-receiver set but doesn't pair that tech with some neat gizmo. Others are more of a complete project, like the cymbal monkey (Project 12) that bangs its cymbals when it senses toxic chemicals in the air around it. The cool thing and the scary thing about the Arduino phenomenon is the vastness of its potential. Making Things Talk is a thick and very dense manual that does an admirable job of covering as much terrain as possible.

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Build Your own Dobsonian Telescope By John Baichtal

November 06, 2007 | 4:37:56 PMCategories: Astronomy, How-To

Ah, November. Clear dark nights, not too cold. A great month for stargazing -- to say nothing of the Leonid meteor shower, which will swing by in a couple of weeks. For meteors, all you need is your eyes, or else a good pair of binoculars. But if you want to look at planets, you'll need a telescope. You have a couple of options: buy one or, less practically but far more geekily, make a telescope! OK, let's get building! While the idea of a DIY telescope sounds intimidating, it's far from impossible thanks to a guy named John Dobson. A former Hindu monk who started building telescopes to learn about the universe, he eventually left his order (which frowned on his explorations) and began promoting astronomy as a hobby. He designed a simple and easy-to-build altazimuth mount for a Newtonian telelescope, a combination which became known as a Dobsonian. So how do you build your own Dobsonian telescope? Not surprisingly, the answer lies on the internet. There are a number of schematics available. Craig Jones built two telescopes and kindly provides notes, photos and PDF diagrams on his site. The San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers and Ray Cash have similar resources on their site. Typically materials cost around $300 and up, depending on the design. The mirror, finder and eyepieces comprise the bulk of the expense, and some are cheaper than others.

Finally, if you'd like to build your own telescope but need more help than the schematics provide, consider looking online for a kit. There are many, many suppliers out there; expect it to cost a little more than a home-made Dobsonian and a lot more than a "department store" telescope. Photo by Craig Jones.

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DIY Jabba the Hutt By Ken Denmead

November 05, 2007 | 8:11:00 AMCategories: How-To

Found on Boing Boing this weekend, detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to make your own, "life"-sized Jabba the Hutt. Dang, wish I'd seen this before Halloween! Link.

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Forbidden LEGO: Do Try This at Home By John Baichtal

November 03, 2007 | 10:24:51 AMCategories: How-To, Lego

Forbidden LEGO, it conjures up memories of my mom busting me for making guns with my LEGO bricks -- we had a no war toys house. But the title actually refers to the fact that the models presented in the book would never, for a variety of reasons, be produced as an official LEGO product. As the authors explain, the company sensibly enforces very strict and specific rules that builders follow in creating models. Of course, countless prototypes are created that violate these rules; some of them these ended up in Forbidden LEGO. So what are these rules that cannot be broken? The authors (former LEGO employees) describe them thus: 1) No non-LEGO parts. 2) No modifications required of users, for example, drilling a hole in a LEGO brick or clipping off part of it. 3) No shooting out a projectile strong enough to tear through Seran wrap. 4) Never use glue when building. 5) No tinkering with battery pack voltages. With all the introductory and explanatory text, and with detailed CAD instructions, there are actually only five projects in the book. I have no problem with this! There's a lot more value to be gleaned from the book than just the models. The authors' funny anecdotes as well as their insights on the LEGO corporate dynamic serve as a welcome accompaniment to the projects. The first model is a paper airplane launcher. The second project describes a catapult that uses a spoon to launch candy through the air. The third is a cannon that shoots ping-pong balls. The third project is an ATV supercharged by two MINDSTORMS battery packs. And the final project shows you how to build a LEGO machine pistol that shoots out bricks at high speeds. Of course, keeping with the book's theme, every model includes a list of LEGO rules violated. In some respects this book embodies the true value of the LEGO toy -- it's not the official models you buy in boxes, though those are great; we're having so much fun with Mars Mission at home. But what's wonderful about LEGO is what you invent after you build the model. You throw away the instructions and create something new and crazy. Whether it's forbidden or not is up to you.

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Olafur Eliasson's Nerdy Art By Kevin Kelly Activities, Toys

October 30, 2007 | 8:30:23 PMCategories: How-To, Outdoor

More than once, the nerdy Icelandic/Danish artist Olafur Eliasson has donated 3 tons of white lego bricks to a community and had their kids construct cityscapes. The resulting art is beautiful. I much prefer fantasy constructions with Lego, to any reproduction of an existing thing, which most Lego building seems to be about. These community built cities have all the glory of community built cities in real life.

Eliasson has attracted a following among technologically oriented folks in recent years. His art is often conceptual, brainy, and frequently geometrical or even mathematical. He is said to be one of the most represented modern artists on Flickr, because his stuff is so photographic and technical, yet very approachable. Perfect Flickr fodder. If you can catch a show of his at any museum don't miss it and don't forget to bring your kids. For those in the Bay Area, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art current has a very nice installation of Eilasson art. Our 11 year old son loved it, and I can't say that's true about most modern art. This show includes a wire frame car covered with ice in a 0degree room. You need a blanket to view it. Very exciting. And some cool wave making machines, weird mathematical walk-in kaleidoscopes, and cool stain glass tunnels.

My favorite, though, was a room full of his models and experiments in shapes. You could see the rough work, the illuminated aspects of prototypes, and the sheer genius arrived at by trying and trying. It's a great show. We went directly from this show to the Exploratorium without missing a beat.

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Halloween Panic Time By John Baichtal

October 30, 2007 | 2:18:09 PMCategories: How-To

A couple weeks ago I wrote about how it was high time to get ready for Halloween. Well, guess what? With crunch time waaaaaaaaaayyy past, prepare for full-blown panic if your costume isn't done or your party plans are incomplete. I know at my house, there will be some tense moments with a hot glue gun before my mission is done. Here are a couple of last minute resources you may have overlooked: 1) Candy companies love Halloween. For example, Hersheys.com has tons of resources like spooky treats, costume ideas, trick or treat bags, and pumpkin ideas. 2) Check out GeekDad fave Instructables' DIY Halloween 2007 photo gallery. Most of the entries have instructions or at least an interesting story behind them so don't be shy with the mouse. 3) If all else fails, rush to your nearest bookstore and pick up Make Magazine's Halloween special edition. In addition to costume advice, the zine has tons of ideas for haunted houses, ghostly parties and creepy canapés. Cylon Jack-o-Lantern! Home-made fog machine! Edible heads! Photo courtesy of Windell H. Oskay, www.evilmadscientist.com.

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The Snap-O-Lantern! By Vincent Janoski

October 26, 2007 | 7:23:37 PMCategories: How-To

Windell Oskay at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratory shows us how to make a snap-o-lantern sure to scare the bajeezus out of trick-or-treaters. A clever use for those mini-pumpkins that bounce around our house every year for sure! Plus, it is a good excuse to delve into microcontrollers. There is still time folks, there is still time. For me, alas, there is none, being in the final stages of making two costumes for the geeklings this year that incorporate fleece, vinyl, motors, and liquid. But the snap-olantern is giving me all kinds of ideas to work in moving parts for next year's pumpkin carving!

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AOL CD Art Bike: the Koicycle! By John Baichtal

October 20, 2007 | 12:44:26 PMCategories: How-To

We all know the initially ingenious-seeming but ultimately annoying and doomed AOL CD distribution program of the '90s and early '00s. As AOL lapses into well-deserved obscurity, we are left with the fact that over ONE BILLION of the disks have been distributed. While some found their way into collections the vast majority became landfill. A tiny percentage were turned into art. The following is the Koicycle, a fishshaped art bike created by a guy named Matthew. The scales, of course, are AOL CDs.

Photo courtesy of Matthew.

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Maker Faire Austin This Weekend By Bruce Stewart October 19, 2007 | 11:42:13 AMCategories: Art, Family, Field Trips, Fun, Gadgets, How-To, Outdoor Activities

I'm here in Austin, Texas getting ready for this weekend's Maker Faire at the Travis County Expo Center. If you're anywhere in the vicinity of Austin and looking for some good, geeky family fun, I highly recommend checking out this event. There's lots of posts on makezine.com about the preparations taking place, and a tangible air of excitement around town as geeks are arriving with all kinds of interesting gear and gadgets. I don't know who is more pumped up for this one, me or my boys (ages 5 and 12). "Can't the Maker Faire start today??" my 5-year-old just pleaded with me.

I'll have my camera in hand and will post some highlights from the Maker Faire here, but I know already it will be a whirlwind weekend with not enough time to see and do all that we want to. Heck, looking at the schedule for the Make booth, I feel like I could just stay there all day!

Stay tuned for more posts from the Maker Faire, and if you're there look for me and say "hi". I'll be the balding dad with two kids pulling me in opposite directions :-)

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Cooking Up Some Home-made Fun By Ken Denmead

October 11, 2007 | 7:50:00 AMCategories: How-To

I know I did this once or twice as a kid, but it's been decades since then, and I thought I'd share the experience with the Geekdad community. Last night, as part of a project my older son is working on for school, we made a batch of home made, dough-like play substance (looks around to make sure no trademark attorneys are reading). I didn't remember how easy a process it was! 3 cups flour 1.5 cups salt 3 cups water 3 tablespoons cooking oil 6 teaspoons cream of tartar Mix in a large pot until smooth. Heat on medium low, stirring constantly. Dough will begin to dry and become sticky. Continue heating and stirring until a ball forms in the

middle of the pos, and the dough is no longer sticky to the touch. When it gets there, take it off the heat and let cool for a bit, then wrap it in plastic and cool. Add food colorings to make different colors. Pictures and more commentary after the break... Continue reading "Cooking Up Some Home-made Fun" »

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Sunday Afternoon Project: Building a Mouse Trap Car By Dave Banks Toys

September 23, 2007 | 5:05:30 PMCategories: Cars, How-To, Projects,

After a horrible couple of months of high humidity and scorching heat, we have finally had our first taste of fall weather and we decided to find something we could do outside, for a change. After thinking about a few projects, we decided on a mouse trap car. Many of you will recall making a mouse trap car - either as a project in physics class or maybe in another after school group. Mouse trap cars teach elasticity, inertia and automotive propulsion in its simplest form. There are as many ways to build this type of car as you can imagine (here's one set of plans), with a variety of materials, but the only general requirement is the use of a standard mouse trap as the sole source of propulsion. Schools and clubs often use the mouse trap car as a source of competition, with awards given for speed, distance and accuracy. Our car cost less than $3 to make, not including some materials that we found around the house (including those clear plastic blanks from a CD spool for wheels). It took just a couple hours to build, including glue drying time. This one worked pretty well, but we'll have to try some different wheels to see if we can get a straight drive.

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Fast Kites from Tyvek House Wrap By Kevin Kelly Activities, Toys

September 21, 2007 | 4:06:12 PMCategories: How-To, Outdoor

It’s shocking how many different ways you can make a kite, and how many different materials you can use to build it. It is also shocking how destructive a strong wind can be to any form or material. Design is key for a kite’s success.

The other day I met with a group of friends to build some large experimental kites in one day. The goal was to explore the virtues and challenges of building more with less (material). Our host and kitemaster was Saul Griffith, who conducted the day from his outpost at control tower of the old Alameda Naval base airport.

Saul shares his space with Squid Labs and the Instructable crew. They have a large room chock full of supplies, tools, and attitude. You need a heavy duty sewing machine, a hot fabric cutting knife, or some carbon fiber rod? They got it on hand.

Our assignment was to create five large kites very fast and fly them the next day at the Family Day Kite Festival at the Marina in San Francisco. We had five groups of four novices, and after an hour of kite history, we had chosen a rough design and started making.

There were two revelations for me. One was that almost any shape could be made into a kite with the right modifications. The second was that out a long list of ideal materials, Tyvek is a fantastic kite material. Tyvek is that half-paper/half-fabric material that contractors use to wrap houses as a windbreak under the siding. It comes in long 8-foot wide rolls which will quickly make a second skin over plywood. For kite making you can also use narrower rolls of Tyvek HouseWrap - - 36 inches wide - - which are available at Home Depot and will fit into your car. A $50 roll will contain 160 feet, which will make many cheap, but durable kites of a thousand shapes.

You can make classic diamond kites using sticks and Tyvek. You can use Tyvek to make parafoil kites. You can also use it to make balloon kites, which was my project. The secret key for using Tyvek is Tyvek Tape. A $12 roll from Home Depot does the trick. Tyvek Tape sticks to Tyvek like superglue. It beats sewing seams, or ties, or any other kind of tape. With a roll of Tyvek and tape you can make almost any kind of kite.

Although you really need to think in terms of hurricanes. The next day our huge 15 by 24 foot balloon kite was rent apart by gusts of wind; a kite can’t be over engineered. Still it was fantastic to see the creative designs other balloon kite makers had come up with (in sail cloth fabric).

At the fair there was a kite-making booth for kids, but sadly they were using low-strength paper. Next year: Tyvek and Tyvek tape.

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New Howtoons Site and Book! By Bruce Stewart

August 27, 2007 | 7:00:46 PMCategories: How-To

The popular Howtoons cartoon that is featured in Make and Craft magazines now has a spiffy new web site. You'll find some cool projects for kids there, illustrated in a fun and engaging fashion. The site is more than just a reproduction of the project-based cartoon series, it also features a blog, a helpful glossary,

some interesting wikipedia entries, and of course rss feeds. And there's a Howtoons book coming out soon. Howtoons is dedicated to the DIY kids world of science, engineering, art and crafts. The Howtoons universe was created by Saul Griffith, Nick Dragotta, and Joost Bonsen. They started out creating DIY projects thru the language of comics. Their work can be seen in Make and Craft magazine and the upcoming 114 page book published by HarperCollins. The book contains 16 How-To projects such as marshmallow shooter, turkey-bastor flutes, and soda bottle rockets. The book will be available in bookstores Nov. 07. Now Howtoons.com comes to the web with the help of Ryan McKinley and Phil Torrone. The site aims to inspire kids to build and create thru single page webcomics with downloadable PDF's, an exciting blog, a library referencing great stuff on the web, and a legends section linked to wiki entries. You've been warned Howtoons is coming at ya!

My 11-year-old has been hooked on Howtoons from the first time he saw one. It's always the first thing he flips to when Make shows up at our house.

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Make Your Own Chinese Finger Trap By Brian Little

August 21, 2007 | 6:58:25 PMCategories: How-To

Instructables contributor Sam Noyoun has posted up a nice how-to on constructing your own homemade version of the famous Chinese finger cuffs gag. Every geeklet should be subjected to the finger trap at least once in their young lives. As my Dad would say, it builds character (though for my money some kids have more character than a comic book, and giving them any more could have serious repercussions on the educational front). Anyway, it's cool to be able to crank your own version out using tougher materials than the usual thin, crackly bamboo. (via MAKE)

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GeekKid Smackdown: That's not Optimus Prime; that's Marge Simpson! By Chris Anderson

August 02, 2007 | 12:39:34 AMCategories: How-To

This is adorable. On Instructables, "Rosedale25" publishes a How-To on making an Optimus Prime head out of Lego. There's only one problem, which the commentators quickly zero in on: Dude im sorry but that looks more like marge simpson!! have you actualy seen what Optimus Prime looks like? Much piling on ensues. Then comes this:

Hi everyone, thank you for your funny and interesting comments. My son posted these instructions-- he's 8. I think it's such a hoot that he's blissfully and perfectly unaware that his project is anything but wonderful. He's particularly inspired by the Transformers made out of k'nex. I'm going to let him read the comments and see if he can't improve on his first efforts. Cheers, Rosedale25's Mom! Go Mom! Go 8-year-old GeekKid! Best Parenting Ever!

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How-To: Make a fighting quarterstaff (that won't kill anyone) By Chris Anderson

July 24, 2007 | 1:16:14 AMCategories: How-To

[Guest blogger Kevin Karplus sent in the following. Like it? Ask for more in the comments! -ca]

For the last two weeks, my son has been at a theater class, working on a production of Robin Hood. He had the part of Friar Tuck and had to do a quarterstaff fight with Robin Hood. They had originally planned to use broomsticks for the quarterstaves, which make a nice sound but are a bit dangerous for kids to swing at each other. I volunteered to make them safer quarterstaves and help them choreograph a more vigorous fight scene. I made each quarterstaff from five feet of 1/2" PVC pipe and 5'6" of foam pipe insulation from the hardware store. Since the foam insulation was really for 3/4" pipe, I had to wrap the ends of the foam with electrical tape to keep the pipes from sliding around in the foam tubes. I then spray-painted the foam with a plastic spray paint. The spray paint did not last long, but the cracking paint did make the staves look a little more wooden from a distance. The play performances Friday and Saturday went well, and the quarterstaff fight choreography that the boys worked out with me went off well. One can make a similar staff with a more colorful look by using a $2 swimming-pool "noodle" and sticking a 1/2" PVC pipe in the center. Using a little dish soap as a lubricant can make it easier to slide in the pipe. Make sure that the last 3" of the foam do not have any pipe in them, and don't hit people in the face with the staff. There is a whole subculture devoted to "boffer" weapons made of foam. For instructions on making weapons, check out: • • •

http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Boffer/Boffer-Generic.html http://fanwar.com/making_weapons.htm http://www.wyvernrising.org/extras/weapon_construction.html

For boffer combat opportunities and more information on making boffers, try: •

http://www.thealmightyguru.com/Boffer/Boffer-Links.html

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G.I. Joe Paratrooper Hang-Time Contest Results By Russ Neumeier Activities, Toys

July 19, 2007 | 10:47:34 AMCategories: How-To, Outdoor

At the end of May, I suggested a contest to see how much hang-time a G.I. Joe paratrooper action figure could get. We had several great suggestions in the comments – ranging from water-balloon sling-shots, rockets, and water-rockets. Turns out the Kentuckiana Joe Club has been working on this since last year after a similar discussion in alt.toys.gi-joe, and the results are very impressive.

On Friday - July 13th, the team brought out their new-and-improved water-rocket. This one is designed specifically for launching G.I. Joe. At apogee, inertia causes the capsule to separate and the parachutes to deploy allowing Joe to begin his descent.

Last October, the team had an early-stage version of their current water-rocket. They took video [from the ground and from Joe's(!) perspective]:

There's another YouTube video of the radio-controlled, G.I. Joe-sized recovery vehicle going after the famed paratrooper. It's not to be missed. Extra points awarded for knowing the movie soundtrack used on this YouTube video... So, a tip of the hat to the Kentuckiana Joe Club – so far, their Joe has the most hang-time. (all images and video courtesy of the Kentuckiana Joe Club) Post Comment | Comments (7) | Permalink

Any Geek Would Love This House By Brian Little

June 29, 2007 | 1:53:55 PMCategories: How-To

I've never known a kid who, after reading The Hobbit, didn't spend days and weeks dreaming of living in a hobbit hole. I've even known a few who made abortive attempts at constructing their own (I apologize again for the big hole in the yard, Dad). But in Wales, one man (well, one man and his family...apparently this kind of geekiness is genetic) has gone above and beyond that childhood dream and actually built what more or less amounts to a hobbit house. Continue reading "Any Geek Would Love This House" »

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Tie Dye: Chemical and Folding Magic By Kevin Kelly Activities

June 15, 2007 | 9:06:50 PMCategories: Chemistry, How-To, Outdoor

Here's a great summer geek project for kids: Tie Dye! It's fun, colorful and chemistry in action. It's also perfect for groups of kids. We found doing tie dye fits perfectly well with being in a bathing suit -- less worry about getting clothes stained.

This was our staging area for one tie-dye-in at a family reunion. Here's how it works. Get some clothes to dye. You can buy new white t-shirts, pants, tablecloths, or white bathing suits! -- but you can also recycle free give-away t-shirts or other light colored used clothes for a lot of fun. You soak the clothes in a mordant. This is the chemistry part. We use washing soda (not baking soda!) from the grocery store -- that is sodium carbonate. There are other optional chemical additives that will increase the quality of the dye -- figuring out which ones you want to use is a good chemistry experiment for advance projects.

Then you tie the cloth up with rubber bands. This is the origami folding part. You have to think in 3D, and work backward from the final patter you want. (See the book recommendation below). You also have to think in color inverse, starting with the light colors first and working to the darks at the end. We recently visited some very sophisticated tie dyers in Yunnan China. Here is an example of their incredibly complex tie -- which almost looks like origami -- and the pattern it reveals as it is untied.

After tieing you dye. The key to successful tie dye (as in batik) is to use cold water procion dyes. If you try to use your ordinary drug store hot-water dyes they won't work without heat, and you can't "paint" with them like you can with cold water dyes. Procion dyes are diluted into solutions which you squirt from a plastic bottle, like it was liquid paint. These are light-fast dyes and will of course stain other fibers (carpets, clothes, drapes) that you -- or kids -- may spill dye on.

You can find procion dyes in small quanities at a good craft or art store. For a great selection of colors you can also order online. I've used Dharma Trading. They also sell kits (including ones for groups) and other paraphernalia for dying crafts. For the thrifty, all you need are 2 oz. each of four colors (lemon yellow, turquoise, fuchsia and black) and four clean squeeze bottles, washing soda, gloves, plenty of water, and a space that will tolerate indelible dyes (bathroom, patio, beach). Dharma also offers a page of tie dye activities and instructions for group tie dye. The best introductory how-to book on the subject of tieing (not so much on dyeing) is Tie Dye!. It tells you how to tie up patterns that are simple enough for kids, and interesting enough for adult beginners.

If you ever decide you want to produce tie dye at the fine art level, or for commercial sale, these DVDs describe the process in great detail. Be prepared to set up a serious chemistry lab. The guy makes some awesome patterns.

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Rainy-Day Rescue: Number-Grid Cipher By Russ Neumeier

June 13, 2007 | 7:16:59 AMCategories: How-To, Projects, Web

We recently had a rainy weekend interrupt our original plans to go geocaching. Instead, I took inspiration from John Baichtel's recent posting - Codes For Kids - to introduce my kids to ciphers. Specifically the Number-Grid (or Polybius Square) cipher. The NSA's CryptoKids website is a great place to help introduce your kids to codes and ciphers. The flash-enabled site sports cartoon-characters and step-by-step instructions on how to encode (and decode) various codes and ciphers. I chose the Number-Grid cipher as one that was appropriate to all my kids. I started with some loose-leaf paper and a couple of crayons:

From there I wrote out a cipher for each of my kids and showed them how to start decoding the cipher:

My oldest son got the hang of it and wrote a note back to me:

The end result – an hour or so spent at the kitchen table having fun together when we should have been geocaching....if only the weather had cooperated.

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Coming soon: The Daring Book for Girls By Asha Dornfest

June 06, 2007 | 10:33:59 AMCategories: Books, How-To, Projects

I've just posted an interview with one of the authors of The Dangerous Book For Boys, in which I asked: What about girls? His response didn't exactly answer the question, but HarperCollins certainly has with this exciting announcement: The Daring Book For Girls is being written as we speak, and will be out by December (and is available now for preorder). Authors Andrea Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz are on the job, and I don't doubt they'll come up with something magical. I can't wait. Asha Dornfest is a guest GeekMom and the publisher of Parent Hacks.

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DIY Lego Ice Trays By Brian Little

June 04, 2007 | 8:19:17 PMCategories: How-To

First things first: Making your own Lego ice cube trays is emphatically not cheaper than buying them straight out from from Lego. It is probably more fun, and since I wanted to learn mold-making, it gave me an excuse to buy a few materials and take a stab at it. Details after the jump. Continue reading "DIY Lego Ice Trays" »

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Short Attention Span Carpentry By Dan Olson

June 04, 2007 | 2:21:00 PMCategories: How-To, Tools

My son (6) has a ton of great project ideas for me. But, the next great idea often pushes the previous one out before the task is complete. This tends to reduce my desire to start more projects with him, since I end up completing them or they sit on the shelf. I’ve come up with a way for Dads like me to keep kids involved and see the project through. Lower your standards to build it faster. Dovetails and CAD plans will come eventually. That’s right. The bird feeder we built as a gift for his Mom’s birthday may not win any awards for design, craftsmanship or durability. We completed it together and it has a nice, shiny roof to ‘let the squirrels slide off’. She will love it. He may have already forgotten we built it. More after the jump Continue reading "Short Attention Span Carpentry" »

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No Snack Cup? No Problem. By Jeremiah McNichols

June 04, 2007 | 8:00:00 AMCategories: How-To

We tend to do a lot of afternoon shopping with our toddler daughter. Although we try to bring snacks, sometimes we forget or run out, and then end up grabbing something at a store we're in. Today it was trail mix, a big bag with tons of dried fruit at the top. I'm loathe to give a two-year-old unfettered access to a one-pound bag of snacks, for reasons hygenic (hey, I might want some too) as well as practical (I'd hate for her to drop it).

In grocery stores I am sometimes able to drum up a sample cup or bulk food bag to drop an appropriate portion of goodies into, handing that off to the kid. Today we were in a big-box store instead, one that happened to sell a few groceries, so I fell back on a trick I developed in a similar situation a week or so ago: Making a cup out of a piece of paper.

Pretty simple once you think of it - who doesn't have a piece of paper kicking around? The shopping list, a note from Mom's purse, a stray flyer, even an advertising circular from the store itself will do. The simplest method is to fold the paper into a haphazard cone shape, fold the top edge inward several times in various positions, and you have a pretty shoddy-looking toddler snack cup. The trick for this cup type lies in making sure the cone's outside seam has a sufficiently strong folded edge so that your cone doesn't unravel.

You can make a nicer cup if you're willing to rip your paper to make it into a square. This may earn you some eye-rolls in the grocery aisle, but so do tantrums, right? Making the cup at right takes six folds, and is detailed on this German mathematics site (in English!), or you might be able to infer it from their diagram at left. Update: Matt Blum points out that tearing is not necessary: "What I do is take an 8.5x11 piece of paper, fold one corner across to the opposite side to mark off the square (and make the first fold of the cup). Then I fold back (rather than tear) the leftover rectangle, and proceed to make the cup as per the directions." Thanks, Matt!

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GeekKid Survival Tool: DIY Magstripe Reader By John Baichtal

June 03, 2007 | 6:31:18 AMCategories: How-To

I bought a beer at the Twins game the other day and the concession worker scanned my driver's license into her computer to verify my age. But what else did she get? My social security number? My street address? No idea. The sad fact of the matter is that our personal info is being bandied about by all sorts of companies, and this is only going to get worse as our geekkids grow up.

The best thing we can do to prepare them to guard their privacy is to show them how to read what's on their cards. That means a magstripe reader... basically the same thing as those little boxes that cashiers use to scan credit cards. But since we're geekdads, let's not buy one, let's make one! So, where to begin? Blogger Tim Matheson has step-by-step instructions on his site. Refined from a 2600 Magazine article, Matheson details how to create a magstripe reader from a cassette player head, a 3.5 mm mono phone plug and a soldering iron . Helping your geekkids with this project will teach basic electronic theory as well as keep them informed of what's going on in those mysterious black strips. Note that there may be laws in your area restricting "tampering" with magstripes, so do your research beforehand.

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G.I. Joe Paratrooper Hang-Time Contest By Russ Neumeier

May 31, 2007 | 7:27:58 AMCategories: How-To, Toys

I'm guessing many GeekDads grew up with the G.I. Joe action figures...we may be at the edge of some of you not knowing that the original G.I. Joes were 12" tall and had kung-fu grip (but I digress). The one thing I remember when I was a kid was really, really wanting my paratrooper G.I. Joe to go as high in the air as possible for as much parachute hang-time as possible. I worked at throwing the action-figure as straight and high into the air as I could, standing on a ladder and throwing, and wishing I was taller so I could get on the roof of my house to throw...but it was never enough. My boys have a few G.I. Joes - including one with a parachute, and the frustration of it never quite getting enough parachute hang-time has moved to a new generation....

So, fellow GeekDads, your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to help come up with the best means of getting as much hang-time out of G.I. Joe paratrooper action figures as possible. The only rules are that the means of getting hang-time are: 1. Family-friendly -- it's got to be safe enough that your kids can do it. 2. No local ordinances are broken in the process (we don't want you getting arrested or anything...) Are you up for the challenge? If you are, send an email (and pictures!) detailing your adventures. Above image courtesy of H. P. Holland, 2007

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GSHIW JSV OMHW (Codes for Kids) By John Baichtal Mathematics

May 28, 2007 | 10:30:48 AMCategories: How-To, Languages,

Codes are fun. Kids love thinking that they can write something only their friend will be able to read. But more importantly, at least from a geekdad's perspective, is that when your kid learns about codes, he or she also learns a ton about math, language and history. For instance, delving into the Enigma story teaches kids far more than simply how the code worked. To understand its story you have to know about World War II, and at least touch on the math behind a continually changing substitution alphabet. Learning about codes is easy. There are some excellent books out there. The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography is one of the best,

and is a great read for both adults and older kids. Younger geekchildren might prefer Top Secret: A Handbook of Codes, Ciphers and Secret Writing . There are plenty of Web sites as well. This UIC site has activities, Flash-based encoders and even more advanced mathematical tools like a prime number checker. The NSA kids site is almost disturbingly cheerful, with code-cracking animal characters giving young visitors history lessons and tips on creating their own ciphers. But the best lessons your geekkid will learn will be self-taught. My sister, when she was a kid, created a rather brilliant hieroglyphic alphabet with every character being an animal in a different pose. When written out it resembles a parade of prancing mythological figures. It started off as a simple substitution cipher but she added dummy and alternate characters to make it harder to defeat. (Although I surreptitiously cracked the simpler version as a bratty little brother.) Sis claims to still be able to write in this code -- for instance when she hired movers recently, she labeled boxes of valuables in code to discourage thievery.

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Life-Size Cutouts and Super-Size Posters By Martin Mander Software

May 23, 2007 | 7:00:00 AMCategories: How-To, Photography,

Here's a great way to make cardboard cutouts of pretty much any size from a regular digital image. The only real limits are the amount of cardboard you have (I'm guessing plenty if you've bought a stroller or flat-pack furniture lately) and how much paper & ink you want to use.

Not unlike Dave Banks' amazing "Large Format Printing as Wallpaper" post, this is a way of taking an image and super-sizing it, this time using free software called The Rasterbator. Despite sounding like something Regina Lynn would review in the Sex Drive column, with a bit of rasterbation experimentation this delivers excellent results. Either using the online or standalone version, The Rasterbator takes your image and scales it to any dimensions you specify - literally! The finished image is made up of dots in the same way as newsprint images, and is delivered as a multi-page .pdf document with guide-lines for cutting out.

In the simple example above I used an 800x600 cellphone image scaled up to the size of 4 sheets of standard inkjet paper, then pasted it onto cardboard and cut it to shape. In retrospect I wish I'd made it twice the size and used a better photo! I've found this perfect for making large party banners and posters - there's a rasterbation gallery on the website if you're seeking inspiration or just want to check out what other people have made. The largest one so far is Rasterbation TG06, a magnificent 7.35 x 10.39 metres, constructed using 1225 sheets of paper. Sounds like a challenge to me!

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Fun and Games on your Fridge By Martin Mander May 18, 2007 | 5:07:00 AMCategories: Gadgets, Home Improvement, How-To

Ah the fridge - custodian of beer, reminder of doctors' appointments, precious real estate for kids' paintings, where would we be without you? Here are some ideas for the unsung heroine in the corner of your kitchen. The Lumi Pad This gadget is a magnetic flashing message board - you write on the screen with a 'special' pen and when switched on the writing flashes insistently when anyone approaches (it has a motion sensor). It's ideal for reminders, and I enjoy leaving messages for the family when I'm leaving for work & they're still napping. You can guarantee it'll be read as everyone visits the fridge at some point during the day!

Make your own fridge games A while back I found some magnetic inkjet paper in a local craft store. Though a tad pricey it has loads of potential for fun. We used it to send photo-magnets with our birth

announcement & thank you cards, and with imagination it's ideal for making your own magnetic games / jigsaws / reward charts / fridge poetry / cow print. Here's a tic-tac-toe (that's noughts and crosses if you're in the UK) game made from photos in about 10 minutes - Kylie wins!

Bottle-Cap Magnets This is a simple but oddly addictive tip I picked up from the Make: blog. Get hold of some circular magnets (bulk bags are very cheap on ebay), some bottle caps from your favourite beer or soda, add a few drops of hot-glue or sticky fixer pads and you're all set. Lastly if you or the little inquisitors wonder how we kept stuff cool before fridges were invented, I'd highly recommend reading The Frozen Water Trade by Gavin Weightman it gives an excellent and accessible history of refrigeration.

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Why Knots? The Retro GeekDad's Guide to Ropework By Dave Hinerman

May 17, 2007 | 10:19:00 AMCategories: How-To

Rope technology is nearly as old as civilization and is one of those things we usually take for granted. But without ropes, cables, cords, yarns, threads, and strings much of our modern life would be very different. Sure, you can suspend a bridge with metal rods and mend your torn clothes with staples (if you really want to), but would you even have clothes to mend without the strong, flexible fibers from which their fabric is woven? Admit it, fig leaves went out of style millenia ago. We start teaching our children about practical rope work at a tender age when we teach them to tie their shoes. It's a major developmental step; tying knots requires a number of manual and mental skills to be applied in unison to be successful. That's why kids' early efforts at shoe tying lead to tears of frustration. But we keep them at it because it's something they need to know. Eventually they master it. One of the biggest challenges in tying knots is visualization - seeing in our mind's eye where this piece of rope is supposed to go, and what the final product should look like. Knots in general are hard to visualize because the ropes that form them are all curves; there are almost no corners or straight lines to provide visual reference points. Furthermore, the process of tying a knot is dynamic, almost fluid. It doesn't lend itself to being documented with a few photographs. Even in Scouting, where rope work has been taught for decades, the manuals rely on photographs and a written description of each knot. It takes a lot of knowledge of knots to learn a new one - and that's frustrating. That's where Animated Knots by Grog comes in. This site shows dozens of knots in full color photos using different colored cords where appropriate, explaining what each is used for and how to tie it. The images are presented in a unique user interface that can be played as an animation, stepped through frame-by-frame, or viewed as static images - all by rolling your mouse over a row of buttons. It's not a video with fast-forward and rewind buttons, it's more like a computerized flip-book.

Grog's knots are collected into broad application categories: boating, climbing, fishing, Scouting, search and rescue, household, decorative, and another section on rope care. Some knots are shown in several categories. For example, climbing and search and rescue use the same knots because their activities are very similar. Grog's also lists a number of knots that are more appropriate for modern synthetic ropes such as nylon and polyethylene that are too slippery for the Boy Scouts' basic eight knots. If you and your children plan to do any activities involving ropes - camping, mountaineering, or just tying your luggage on top of the car for a trip to the lake - start with a few minutes learning how to tie the proper knots. But once you do, sleep with one eye open -- your kids may decide to practice their knots on you one night!

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Mother's Day pancakes By Russ Neumeier

May 16, 2007 | 11:58:40 AMCategories: How-To

Inspired by the Instructables posting on pancakes, the kids and I made them special for Mother's Day. We mixed the batter with food coloring and had to hurry when GeekMom came downstairs earlier than expected. I love making pancakes with my kids. I've added food coloring in the batter to make eyes, a nose, a mouth, and eyebrows so they would have a smiling clown face at the breakfast table. Some weekends, if we had it in the house, I'd add a touch of whipped-cream for hair or a mustache. My younger two children (ages 8 and 5) still like making the clown faces. My oldest daughter (14) and son (11) are more interested in eating breakfast rather than looking at it – besides, they're typically sleeping when pancakes are being made... This weekend was extra special with mixing red and blue food coloring for the purple we used to make flowers, stars, planets, squiggles, and a space alien (I think) while following the Instructables posting..

We were having fun and getting the hang of it when GeekMom popped into the kitchen unannounced. We scrambled to cover the pancake-batter writing we were working on with plain batter so she couldn't see and ruin the surprise. Our creations didn't come out perfect (you know what I was trying to write with batter letters came out backwards and such), but it's just another reason to try this again some Saturday morning in the future.

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GeekKid on the cover of Make By Chris Anderson

May 09, 2007 | 9:56:41 PMCategories: How-To

That's GeekDad Mark Frauenfelder (editor of Make) on next month's cover with his daughter, Sarina. They are testing a simple robot that Mark writes about in the issue.

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The Dangerous Book for Boys By Asha Dornfest May 07, 2007 | 6:20:29 PMCategories: Astronomy, Books, Chemistry, Engineering, How-To, Outdoor Activities, Projects, Science Experiments I just finished reviewing The Dangerous Book for Boys for Parent Hacks, and I'm thoroughly entranced by its premise and promise: that there exists an essential package of skills and knowledge each boy should master. In so doing, he unlocks the potential for a

life of exploration and adventure. (Here's a link to the full review, which includes the question: what about girls?) We might argue about what that package contains, but I think we can all agree that the most essential ingredient is curiosity, something GeekParents have in abundance. They (we!) also have a base level of optimism; the belief that all puzzles are solvable with enough smarts and persistence. Bravo, GeekDads. You're not just having fun with your kids. You're setting them up for a lifetime of adventure. Asha Dornfest is a guest GeekMom and the publisher of Parent Hacks.

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The Compost Bin: Power Tools and Coffee Grounds By David Hornik Projects

May 01, 2007 | 4:05:26 PMCategories: How-To, Outdoor Activities,

Here at GeekDads, we get bonus points for all projects that combine power tools and small children. So despite the relative lack of technology involved in this weekend's Compost Bin Project, I still get plus five points for letting my 5 year old drill with reckless abandon. The compost bin has been a long time in the coming here at the Hornik house. Despite the kids' Uncle David's religious commitment to the compost bin, until this weekend if it couldn't go down the garbage disposal, it got thrown out. But thanks to a few days at nature camp and a school project, my kids were in a compost bin building mode this weekend. One might think that the compost bin is just a pail into which one throws half chewed carrots. Wrong. There is a fair amount of design and science that goes into compost bin creation these days. First of all, to oversimplify, there are a couple of types of compost bins one might opt for -- one with creepy crawly things in it and one without. While the former would have been pretty darn fun to create, more reasonable heads prevailed and we went with the wormless, maggotless version. I certainly don't want to pretend that this post is a composting how-to, so here's a link to some really simple instructions on how to create your own compost bin. They are essentially the instructions we followed. First thing first, find yourself a big bin of some

sort -- a garbage can will do unless, of course, your wife says "that thing is so ugly, there is no way that you're using that." It needs to be tall enough to house a pretty sizable amount of compost since the compost is a bit like sourdough starter and helps decompose the newly added matter. Once you've got yourself a tub, pull out the power drill and let the kids drill a bunch of holes in the bottom and top of the bin. While you need a lid to help maintain the moisture level in the bin, if it is air tight, a whole bunch of counterproductive things will happen that deter decomposition. With your newly drilled bin, throw in some shredded news paper at the bottom (hint: don't throw in your mom's favorite sections of the Sunday Times or she will be somewhat less supportive of the project). Then comes the sour dough starter -- find some good old fashioned soil or, better yet, pre-composted material to fill the bin up to nearly the half way point. If you get lucky, as we did, your neighbor may have a bin of the good stuff right next door. After filling up the bin with with a goodly amount of compost and shredded paper, it is time to add some compostable material for good measure. Part of the fun here is the discussion of what is, in fact, compostable. The basic rule is that if it came from the earth it can return to the earth. But this basic rule can lead to some talmudic debates about what is intended by the phrase "came from the earth." Why doesn't a hamburger come from the earth but the coffee filter does? To try to settle the confusion, my eldest attempted to give some guidance with this sign. With the guidance of Julian's sign, the kids then proceeded to go out in search of compostable material. This is definitely something worth thinking about. There is nothing quite as unsatisfying as creating a compost bin and then having nothing to throw into it. Warning: your kids will raid the fridge and if you have nothing ready to be composed, they will make do with the next best thing, perfectly good fruits and vegetables. My kids did manage to come up with some marginal materials -- slightly aged artichokes, wilting roses and the tops of strawberries they promptly consumed -- and took great pleasure in dropping them in the compost bin. We'll see how long the kids maintain their love of composting all things compostable. But for the time being, we're lowering our total amount of garbage and the kids had a great time making the compost bin. That's a win-win. Highly recommended on all fronts.

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Timesaver Layout: Constructing the Box

By Scott Nagle Trains

May 01, 2007 | 3:01:33 AMCategories: How-To, Models, Projects,

Since my post "Model Train Puzzles" a few weeks back, we've been slowly building an HO-scale version, beginning with a folding, suitcase-sized box for easy storage and transport. After an initial father-son shopping trip to the hobby store for track and rolling stock (based upon the layout described by the Prince William County Model Railroad Club) and to the hardware store for wood and paint (colors chosen by him), we set him up with some of the track and rolling stock on his cedar chest while I used a power saw to cut the plywood. All further construction was done using hand tools, which enabled him to "help." He's been able to saw, hammer, glue, paint, hand-drill, and screw. Being able to play with the cars and track, he has learned all about how switches, cars, and couplers work. Next up, laying the track...

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Radios That Work For Free By Kevin Kelly Experiments

April 22, 2007 | 1:58:13 AMCategories: How-To, Physics, Science

Crystal Radios are an old standby of GeekDads. For the early mists of time Geekdads have been showing kids how to pull radio stations from thin air with the barest snips from the basement. Here are some very simple radios that you can have your kid make in a few hours. They seem too simple to work. But unbelievably they can hear music or talk programs coming out of this scraps of metal. How does it work?

Ken Reitz's cool crystal radio Aha! Glad you asked. They use the ingredients of the first radios, solid state bits of matter wired up in various circuits, including long antennas and coil tuners. There are an amazing variety of crystal radio types, some of them very sophisticated, and worthy of midnight engineers. The best source for instructions and books and a newsletter and kits for crystal radios is the Xtal Set Society. They sell the classic book Radios That Work For Free, and many other plans books. They also sell a bunch of very cheap but effective starter kits, like this one, the XS500 Basic Crystal Radio Kit, selling for $15.

Another great starter project for kids is the Quaker Oats box set broadcast AM crystal radio. You use the cardboard cylinder of a Quaker Oats box for the wire coil. Download the free PDF free plans. They even give some useful science fair hints for this project.

And for those who get into it big time they issue a paper newsletter with new circuits every six months or so. There's hours and hours, if not years, of things to play around with here. I've found that kids can at least get a weekend of curiosity from one of these.

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Build construction toys out of hardware parts By Asha Dornfest

April 19, 2007 | 1:27:17 PMCategories: How-To, Projects, Toys

My kids dread marathon trips to Home Depot as much as I do, but an outing to the quirky, local hardware store is an altogether different matter. I'm talking about the momand-pop operation a few blocks away -- the one that, in addition to the requisite nuts, bolts, and tools, sells birdseed and penny candy at the front counter. My kids can't get enough of the latch section (a five year-old's tactile dream come true) and the plumbing parts.

Speaking of which, PVC piping makes ideal construction material. Think of the marble run possibilities. Or the sheer sculptural potential. Or the summer water play. A few bucks' worth of pipe and some connectors should set you and your kid up just fine. Dana of Mombian detailed how she created a PVC construction set. Mombian has an entire archive devoted to hardware store toys. Your kids may never look at Home Depot the same way again. Asha Dornfest is a guest GeekMom and the publisher of Parent Hacks.

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Geometricks (geo met tricks, get it?) By Kevin Kelly

April 19, 2007 | 12:01:13 PMCategories: How-To

I first met Bob Burnside at Burning Man, Every year he sets up a table in the center camp tent and offers free instruction and materials for anyone to make his lovely geometric sculptures, a variety which are shown below.

All the sculptures are made from the same stock, a thin wooden strip with a perfect equilateral triangle cross-section. You weave the strips together in various arrangements (all based on a 12-node). As you can see there is a huge range of structures which can be made, depending on the lengths you cut the rods to, and their numbers in the array.

Kids love to try this. Burnside's table is always crowded with the few kids who make it to Burning Man. While Burnside has a fabulous galley of possibilities on his website, there is very little instruction there. That's because it is extremely hard to describe how to assemble on these interlocking pieces. In fact the simplest unit of 12 pieces looks easy but actually requires a teacher near by to unravel the inevitable disorientations -- unless you are natural geometric genius. It would take some fiddling and puzzle solving to simply accomplish this one basic unit without any outside help. Hint: Use several rubber bands to hold the stack together as you keep adding rods.

The other challenge in this wonderful design system is that there is no commercial source of the triangular rods that I know of (Please email if you have a source.) That means you need to make the wooden strips yourself (as Burnside does), using a table saw and pine shelving. Well, all I can say is that this is easier said than done. Getting a load of perfectly triangular sticks at the 3/8 scale you want is very hard and requires some patience. You don't have to use wood of course. I haven't found a source of alternative triangular stock yet, but I am looking. All in all this is a wonderful project to do with kids. It's challenging enough to require parental assistant in the beginning and indeed will offer plenty of challenges to the GeekDad himself.

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Paper Airplane Headquarters By Kevin Kelly

April 18, 2007 | 12:04:47 PMCategories: How-To

Your kids have been making paper airplanes since they were knee-high to a grasshopper, but have they been getting any better? Can theirs stay aloft for 20 seconds? You can make superior airplanes easily and the miracle of it all is that it doesn't require any more/new/different material than what you are using right now! If there was ever a lesson in the nature of how intelligence can invest value into raw materials, then making better paper airplanes will deliver it to your kids.

The headquarters for the world's best paper airplane instructions, advice, plans, and books is run by the four-time and current world record holder of longest duration paper airplane,

Ken Blackburn. Check out his site PaperPlane for simple ideas for a great Saturday afternoon with a few sheets of paper.

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Bill Beaty's Digustoscope By Kevin Kelly

April 17, 2007 | 1:48:49 PMCategories: How-To

A must-have site for all GeekDad's is Bill Beaty's Science Hobbyist site. It has tons and tons of really cool things to build with/for your kids and your own inner kid. Bill worked at Boston's equivalent of the Exploratorium making science exhibits that appeal to kids, and he continues his hands-on approach with informative and yet simple advice for making such things as Van de Graaff generators, and so on. This is Bill here with one of his static electricity makers.

For something really simple to make -- from scrap pieces of plastic mirror -- check out this YouTube by Bill on how-to make a digustoscope.