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Hi folks,
As much as I loath the winters in New England here is where I'll be. Outdoor activities, while doable, can only be for short periods of time. Therefore I'm looking for projects that can be completed indoors that are interesting and take 6 months to complete. :) (Long winters up here...)
My son has shown an interest in both electronic and mechanical type projects. He'd like a hammer for his birthday so he can break rocks. Cool, geologist. Can't find rocks too well under the snow and ice, sand and salt, in the wintertime.
He'd also like an electronics kit but I'm not sure what to to get him that will last a long while. I think at this point he's more interested in building something, electronic or not, rather than learning theory. He often mentions robots but to get something that would last for months would cost me more than the budget allows.
I'd certainly appreciate suggestions and I'm sure there are other parents who might benefit from your experiences!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Snotnose on Thursday October 13 2016, @06:08PM
Does Estes still make model rockets? He can spend from minutes to days building rockets, depending on how elaborate he wants to get (we used to tape sticks to engines and light them off). Got heavily into it in my 20s, abandoned the kits and got a generic build-a-rocket box of parts and designed my own. I tried to make a MIRV but never got it to work.
Well lookie here [estesrockets.com]
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Arik on Thursday October 13 2016, @06:23PM
Still, he's asking for indoors stuff.
I know you make these indoors but you're still going outside to launch so I don't know if it's really what he wants.
I'm afraid my thoughts run the same way though. Winter is a beautiful time. When I was that age the last thing I wanted to do was be cooped up inside. I used to love making snow caves and snow forts and exploring trails that were impassable any other time of year. Visibility is high, vegetation bare, the creeks are frozen - what better time to get outside and explore?
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(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Friday October 14 2016, @01:07AM
I used to love winters, but where I live, we don't get the kind of snow that makes winters fun--we had enough snow to make a snowman (but nothing else) just once last winter, but we still got the -20F for a week...
Just week after week of dead vegetation and cold.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday October 13 2016, @06:35PM
Assuming you'll be building your own rocket next to your son, the one I most enjoyed came down like a helicopter. It had 2 largish fins, each fin was 2 parts with one about twice as big as the other. Glue the big part to the body of the rocket, tape the small part to the bottom of the big part. Use elastic to pull the movable part to maybe a 45 degree angle. You want about half the movable part to be past the base of the rocket. Now, glue a small tab to the movable part such that, when the engine is installed, the tabs use the engine to hold the flaps straight. Be sure to glue the nosecone on, you don't want it coming off.
The idea is you launch it and the ejection charge, instead of deploying a parachute, ejects the engine. This frees the movable part of the wing to bend at an angle, the rocket will come down nose-down rotating like a helicopter rotor.
It's been 30 years and I remember it took me a few tries to get it right, hopefully my explanation is clear enough you get the idea.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Thursday October 13 2016, @07:13PM
That one was great. Though I don't see it in the catalog any more. There are some of the same models from that era still but one or two have different names. Winter time is one of the best times to launch them especially if there are lakes frozen thick enough to use. That reduces the chance of losing one to trees or dense housing. During a summertime launch I saw one with a particularly large parachute get caught in a thermal on what should have been the way down. The chute was catching the updraft and it sailed higher and higher for a while as it drifted away. It eventually crossed a highway and we had to give up on it.
The rockets combine a lot of indoor prep with a good excuse to get out and enjoy the winter. That's especially true since you launch on still day and there's no cold wind to deal with. There is some basic trigonometry that can be taught by measuring altitude. There's also a lot of physics between the engine specs [estesrockets.com] and the mass of the rocket and comparing with the actual results can give resistance.
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(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday October 13 2016, @07:40PM
My helicopter rocket wasn't a kit, I designed and built it myself.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Friday October 14 2016, @06:54AM
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.