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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: 2) by bradley13 on Thursday October 13 2016, @06:23PM
First, I assume it's clear to you that you will have to help him along. An 8 year old won't be working for month, or even for days, alone.
That said, if he's really interested in electronics, I had a very successful season with my son, back when he was 8 or 10.
We started with a basic breadboard and a selection of logic gates. You have to explain theory on paper, of course, but you can immediately follow it up by hooking an AND gate to an LED. Then an OR gate. Then...how do you do an XOR? A NOT? From there, step by step to flip-flops, adders, counters. After that, get a 555 timer chip.
Attention spans are short, but half-an-hour, a couple of times a week. No pressure, he has to *want* to do this.
After the basics, my son went ballistic all my himself: He discovered redstone in Minecraft, rebuild all of our projects, then started building really crazy stuff. YouTube was his friend - I was never involved in any of that, and he spent endless hours at it.
YMMV, of course
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.