When Elena met Eric (in the days before smartphones or even laptop computers), he had his big desktop computer answering his phone, taking his messages, and keeping track of his schedule.
These days, the little geeks have been wiring up Halloween costumes that blink, taking apart broken toys to power new contraptions, and helping build an owl house with a homemade video camera inside.
Our kids are growing up in a world where electronics are everywhere. We get what we want, with a click of a button, delivered to our doorstep.
It’s pretty awesomely convenient.
On the other hand, how many of us can explain to our kids what powers our computers? Or how it’s possible that clicking a button can make a package appear outside our door two days later?
The funny thing is, the more digital technology has crept into our daily lives, the less people understand it. It used to be that we repaired things when they stopped working. These days, we throw them out and start searching online for a replacement.
At-your-fingertip convenience is great for saving time, but it turns out that we lose something valuable whenever we save time with an easy fix.
Taking the time to build and fix things with our kids is worth it for so many reasons:
- Our kids learn stuff about electronics and engineering that they don’t teach in school
- We get to have fun learning new things too
- We waste less stuff
- We save money
- We help kids develop “grit” and become confident problem-solvers
- We get more quality family time while our kids still thing we’re cool!
We created this site to share project tutorials with other adults who want to do cool engineering projects with kids. We’ll be embedding instructional YouTube videos in our blog posts. The videos we post on YouTube are meant to inspire and amuse folks of all ages.
If you’ve ever wished you could create your own hacks that light up, make noise, do your homework, pay the bills, fold the laundry, walk the dog… you’ve found the right place! We’ll be posting at the beginning of every month to show you how it’s done (or how it’s better *not* done…)