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I would like to have a list on things a parent could build with his or her child? The things should be considered 'cool', fun and not be too advanced (the child should be able to help out and be able to understand what we are doing). A child would be anything from a 3-4 year old kid up to (say) 12.

I know there are tons of science kits (and lego kits such as lego mindstorms and lego technic) out there so please try to avoid mentioning them.

Example: One can build a laser from an old DVD burner [insert guide here].

tyblu
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Run
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    i know it was just an example but i'd skip the laser idea, the laser in a dvd drive is actually quite dangerous, i wouldn't want kids playing with it, pointing it at each other, etc. – Mark Nov 13 '10 at 19:31
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    it's perhaps more correct to say one can *liberate* a laser from a DVD burner.. but those things can easily blind a person, which would not be very much fun. – JustJeff Nov 13 '10 at 23:28

6 Answers6

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Snap Circuits is great for that, or 7+ years with minimal supervision. It's like breadboarding, but easier.

Brian Carlton
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  • Well, OP specifically said no kits, but you still get +1 form me. Snap Circuits do look well thought out and simple enough for use. – AndrejaKo Nov 13 '10 at 18:36
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A crystal set radio would be a good start. My father bought me the bits for one when I was 12, and I progressed from there.

Leon Heller
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  • Interesting variations on that would be to make radio which does not use external power sources or to make a radio which works by temperature difference. If I remember correctly, both should be relatively simple to produce. – AndrejaKo Nov 13 '10 at 17:12
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    With a long antenna enough power could be generated from it to supply a simple amplifier. – Leon Heller Nov 13 '10 at 17:20
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    it's fairly easy to build a crystal sets that doesn't require any power, provided you use one of those high impedance earphones. the tricky part is getting the frequency on something interesting. – JustJeff Nov 13 '10 at 23:31
  • A radio? It's a good project, but I'm not sure it's suited for parent-child bonding. It's not something that captures the imagination of anyone born after 1960, and we want to close the generational gap, not shine a searchlight at it. – drxzcl Feb 09 '11 at 09:41
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Well one thing I remember now which I did with my father when I was maybe 10 or so was to make a miniature airplane (he teaches aerodynamic constructions at local university, so we didn't have to do a lot of research).

We made body of the plane out of a fountain pen, main surface of monoplane out of folded lightweight cardboard, hobby motor to drive the propeller and cardboard to make the tail. We got wheels form toy cars and used small paper clips as axles. Propeller was made out of a piece of 0.5 mm aluminium sheet.

Then we connected it to a base of a vise via rotating joint and a lever. A counterweight was attached at the other side so that the plane side of the lever was just a little bit heavier than the weight side.

We run a cable form the base of the vise to the plane and connected it on the other side with a potentiometer, analogue voltmeter, amperemeter and a wall wart.

Yeah, I know it isn't very electronics related, but it did show relation between current and voltage. It was also very visible that changing voltage could make plane start moving on the table and that changing it even more could make it lift off and control its altitude.

At the time I thought it was pretty cool.

Some of the other things I did was to make electromagnets form pieces of iron and thin cables. They were very simple and not very cool to me at the time, but they could lift small nails and similar objects.

Two things that are simple and could be cool are LED Throwies and LED Floaties. There are also improved LED Throwies which only work in dark, so they save battery energy.

I can't think of anything else interesting at the moment.

AndrejaKo
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3

Since Christmas is coming up, how about a LED Christmas tree?

All you need is a piece of hardboard, cut to a tree shape and painted green, with holes for LEDs. Both red & green LEDs, either flashing or always on.

I once built a similar shop sign with an 8 year old, and he was perfectly capable of doing the work with supervision.

gorilla
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You can make a simple electric motor with stuff that you can find at a craft store - and there are any number of ways to make them. All it takes is a few turns of enamel covered wire, a suitable magnet, and a single flashlight battery is usually enough to move it. The tricky part is arranging the commutation, but there are lots of websites that show different ways to do that.

JustJeff
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You could make some Bristle Bots or Solar Bots.

Amos
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