DadTrends » Everything Else

Cook Up Some Glow Worms

Christina Bonnington — Wed, 16 May 2012 23:21:26 +0000

Melissa Lehuta / Modernist Cuisine.

You can make extra-creepy candy crawlies by swapping a secret ingredient—tonic water—into a gummy worm recipe. This one is adapted from Modernist Cuisine, and the quinine in the tonic causes the sweets to glow under a black light. Your kids (and your dentist) will totally freak out.

You’ll Need:

Fishing lure molds
Immersion blender
Food processor
Black light*
Tonic water
9 sheets 200-bloom gelatin
2/3 cup isomalt
1/8 cup clear honey
1 Tbsp. glucose syrup
3 Tbsp. gum arabic
1/4 tsp. vanilla bean seed
Dash of Thyme**
Several Oreos

Procedure:

1. Bloom the gelatin by combining it with 3 Tbsp. of water and sealing it in an airtight plastic container. Soak the container in a hot (140° F) bath for about half an hour.

2. Combine the isomalt, honey, glucose syrup, and gum arabic with 1/2 cup of tonic water in a pot. Bring the mixture to a boil, then cut the heat. Stir in vanilla bean seeds and essential oil.

3. Whisk in the bloomed gelatin. Use an immersion blender to fully emulsify the mixture.

4. Pour the warm mixture into the molds. Let them cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for at least four hours to set.

5. The worms must be grimy and dirty. So remove the filling from the Oreos, and toss the cookies in the food processor. Pulse until you’ve got a dark-brown, soil-like consistency. Spread the crumbs on a plate.

6. Remove the worms from their mold, arrange them in the “dirt,” and click on your black light. Behold the luminescence of your chewy snack!

(Makes about 1 pound; try the Modernist Pantry or the Baker’s Kitchen websites for the more unusual items.)

* (a 390-nm LED UV flashlight won’t work; you need something that’s around 365 nm)
** (or orange, rose, or any other flavor)

Build a Trebuchet

Make a Bucky Fuller Blanket Fort

How to Bike With Your Kids

Watch Star Wars The Right Way

Plan a Trip

Geekdad Must-Have Hardware

Science in The Bath

GeekDad Puzzles for Ages 6-17

Build a Hovercraft

Dissect It

Keep YouTube to Yourself

Cool Science Kits

Cook Up Some Worms

Page Turners for Younglings

How to Build an Art Bot

Princess Free Stories

Mold a Dino Fossil

How to Make Electric Play-Doh

Toys for Brainy Tots

Cool Science Kits

Dave Mosher — Wed, 16 May 2012 22:47:51 +0000

Ah, the wonders of old-school chemistry sets: a little explosive powder here, some radioactive material there, and acids strong enough to dissolve a corpse. Then came the lawsuits. Today’s kits can’t really compare, but a handful do pack the proper equipment to get kids started.

Milestones in Science (Ages 10+)
Most scientists stand on the shoulders of giants. With this kit, kids can walk in their shoes. Milestones re-creates 100 experiments, from the camera obscura to Principia Mathematica.
$80 | Milestones in Science

Snap Circuits Extreme (Ages 8+)
This kit packs enough parts for budding circuit monkeys to build a voice recorder, an FM radio, a lie detector, and 750 other gizmos.
$134 | Snap Circuits Extreme

ScienceWiz Chemistry Plus (Ages 8+)
Don’t look for the colorful flasks or beakers shown on the box. Still, it provides the right stuff to test for pH level, change the color of flames with salts, and even generate a bit of hydrogen gas.
$20 | ScienceWiz Chemistry Plus

CHEM C3000 (Ages 12+)
Short on gimmicks and high on versatility, with 75 well-picked parts, including an alcohol burner, electrochemistry supplies, and flammable and toxic chemicals.
$250 | CHEM C3000

Princess Free Stories

Rachel Swaby — Wed, 16 May 2012 22:22:20 +0000

Geeks come in all shapes, sizes, and genders. So why do publishers assume that girls are just princesses-in-training? Here are a few books that can teach your daughter—or son—that girls can geek out too.

Violet the Pilot
Who needs a starter kit when you’ve got a family-owned junkyard? Violet engineers DIY flying machines using cast-off parts. Can an Arduino obsession be far behind?
Akiko and the Missing Misp
This sixth grader uses her formidable skill set—creating manga, piloting spaceships, solving puzzles—to defend the planet Smoo.
Amulet
Emily’s gadget attachment goes well beyond iPhone worship; she’s physically tied to a powerful amulet around her neck. It’s super-helpful in a bind, but data charges are severe.
Secrets, Lies, and Algebra
Math may get confusing, but it’s nothing compared to the routine humiliations of eighth grade. Tess uses her algebraic mastery to help her navigate some tougher-than-average preteen problems.
Breadcrumbs
Being a sci-fi geek has its benefits. When Hazel finds herself in a modern-day version of The Snow Queen, she relies on her detailed knowledge of The Golden Compass’s Lyra Belacqua and A Wrinkle in Time’s Meg Murry.

How to Bike With Your Kids

Robert Capps — Wed, 16 May 2012 22:14:18 +0000

Xtracycle

It’s one of the great pleasures of parenthood: strapping your kid to a bike and going for a ride. There are lots of ways to do it. Tons, in fact. Too many, actually. Rear-mounted seats, front-mounted seats, trailers, cargo bikes, trailer bikes, duct tape—each with its own trade-offs and advantages. It’s enough to send you back inside for the car keys.

So let’s make this easy. If you have only one kid, go for a front-mounted seat. You don’t want a trailer, which puts your kid 3 to 4 feet behind you, leaving them bored; you’ll only know you’re engaged in a parent-child activity by the extra drag. Rear-mounted seats are slightly better; the tyke sits right behind you, but it’s still tough to interact. With a front-mounted seat—like the WeeRide Kangaroo ($90)—the kid is almost sitting on your lap, taking in the oncoming world. You can tell jokes, sing songs, or kiss them on the head.

For two or more kids, things get tricky. You could add front- and rear-mounted seats, but you risk toppling. You can get a high-end cargo bike, which allows you to strap kids into an open box in front of the handlebars, but that will run you $3,000 or more. Our recommendation: an Xtracycle, the breed of elongated cargo bike that lets you mount multiple seats on a long, flat, stable platform in the rear. The downside: Your kids are once again stuck looking at your butt. But they’re close, and the ride is both smooth and stable. Plus you can upgrade—infant seats when they’re small, footrests and handlebars when they get older. You can buy an entire bike for a little over $1,000, or an $825 kit to extend your current ride. In no time you’ll be flying down the street amid shrieks of delight—at least until your offspring ask you to be quiet.

Mold a Dino Fossil

Adam Savage — Wed, 16 May 2012 22:11:19 +0000

Photograph: David Clugston

Making plaster casts is a good exercise: You have to think upside down and backward. One of my sons made a “space remote”; the other made a fish.

Materials

Work surface, like a piece of plywood
Clay
Rolling pin
1-pint mixing cup
Plaster of paris

Procedure:
Roll out a piece of clay—I like polymer-based Super-Sculpey—about 8 inches square and of roughly even thickness, about three-quarters of an inch. Once it’s smooth, cut off the edges to make a square. Then carve what you want—or press something, like shells, into the clay.

Once the negative space of your project is complete, it’s time to make it into a mold for the positive-space version: Take more clay and build a half-inch-tall wall around the edge of your piece. The best approach is to shape a long piece of clay into a cylinder, roll it flat, and then press it along the perimeter of your workpiece.

Next, mix the plaster. You can get it at the hardware store or, for a small amount that’s perfect for a project like this, from an art-supply store. Fill the mixing cup about a quarter of the way with water. Start sifting in the powder, letting it settle to the bottom. (Adding powder to water gives you a nice mix.) Keep going until a little island forms on the surface of the water. At first the water will soak it up. When you get to the point where the water can’t soak up the island, you’re very close to the ideal ratio. Add just a tiny bit more plaster (you have a lot of flexibility), then mix thoroughly (it’ll be thinner than you think) and pour it into your mold. It’ll set in about an hour.

Note: If you’re careful and willing to make another retaining wall, you can sometimes get two or three castings. How you finish the plaster piece—leaving it raw or painting it—is up to you.

Make a Buckminster Fuller Blanket Fort

Patrick Di Justo — Wed, 16 May 2012 22:00:01 +0000

Illustration: Joel Kimmel

In 1975 Buckminster Fuller first defined the term tensegrity, a portmanteau of “tensional integrity.” It refers to structural systems that derive their stability from various elements acting against each other with equal force, like the surface tension of a bubble. Tensegrity lies at the heart of giant projects like the Georgia Dome. But you can apply it to build the ultimate blanket fort, supported by finely balanced brooms that never touch one another.

You’ll need:

3 brooms with holes at the end of the handle*
1 ball of twine
1 queen-size bedsheet

*(tip: Swiffer mops with the heads removed work perfectly)

As told to Patrick Di Justo by the Buckminster Fuller Institute

How to Make Electric Play-Doh

Christina Bonnington — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:48:13 +0000

Want to introduce your kids to electronics? Ditch the circuit boards and go with that sticky staple of early childhood: Play-Doh. The off-the-shelf variety isn’t conductive enough, but adding the right amount of salt and cream of tartar to your homemade version lets you create circuits, illuminate LEDs, and even make motors spin!

1// Make the insulating dough
Mix 1½ cups flour, ½ cup sugar, 3 Tbsp. vegetable oil, ½ cup distilled water, and food dye in a medium-size bowl. Stir until doughy. Turn out onto a flour-coated surface and knead.

2// Cook the conductive dough
Mix 1½ cups flour, ¼ cup salt, 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil, 1 cup tap water, food dye, and 3 Tbsp. cream of tartar in a pot over medium heat. Stir constantly until the dough thickens. Lay out on a floured surface to cool. (Keep small fingers away—it’ll be hot.)

3// Complete the circuit
Sandwich a piece of insulating dough between two balls of conductive dough. Insert the terminals of a DC power supply (one that takes two AAs or four AAAs, available at electronics shops) into each conductive piece and join them with an LED. Let there be light!

Refrigerate the dough in plastic bags for future experiments.

Developed at the University of St. Thomas School of Engineering

Letter From GeekDad’s Editor

Ken Denmead — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:33:16 +0000

Illustration: Joel Kimmel

Before I was a geek dad, I was a geeky kid—with all the classic credentials. I played Dungeons & Dragons, watched Star Trek reruns every night, and had an awesome HO-scale train layout. But at that stage of our cultural evolution, geek was still an epithet. I didn’t want to identify with such a blighted subclass.

What a difference a few decades make: Geeks are no longer social outcasts. Indeed, my obsessions have seeped far enough into the mainstream that even my kids share them. My sons’ passion for exploring every last detail of the role-playing videogame Skyrim mimics my own love for pen-and-paper D&D campaigns. They race to the latest superhero movies at the multiplex, just as I frequented the comics shops for the source material. And my tech skills now let me play IT manager for their devices, which when I was young existed only in science fiction.

Also in this issue

Yes, my kids actually think I’m cool. Well, about some things. They still recoil in horror when I wear my Jedi robe. (It’s very comfy!) But raising geeks goes beyond teaching them the difference between Darths Vader and Maul. It means teaching them an empowering worldview. It means showing them how things work and that with a little research, determination, and trial and error, they can bend the world to their will. It means raising them with the maker call to arms echoing in their ears: “If you can’t open it, you don’t own it!” It means getting them to approach problems technically and solve them with imagination, which makes anything possible. It means encouraging them to tinker, even if it means voiding warranties. It means building a better world.

For five years, we at the GeekDad blog have been coming up with projects that dads (and moms!) can do with their families. We’ve published a bunch of them in a series of books, including—plug alert!—The Geek Dad Book for Aspiring Mad Scientists. And on the following pages we’ve culled a bunch of tips, tricks, and projects to help turn your offspring into GeekKids. We’ve also asked übergeek and awesome dad Adam Savage (of MythBusters fame) to share some of his family projects. Whatever your children’s age, whatever your level of technical expertise, you’ll find something here that will inspire you to have fun with them, educate them about geek values, and do your part to build a better future.

Build a Hovercraft

Adam Savage — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:57:45 +0000

Photo: David Clugston

Materials:

1 sheet of ¾-inch plywood*
1 leaf blower**
1 heavy-duty shower curtain
2 rolls of duct tape
1 lid from a gallon paint can
Foam pipe insulation
Assorted screws

Cut a 4-foot-diameter circle from the plywood. Put your leaf blower in the center and figure out where the nozzle ends up on the circle—trace around the nozzle and cut a hole to match so it will fit tightly.

Next make the skirt. Lay your shower curtain down flat and place the plywood circle on top. Fold the shower curtain up and around the edges of the plywood and use a staple gun to secure it all along the perimeter of the circle. Cut off the excess curtain and seal the edge, all the way around, with duct tape. Make it airtight. Don’t skimp.

On the underside of the plywood circle, nail a gallon paint can lid in the center to hold down the shower curtain. Cut a ring of six 2-inch holes in the curtain, all a couple of inches from the lid. The air escaping from the shower curtain “pillow” will be the cushion that puts the hover in your craft.

Next, secure the leaf blower with screws and connect its nozzle to the hole you cut. Use duct tape to hold it in and seal it up. We also stuck pipe insulation, which has its own adhesive, around the edge of the plywood to protect our hovercraft—and innocent bystanders.

Now you’re ready to fire it up. You can screw a chair onto the disc for seating, using wooden risers under the legs if the leaf blower needs more clearance. (That’ll depend on the leaf blower—and chair—you use.) In any case, keep your center of gravity as low as you can—the lack of friction can make the hovercaft slip out from under you quite fast. I know this from experience.

* get the cheapest you can find; quality is not an issue
** gas or electric

How to Build an Art Bot

Kathy Ceceri — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:33:26 +0000

Tools/Materials:

Paper or plastic cup
Foam tape
Low-voltage DC motor *
2 AAA batteries
Wide rubber band
Electrical tape
Hot-glue gun
3 or more thin washable markers

How to Build an Art Bot

1. Turn the cup upside down and layer foam tape on the bottom (which is now the top).
2. Stick the motor onto the tape.
3. Tape the batteries end to end, positive to negative, and stick them next to the motor.
4. Wrap a rubber band around the batteries so it covers the terminals—you’ll tuck the ends of the motor’s wires under the rubber band later. Make sure everything is secure.
5. Push a cork onto the rotating shaft of the motor. Off-center weight makes the bot shake, so hot-glue some craft supplies (beads, tongue depressor) onto the cork.
6. For the bot’s legs, tape at least three markers around the rim of the cup, points down.
7. Add googly eyes, pipe cleaners, bells—whatever pleases your small person.
8. Place your robot on its canvas, put the wire ends under the rubber band, and watch a masterpiece unfold.

* (4 inches of wire on contacts)

(This project is adapted from my book Robotics: Discover the Science and Technology of the Future (with 20 Projects), coming in August 2012 from Nomad Press.)