DIY challenge for kids

[hewhowalksamongus]

Hi,

My wife has just asked me if I would like a project towards her MSc at our kids local pre-school. To create a light box /projector for a pre-school. The idea is to introduce some technology to 2-5 yr olds.

Basically something like a box with a torch or christmas lights under it. Maybe even a box with changing colours pretty much anything along that theme with basic tech involved.

I am thinking a cardboard box with a battery powered cupboard light. But don't think this will last long. If I make it out of anything more solid there is just too much risk of some kid hurting themselves. 4x2 with a strip light is just too risky :-)

Any creative suggestions? I have heard of an internet suggestion of a stack n store box with a hole and some cool running christmas lights under it.

For all you fogies out there. Yes 2 yr olds are introduced to tech, IT, ICT, Computing (whatever the latest gov buzz word is) get used to it :-) I remember my tech learnings came from the video camera in the window of Dixons.

[geoff]

In message , hewhowalksamongus writes

Buy a tin of quality street (or whichever one it is with all the different coloured cellophane wrappers)

Eat all the sweets, carefully preserving the wrappers

batteries, switch bulb, card, small geared motor

cut the card into a circle, cut holes in it, glue wrappers over the holes

etc etc ...

[harry]

You can do some interesting stuff with fibre optic cable.

[Dave Liquorice]

I take it you mean the thick plastic stuff you can get from Maplins or find on decorative lamps.

Real fibre optic cable is not something I'd want pre-school kids to be able to get hold of. *Very* fine, very sharp, easy to get a bit embedding in yourself and being so fine a right begger to find and remove.

[PeterC]

Don't know what they're like, but the push-to-turn-on/off LED lamps, need 2 or 3 AAA cells for the battery, 99p for 2. Could also use NiMH cells in them (I run all of my torches on LSD rechargeable cells) and teach the kids about maintaining cells and using chargers.

[Martin Brown]

A very old one but still good none the less is making a colour wheel card that you spin to get white or rather grey. Nice colouring exercise for the kids and the way it mixes to white when you spin it up.

Making a Yoyo with similar decoration is also possible. NB they can be weapons of war if properly made.

If it has to be a projector then how about a high power LED used to project slides that they make themselves from sweet wrappers and OHP film. Problem again is staring as such an LED can harm eyes and OHP film risks paper cuts. Elfin safety is tricky for tiny tots.

A nice variant if you have a pair of polarising filters is making clear images on OHP in sellotape that take magical on colours in polarised light. I will defy anyone to explain how that works to under fives!

Depending on the ones you choose 10-20mA and a 2Ah AA battery = 10hours continuous use. More worrying is the presence of batteries in a class of under fives. I don't think this technology business in preschool has been properly thought through. Maybe you need to use D cells that are unswallowable by a small child but pack a nasty punch if shorted out. Or perhaps AA cells with a series resistance packed into a larger block of plastic to make them unconditionally safe in a classroom.

Otherwise your MSc may be on the effects of electrolysis of stomach contents of a tot during wait times at A&E and use of a stomach pump.

Various Xmas lights use colour changing LEDs you might find the right component bits at Rapid or remaindered at Poundshop. Is your other half any good at soldering? Whatever parts are used they should be kid proof.

Cast into clear araldite or sandwiched between acrylic would be OK.

How do you explain how something like that works though without just invoking "Magyck" ?

[Dis Manibus]

"hewhowalksamongus" wrote in message news: [e-mail]...

If you can combine any of the above with a cheap wind-up torch from the supermarket, I think it'd help to give them the idea that power comes at a cost. Save buying batteries, too.

[stuart noble]

I've never known a toddler swallow anything they're not 110% sure of. Difficult enough getting them to swallow food. Even a new shape of pasta is closely scrutinised and tested on the parents. A conservative lot toddlers

[Dis Manibus]

My little lad won't eat yoghurt with 'bits in'. I would never eat marmalade, because I thought it had bits of 'tree' in it.

[Huge]

Well, strictly, it does.

[Tim Watts]

On Thursday 16 May 2013 12:05 Dis Manibus wrote in uk.d-i-y:

I would never eat marmalade because it tasted like crap.

I sympathise with my kids when they puke in the face of grapefruit :)

Weirdly enough I tried a Fray Bentos tinned pie on the them the other month

- in the spirit of "this is what I grew up eating".

They found it gross. Oddly enough I did not much like it either - and yet I ate loads of them as a kid.

They all agreed after that that "Daddy's cooking" was actually pretty decent

- which was the main aim, because I got fed up with the whining...

[Dis Manibus]

Point conceded.

[Dis Manibus]

True. I've always found it bitter. TBH, I only like savoury things. Love crisps - can't stand cake.

[Tim Watts]

On Thursday 16 May 2013 12:28 Dis Manibus wrote in uk.d-i-y:

I think it's party expectations.

I expect "jam" to taste sweet. Marmalade is jam - yes, I know, but it is, even if not so technically - don't get me started on "conserve vs jam vs "extra jam" (WTF is that) vs marmalade.

However, sometimes a really bitter pint of bitter is most welcome...

And I like bitter lemon drink too.

It's like indian "sweets". A lovely lady I used to work with, Nina, brought a load in to work one day. They were extremely nice - spicy, "indiany", sugary. But I could never think of them as "sweets", even though she did...

[whisky-dave]

I only like the steak and ale one I've never liked chicken and mushroom pies they all seem to have that weird white snot like stuff in them, is that meant to be the chicken or the mushroom ? I used to like liver can't bring myself to eat it now.

[Theo Markettos]

How about 'LED throwies'. Button cell, LED, switch, neodymium magnet. They stick to any steel surface and can arrange them in different ways. Might need to have the electrical side sealed though.

Theo

[Andy Burns]

[alan]

neodymium magnet.

For 2 to 5 year olds? These magnets often come with the warning not to trap a finger (skin on finger) between the magnets and/or magnet and metal surface. And nothing too small to swallow or choke on.

[Jim K]

nah, look at any under 5s toy and all you need to do is secure the batt compartment with a crosshead screw = no loose batteries, & no "cumpansation clames" (sp)

Jim K

[hewhowalksamongus]

DIy project for kids, I created as a different topic altogether thanks for all the suggestions, but I am not sure how this topic managed to hijack the XP boot problems forum.

For the XP problem I recommend get down PC world and buy a hard drive caddy this will allow you to plug your old IDE drive into any usb drive and read the disk just like a spare drive and copy all files across. (yes I hate PC world too, depends how urgently you need it)

Also as a general rule for anyone else reading this. Photos seem to be the one thing we all hold in silly amounts these days. Just 1 hard drive failure and it's all gone. always make sure all files are stored in 2 places or on a remote host (fancy marketing people call it a cloud).

For the kids toy. I like the idea of sealing the light into some kind of clear substance like arydite. The rotating colours could work if my building skills were upto making something durable.

The batteries are too much of a worry as they are normally easily sealed or put behind a screw to access.

Flashing throw balls interesting. I think I shall investigate some kind of liquid to seal things into a safe plastic.