Do-It-Yourself: Engineering Fun for the Weekend
Posted August 16, 2013 & filed under Uncategorized
As the work week comes to a close, the average engineer can’t help but breakaway from drafting blueprints in order to start drafting weekend plans. Some will take trips to the park or beach, while others spend time with family and friends around the house. If the weekend is upon you, and you find yourself lacking in the fun ideas department, consider working on a do-it-yourself project with your kids. Many of them are cheap, fun, and engaging ways to get children to step away from their IPads and experience the mechanics of the world around them.
Short on ideas? Try engineering some fun with these great do-it-yourself ideas:
Create your own Lego art: Don’t just follow the instructions in the box. Creating your own models will help children understand the aspects of structural foundation and design. Plus, you probably have hundreds of then lying around somewhere.
Manufacture a soap box derby car: This early 20th century hobby doesn’t have to fade into antiquity. There is nothing like manufacturing your own mode of transportation.
Construct a rocket: For those children who wish to be astronauts when they grow up. Why not build your own rocket, find an open field, and send it skyward.
Set up a massive domino display: Hours of meticulous design and construction is always worth the few seconds of glory as your formation collapses before your very eyes!
Piece together a model (airplane, car, etc.): Dozens of arbitrary pieces all coming together to form something wonderful. Nothing like making your own assembly line.
Customize your own fantasy miniatures: Not into cars and planes? There are plenty of fantasy miniatures that are waiting to be built and painted before being sent off to war.
Work on your car: It’s not just a method from getting to point A to B. Kids will appreciate all the work that goes underneath the hood.
Build a piece of furniture: Need an extra chair, bench, or table around the house? Ditch the store bought stuff and make your own out of wood, metal, etc.
Tend to your garden: Not all manufacturing and engineering has to be with inorganic materials. There is no more rewarding experience than witnessing something you have planted take shape and grow.
Tinker with you bikes: Kids ride them every weekend, why not learn to maintain them as well? Show them how to change tires, brakes, and gears.
Take apart your computer: Technology doesn’t have to be a mysterious force that comes from a box. Introduce your kids to the guts that make the computer run. Just make sure you know how to put it back together.
Light up a bulb: Remember building your own circuits when you were in school: Show your kids how electricity works by creating your own circuit setup.
Make a fort or treehouse: Kids will love their own place to hang out. Plus, it will be all the more special to them after building it themselves.
Assemble a marble racetrack: Try taking random objects from around the house and making your own marble racetrack. Once finished, grab a few different colored marbles and see who has the fastest in the house.
Erect a catapult or trebuchet: Whether big or small, nothing says mechanics and gravity like these machines of war! Just be careful where you aim them.
Design a Rube Goldberg Machine: Not familiar with this? Grab some random object from around the house and let your imagination really take off.
By Kevin Withers
