
Engineering challenges for children during lockdown - tumidpandora
https://www.jamesdysonfoundation.com/resources/challenge-cards.html
======
pbhjpbhj
"Dyson engineers have designed these challenges specifically for children."

I'm certain that's not true.

Balloon cars, was a school thing at least a decade ago. Spaghetti bridges has
been used in Scouting as a challenge for 30+ years that I know of.

The only one I've not seen before is cardboard boats, and I'd be amazed if
that's novel.

I suspect it's more like: "a junior content producer for our social media
found these in 20 mins".

~~~
HorizonXP
This is a pretty cynical viewpoint. All ideas "have been done before" but the
Dyson team took the time to assemble these, get their team to actually design
them to be digestible by non-engineers, and produced a wonderful website and
set of videos. Hopefully, it inspires others to take an interest in the STEM
fields, and they'll eventually build upon the ideas of others.

I'm an engineer, but I'm also a dad. I greatly appreciate the fact that
they've done the work for me. Pretty sure 95% of my job is taking the work of
others and slapping it together with some paint. That's most of humanity.

~~~
scoot
I'm with @pbhjpbhj here. These are pretty run of the mill, and if child(ren)
haven't already done most of these in school (or at home), I'd be very
surprised.

I have no problem with Dyson engineers collating them, and I'm sure there's
some value in that (although there are plenty of books from the 70s and beyond
with similar (if not identical) collections; but I do take issue with them
claiming that "Dyson engineers have designed these challenges" like they are
somehow new or special.

~~~
rexpop
> if child(ren) haven't already done most of these in school (or at home), I'd
> be very surprised.

Then prepare for this shock: 99% of children are not given the opportunity to
engage in engineering challenges like these. Heck, even in my affluent milieu,
a minority engaged in the available programs.

In districts across out relatively affluent nation, children are getting
abysmally poor educations with schools acting as little more than under-
staffed daycares. I cannot fathom the levels of wealth and privilege that make
these commonplace poverties illegible to you.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
It's more the claim to have _designed_ the challenges. I was excited to read
them, and then heavily disappointed to just have a short list of stock, well-
known ideas.

Take spaghetti-bridges, what exactly did Dyson _engineers_ design there? To
meet the title, IMO, they'd need to have tested different novel design ideas,
chosen design aspects, and extended those aspects.

Cheap marketing looks cheap.

I look forward to being contradicted, whereby Dyson engineers share their
notebook pages on how they designed these challenges ...

~~~
rexpop
Of course, I agree with you that it's dishonest. It's the typical dishonesty
of marketing. All marketing is dishonest. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,
but you can't trust marketing. You can't trust corporations, and you can't
trust marketing.

------
RandomBacon
It's taking a long time to load for me. The latest Archive link loads much
faster:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20200424011530/https://www.james...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200424011530/https://www.jamesdysonfoundation.com/resources/challenge-
cards.html)

They're interesting challenges, but I thought the idea of a challenge was to
be challenging, ie. Can you figure out how to do it? The challenges give away
the sollution straight away.

~~~
pintxo
> Please note that the activities contained here in are intended for children
> ages seven and above. Adult supervision is recommended for all projects.

Explain it to the adults, so they can make sure the children will get a
success?

------
mcshicks
If you like those kinds of things, check out the tinkering studio page from
the San Francisco Exploratorium. My wife works at a similar space in our local
science museum (shut down now) and a lot of them are trying to see what they
can do to get "virtual".
[https://www.exploratorium.edu/tinkering/projects](https://www.exploratorium.edu/tinkering/projects)

------
illsorted
The actual "Challenge Cards" that the videos reference can be downloaded here:
[https://www.jamesdysonfoundation.com/content/dam/pdf/US%20ch...](https://www.jamesdysonfoundation.com/content/dam/pdf/US%20challenge%20cards%20with%20cover.pdf)

------
hendry
Popups and videos that don't load. UX failzone.

------
duxup
Who has that much spaghetti on hand?

Also my local grocery store is limiting how much spaghetti you can buy...

~~~
knicholes
Turns out spaghetti isn't that hard to make.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I'm not sure fresh spaghetti is going to work that well, but I'd be interested
in seeing the video of you trying!

~~~
knicholes
You drape the spaghetti over a dowel, let it dry, and cut it before you try to
build a bridge with it!

