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Ask HN: Great maker projects for 8th grade kids and above?
75 points by ostaquet 53 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 80 comments
As a father of a 13-year-old kid, I tried to do my best to initiate him to different aspects of life. It could be watching a documentary about black holes, building coffee table or just enjoying a simple walk in nature.

I asked to some friends if they have great project idea that could be done by an 8th grade kid with or without support. I personally like to do it with him as it is a privileged time to build something together (for me) and learn new skills (for him).

The purpose of this thread is to assemble some ideas for Christmas presents.

I’m starting…

1. DIY LED Christmas tree kit for soldering (https://www.az-delivery.de/en/products/diy-weihnachtsbaum-kit-alles-inklusive-versandkostenfrei)

2. Software Defined Radios kit (https://www.rtl-sdr.com/about-rtl-sdr/ and https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CD7558GT)

3. DIY Internet Radio Alarm clock with touch screen control (https://www.az-delivery.de/en/products/radiowecker-mit-dem-az-touch)

Any other ideas or suggestions?




8th grade is old enough to do just about anything. I like to do big memorable projects with my kid where we both have to learn some things along the way. I’d build a go kart at this age, or some other electric motor driven vehicle. I’d think it would span a few months depending on time dedicated. And covers mechanical, fabrication, components and even some programming if you want to tune it yourself.

Also, I like to reinforce the concept of “dreaming it up”, tell my kids to think of a thing to make and we break down the steps we think are needed to build it. At first, it’s like their imagination wasn’t big enough. They’d have an idea and I’d show them how we could build it pretty easily. Now, it’s gotten to where they know the skies the limit and anything of kind of possible so they start big and then work their way back down to a realistic scope of features. All to say, ask your kid what they want to build!


This is a great way to teach long term planning and goal setting.


I loved doing chemistry experiments and demos at home as a kid. I had books like the Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments [1] but this is a modern guide that I would gladly recommend:

Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture by Robert Bruce Thompson

https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Guide-Home-Chemistry-Expe...

[1] https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/Brent_GBC.p...


> Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments

This book is an absolute classic. I've got a hardback copy from my childhood and doing the experiments as a kid was magical. Nowadays most other chem experiment books are watered down because the old stuff could be quite hazardous and getting some of the reagents is a lot harder without a parent who can order from Sigma Aldrich.

I've got a decent number of scars and even some chemically induced skin discoloration from those days. The book itself is quite valuable now.


Thank you for the great suggestion! There is a book on Forensic Science experiments too that I have ordered. Are you aware of similar books on Electronics too? Internet is awash with DIY tutorials but nothing beats a structured book to learn the basics of things.


GNU radio is an awesome signal processing toolkit. You can use it to take signals from a cheap RTLsdr, or even a microphone, and make new virtual instruments, radios, etc. Long ago I was interested in aircraft navigation aids, and was able to throw together a receiver for the local VOR transmitter, which showed me on screen where I was relative to the transmitter.

You could build a sonar system, listen to ultrasound, or almost anything you can imagine, thanks to Moore's law and the massive amount of compute we have these days.


If he likes video games, we’re hosting a big game jam for middle and high schoolers next weekend.

It’s free and nonprofit. There are 60 locations. Maybe one is near you?

https://counterspell.hackclub.com/


hi, I waited for this thread to die down and reach the second page before I posted this because I love this topic and didn't want it derailed with a sensitive issue. I didn't realize this was restricted to school age kids and wanted to sign up as I needed some motivation to start on a game. But I reached the pronoun combobox and was legitimately confused!

I used to have a passion for UX and read books like "Don't make me think" and here I was stumbling with this silly field and didn't complete the form. Instead I was googling about pronouns to see if I should select "he/him", "he/him/his", or "He/Him". I didn't even notice there was an "any" and "other" value until I started writing this comment!

Hope you don't mind the question. This is a serious Q as I'm responsible for the UX of a public facing application and might at some point be required to add this field to our pages. I find it odd and kind of against UX best practices to make the field required. And presenting so many similar options "made me think" which used to be considered a bad practice because it's an obstacle to users completing a form. I now realize the target audience is school age kids. Do they automatically know what to select? I'm a xennial that somehow went into some time freeze spending every second of the day raising two kids with little time for social media. So please excuse my ignorance.


There’s no “correct” pronouns for you — just choose the ones you like.


I know there's no correct answer. But I legit wanted to understand what my answer actually means and why we are presenting seemingly duplicate options. I tried googling "capital he him pronoun" and all the references were about god. From a UX point of view, we tried to eliminate non essential questions like "choose 3 items that interest you" from forms years ago. There's also no correct answer for that but some users drop off sign ups when they're forced to answer too my fields. And that's kind of what happened to me here. Sorry if this seems silly or nitpicky!


Letter case in pronouns is sometimes used in BDSM context to emphasize dominance (or lack thereof).


Hah I saw that reference in my search results but eliminated it as a possibility because the target app is for middle schoolers. But if that's the accepted underlying cultural meaning of why someone would select that now people reading my comments above might understand why I felt the need to Google this. Choosing an option is signaling something and in this case it might imply I'm into BDSM.


I don't think there is any real difference between the three options you had to choose between.


I would just say to implement it as an optional field or make "I don't know" the first in the list


HackClub is very, very cool. My son just got a envelope from you a couple days ago, Zach. Keep up the good work, and see if you can slip in a couple extra of your extremely cool stickers for me next time. :-) (Currently rocking Hack to the Future on my laptop)


I'm a really big fan of the more modern way of doing things.

A lot of old school maker projects are fun, but they're also basically E waste making kits now that phones do almost everything.

Not having a bunch of low tech gadgets laying around is really nice, they can easily become the biggest clutter challenge in a space, the same way paper used to back when more people still used it for things other than books.

Building a small solar energy system is fun and easy, and also practical.

3D printing is fantastic.

Meshtastic has a lot of DIY and learning potential and is like the lite edition of ham radio. What's really cool is that range testing gets you outside.

Maybe design something together with JLCPCB and have it made(Leave off any through hole connectors and solder them yourself for both fun and pretty decent cost savings).


Any solar energy kit you would recommend for a hobbyist without breaking the bank?


The prices change every 5 minutes for sales and such, but there's generally always a ton of 50 cents a watt solar panels on Amazon.

Permanent installs that work unattended are slightly scary and have to be done right so something doesn't leak or start a fire, but the portable folding panels are usually similarly cheap.

You could get one of those plus a charge controller and LiFePo4 for not too much.

Everything still needs to be done carefully though, and unfortunately almost all cheap charge controllers have a ton of idle power draw, they're kinda crappy compared to the tech built into a random cheap solar generator, I don't think you can make anything as nice as a commercial generator for cheap.

Most the DIY education kits for kids type stuff seem pretty crappy too.

An ESP32 module with onboard lithium charging plus a USB-C folding panel has a lot of possibilities though, if you have any projects ideas that could be done with such things.


Youtubing might be good for initial exploration, stuff maybe like (beginner-friendly dyi solar) https://youtu.be/adFGmOlDM-Y


Buy a Bambu Lab A1 Mini 3D printer. They're amazing. Then look at examples of what you can do on Youtube. Amazing! Kids nowadays have it so good.


I've had an Ender 3 for 5 years and just got a Bambu P1S, and it's amazing how far things have progressed. The Bambu is just a workhorse, I currently have it printing Christmas ornaments to give the extended family. Where the Ender I would shy away from things unless I REALLY needed them, because I knew I'd have to spend time screwing around, the Bambu basically just works.

I bought the Ender for my son, and he put it together and helped me do some mods to it and print some things, but after about 3 months he never touched it again. Just gave it to his school when I got the Bambu.

The A1 seems to be quite a capable little printer.

Beyond just printing things you find online, learning CAD is a really fun way of turning ideas into tangible objects.


Same here. Now I have an A1 + A1 mini too. It's amazing. This is what I dreamed of when I built my first RepRap. I did get me Ender 3 working eventually but the print quality isn't as good as any of the Bambu printers and it's super slow.

The new CoreXY Prusa One is also a very good buy when it comes out but the A1/A1 mini in particular are just such a good deal at the moment.


I'd recommend getting a prusa kit for anyone interested in building stuff. The instructions are easy to follow and broken up nicely. IMO it's also fun to see the parts and a glimpse of the design you wouldn't see buying a complete printer.


IF I managed to scale what I'm doing then this is my plan. I've built a RepRap in the past so I do understand the inner workings, however if I scale up I'll by going with Prusa, so building the kit means that I'll be able to actually service them myself (and if that happens I'll be adding 2-3 a month to my farm).

Bambu are cheaper in Cap Ex but based on reliability they will likely have a similar TCO after a year. Also as a Chinese brand Bambu are risky. If we get tariffs or some kind of international situation then things could be problematic.


I feel like its best to have a project first where you need 3d printing and then buy a printer. Just getting a printer in and of itself is kinda boring after finding some random crap on thingiverse and printing it out.


My 6yo had 3D printer in school and now is super excited about 3D printing. I'd like to get one of these but have no clue what are the criteria when purchasing one. Can someone help in assistance what to pay attention to while choosing such device? Obviously one of the main criteria user friendliness so that 6yo could quickly start using himself.


Hi there! I’ve been working in the 3D printing industry for 10 years and recently joined Bambu Lab because, in my experience, they offer the best products on the market with an exceptional user experience.

I recently wrote an article that might help you decide: https://blog.bambulab.com/why-a-3d-printer-makes-the-perfect...

  When choosing a 3D printer for your 6-year-old, user-friendliness is definitely key, and that’s an area where Bambu Lab excels.
Printing with your kids is such a rewarding experience! If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask—I’m happy to help.


Bambu Labs. They have three interesting models:

* P1S: enclosed printer which can print most types of plastic and is extremely fast. It's a CoreXY printer meaning that the print head moves in XY position and the print bed only in Z. This makes it faster and take up less space. Controls via buttons and old style LCD display (3rd party touch panels are available). Available for 560 EUR base, 772 EUR with the AMS.

* A1: open printer which moves the bed the Y position, known as a "bed slinger". It's slightly slower than the P1S due to the bed moving but is still very fast. Controls are an integrated touch panel. This is their most modern design so it's easier to maintain. Priced at 300 EUR base, 450 EUR with AMS Lite

* A1 mini: small version of the A1. Main attraction is the price of 200 EUR base, 350 EUR with AMS Lite (+20 EUR postage).

Now the AMS (for the P1S) and AMS Lite (for the A1/A1M). These are their multiple material system. They allow you to use multiple different materials (colors, different plastics) at the same time. The AMS is enclosed and can be used with materials which must be kept dry (25% humidity in my AMS vs 80% out in the open). I have both and they're both awesome but not 100% required.

Prices in the US are lower as EU prices include 21% sales tax.

What to do? Buy the A1 mini if you're budget constrained or aren't sure. It's fantastic, it prints fast and the 18cm x 18cm size is fine for what kids will do with it. If you can stretch to the P1S then I'd highly recommend it. I brought all 3 for my business and have been running them together pretty much all the time I've been able to have them running. I use the mini for fast prototying and the other to make "production runs". Although I'll probably end up either moving the mini to private or buying another mini - as soon as the kids get started we won't be able to stop.

If you're in SV and have an SV budget for toys then Prusa are releasing a new CoreXY printer early next year. Their printers are more sustainable then Bambu Labs, they're not Chinese and are the market leader in quality. They're more capable than any of these printers too as they can print pretty much anything out of the box. I'm not sure if they have a multi-material system.


It might be a good idea to discover what your kid is really interested in. It is a common trap for adults to project their unfulfilled childhood desires onto their children. It used to be fathers buying and building model railways which the kid ignores and chooses to go outside and play football.


Seconded.

One of my kids explicitly said that he really didn't care what we did, he just wanted to spend time with me. Which reminds me that we haven't done that much together since the summer ended...


Perhaps it's too simple, but I like https://elenco.com/snapcircuits/


My kiddo has a couple of those, and I'm still in two minds about some of the choices that they provide in those kits.

It feels a little like "Follow these instructions exactly" without requiring understanding in a lot of cases. For example, the music IC doesn't have any of it's terminals labelled.

The same with the transistor; it doesn't seem to explain exactly why you'd need to use it, why you'd need a resistor on the base, etc. On that note, It's also possible to potentially damage stuff if you just try to experiment without understanding.

I feel like they could have made some of the parts a bit more flexible -- have current limiting resistors built into the LED & transistor units for example, provide point-to-point wires rather than rigid 1/2/3 unit connectors, etc etc.


I had one of those when I was maybe 8. Got some enjoyment out of it, and then a couple years later I got RadioShack's Electronic Learning Lab, which was much more advanced. After receiving and opening it, I was actually in tears (IIRC) because it looked so complicated and I didn't even know how to get a wire into the breadboard.

That ELL gave me probably 100s of hours of fun and learning over the next 5 years.


Had these for my kids. It is confidence-building either way. And it is likely to spark a lot of questions like "What is a transistor anyway?"

I certainly would not WITHHOLD Snap Circuits from a kid because they might not know what's inside the IC.


Second this. My daughter is in 3rd grade and loves these.


If I had kids, I would probably subscribe to KiwiCo (https://www.kiwico.com/us/store/cp/12-plus-years-old).

Lego?

Unfortunately, my limited (geographically-constrained) contact with my nieces and nephews has severely impacted my ability to influence them towards technology. :(

Exposure is one thing that is helpful, but in the end, you have to find something that your son is so enthralled with that he wants to pursue it on his own. It begins with curiosity about something, of course, but ultimately requires him to develop the skills and then the confidence to where he wants to begin doing things on his own.

The problem is in the things that parents subject their children to that actually drive the children away from those things... like piano lessons! (I say this as a pianist that has taught many children over the years, and it's obvious which kids are being forced.)

What does he like to do?


We did this and our girls enjoyed them, but I found it doesn't really teach much. It's mostly a "can you follow simple instructions" task.

I feel like having them complete simple breadboarding / soldering projects where they are actually seeing how things work at a pretty low level and developing a physical skill was more valuable - or get them going on simple Rasp Pi projects if they have an interest in programming.


KiwiCo's Tinker Crate is one of the best parenting moves I ever made. I thought the older kid would like it more but the younger one really took to it.


Typically these threads make me feel useless as a father. Like everyone's kids are contributing patches to the Linux kernel at the age of ten.


That sums up the internet for me, constant feeling of not doing enough to get your kids ahead and personally not amounting to anything because everything has been done better than you can do it.


Word.


Around that age I built a trebuchet. Did calculations, got some plywood and building lumber, etc. Had a lot of fun chucking water balloons down a hill.


Second this - in our case we had a local competition. Awesome experience.


He might also enjoy https://highseas.hackclub.com, where thousands of high schoolers and middle schoolers are spending their winters making projects.

For each hour they "make", they earn "Doubloons" which they can spend on things they need for more projects - like soldering irons, Raspberry Pis, Framework Laptops, and more.

There are about 900 teenagers coding each day and working on different projects. He might be inspired by some of the things they're working on, like this personality quiz (https://personalityquiz.kittycat.hackclub.app/) and this overly aggressive cat-themed study timer (https://study.sticks.gay/).

One good beginner activity could be making his own homepage, which he'll earn a boba tea for: https://boba.hackclub.com


How about building an electric guitar? I made one when I was 17. It does require some special tools. Stewart Mac is a great resource for information and parts/equipment. Check out their book. https://www.stewmac.com/luthier-tools-and-supplies/supplies/...

Building a fender-style guitar first is the easiest route, especially if you use a double-truss neck rod (get it from Stewart Mac). I recommend buying a pre-cut fret board as well. Also, you can use tung oil instead of clear coating. Trying to do an opaque spray job was my biggest regret. I could have oiled my beautiful mahogany body with much better results.

Tools:

* Flexible edge (for pegboard and body profile https://shop.pacificarc.us/products/flexible-edge-curves)

* Bandsaw (body and neck shape)

* Drill Press

* Router (For the neck and body cavities)

* Thickness planer (only need this once to plane the body wood before gluing)

* Curved carving knife (Like this https://ramelson.com/product/curved-hook-carving-knife/) to profile the neck.

* Pipe clamps

Nice to have tools:

* Oscillating spindle sander

* Belt sander

* Router table

I recommend using an easy to work wood like maple for the first attempt. I found mahogany to be a lot of effort to work. Expect the project to take quite a wile. I think mine took 200 hours.


My father is an electrical engineer. Growing up, he had countless components in the basement, including a whole slew of 7400-series DIP chips, as well as a bunch of (powered) breadboards and spare wire. In highschool I had so so much fun building things from scratch - I recall building a basic adder by drawing out the truth tables and doing boolean algebra to come up with the circuit diagram, eventually evolving it into a more fully-fledged calculator. It felt (and still feels) like magic! Most of it was self-directed, though I certainly got his help in a lot of places.

I think sort of "choose your own adventure" projects like that are great, and they also force you to really understand everything you're doing. You can also scale the scope of the "project" to whatever you want; it can even be a sort of iterative process. More importantly (imo) you're left with a bunch of components that he can tinker around with endlessly :)


I so miss the basements of my midwest youth and early adulthood. They were the place for projects. I built so much. My west coast home since 2010 doesn't have a basement, and we've not much interior space for projects (esp when you're talking construction, tools, soldering and such). My spouse is stickler about the inside staying nice, too. The garage is the alternative, but it's so inferior. There's a car there, it's cold, etc. Oh for a basement...


Living in the Northeast, my basement flooded last winter and now my radon levels are through the roof. However, I can't mitigate them because of the French drain I have there! So basements aren't always that great, at least in my area.


Adafruit has loads of projects and kits like TV-Be-Gone, Circuit Playground, EdgeBadge and others. They're suitable for a range of ages and experience levels, usually come with lesson materials and are generally pretty affordable.

I believe SparkFun has a similar ecosystem of products and projects as well.

I'm not affiliated with either of these companies.


You & he might get inspiration from Low Tech Magazine, https://web.archive.org/web/20240122052820/https://solar.low...


You can have a lot of fun with a tiny traffic light using an Arduino and three different color lights. There are bunch of things you can do to build on it.

- 3d print a stand (here's one I did https://github.com/SalvatoreT/howmm/blob/master/week06/Traff...)

- incorporate an infrared sensor + infrared light to simulate triggering the red -> green flow

- make an intersection with each of the lights working together to show the right thing at the right time

- add a crosswalk


Keep it simple. I think your examples might be too advanced. Failing is boring.

You know these 'sticks' that you hold an ice cream with?

Bend those into a propeller. Wet them with water if they crack. Drill a hole (or cut with knife) through the middle and put it on a small electric motor and attach a battery or power source. Spin it up and watch the propeller fly off.

Just give him or her the things and say the goal. And that you don't know if it will work. The hard part is figuring out to bend with water and to get the right fit on the hole to the axis.


Aolean harp! I'm planning a workshop for kids around this now: build the harp & resonator however you like (two flower pots with a piece of fishing line in between for example -- more ideas here: https://www.homemade-dessert-recipes.com/aeolian-harp.html) then add a contact mic to the resonator and do some simple digital processing (delays and phase shifts) on the waveforms to demonstrate signal arithmetic and the basics of acoustics.


The SDR is fun on its own (I've browsed the local airports' signals and decoded APRS signals with DireWolf, using a nothing-special TV-style dipole antenna that comes in the box, and you can always use it as a decent FM reciever on your PC), but an interesting step up might be to also promise a basic handheld transciever (like $30) if the kid wants to get on the air rather than just flipping channels. (Studying for and getting a license is an activity in and of itself)


I soldered one of these with my 6 year old: https://thepihut.com/products/3d-xmas-tree-for-raspberry-pi. They seem to be out of stock, but maybe you can find them somewhere else.

Fun, quick project. With my kid, I healed the iron and they held the solder. I’m guess a 13 year old could do more (or all) themselves.

Then there are options for tweaking the program, like different patterns, a “count down” to Christmas, etc.


There are a lot of these simple soldering projects out there.

Our daughters completed a few. At a minimum, they now know how to solder and have an appreciation for electrical components. That was all I was hoping for at such a young age.

Should either ever decide to study electrical engineering, I feel they will be less intimidated having had this experience.


Build a cigar box guitar.

Here's my method: https://jsnow.bootlegether.net/cbg/cbg.html


Not quite the same, but if you've a leaf blower, then making a hovercraft with a couple of pool noodles and a circular piece of plywood is pretty cool (and a lot of fun).


13 year old can do almost anything. Only problem is ... scope, I guess?

Like, I was making games in Visual Basic. Made a little Tyrian clone. It had total of two levels :D


FIRST Tech Challenge


I was going to recommend that as well but he's interested a project for a Christmas gift


1. Has Motor, Flames or both 2. Slightly Dangerous 3. Desire to make it better

The key is to spark something that creates an obsession IMO.


Pulse jet, maybe?


Fpv, my kid didn’t care about the sdr rtl plus it doesn’t actually do any interesting frequencies. Everything interesting is 1ghz and above these days

For the drone I just bought the parts over time and one day he asked if he could put it all to put it all together. It was a bit of a bitch debugging his mistakes but I’m glad he took an interest and applied himself


Raspberry Pi CAN Bus trains kids in reading diagnostic logs

https://www.autopi.io/blog/raspberry-pi-can-bus-explained/

This is a great way to get Linux experience. One student used these skills to work on Medtronic GI Genius via YOLO AI.


Take a look at what these guys do:

https://circuitmess.com/


diy telescope.

You can get a mirror set very cheap on ali, eg https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005098614936.html

You'll need to buy an eyepiece or two, and hardware, bolts, etc, but everything else can be made or 3d printed.

I designed and made, with my kids, a 76mm 'cheapscope' using PVC pipe, 3d-printed mirror-holder, spider. focuser and camera-tripod connector, here: https://imgur.com/a/cheapscope-4KtPgoN

I meant to post the 3d-print designs but haven't got to it, let me know if you're interested.

For sure it's not the best scope (or design) ever (and the 3d prints warped a bit), and no phone/camera eyepiece mount so the pictures are shaky, but it works, it was fun, and opens up a new world(s).


I think pen plotters are really cool! There's a bunch of models on 3d printing websites like this one: https://www.printables.com/model/573473-pen-plotter-core-xy


Building a computer from the components. Bicycle maintenance and/or building a bicycle from the components. Building a skateboard. Car maintenance. Doing a project in your house, like installing a new toilet.

I can think of a million things, but ask him what he's interested in doing.


Crunch Labs of Mark Rober https://www.crunchlabs.com/ https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRober


Buy a $20 RC car off Amazon and replace the radio receiver with a raspberry pi for a quick and dirty driverless car platform. Might have to do some surgery to reuse the motor drivers or you might have to add your own, but it's generally not too bad.


The most memorable project I ever did as a teenager was building a Tamiya Frog RC car with my older brother.


I think 8 grade is too old to make silly toys, and time to do some serious stuff:

1. Carpentry project

2. CNC machining project

3. Microelectronics: assembly from ready parts

4. Drone or aviation related project

if he is into computer stuff, just teach him how to hack computers and websites, the pentesting stuff.


Rebuild a used car. They can drive it in 2 years when they get a learners permit.


BBC Microbit project kit. Awesome stuff. It's used in secondary schools here in NL to teach kids CDT.


Custom handwired (maybe with amoeba pcbs to help) keyboard, there are a lot of designs out there.


Sometimes a 13 year old kid just wants to be a kid. I know because I was robbed of that, thanks to the adults in my life growing up. Let your kid discover whatever it is that they are into, on their own.


Are you saying just let them figure it out on their own?

I prefer to give my kids opportunities in things they wouldn't otherwise have known about, or had the resources to discover. They can then decide if thats something they want to go deeper on.

This notion of "let kids be kids" minimizes their development needs and exposure to important learning experiences.


Modular synthesizer.

8th graders need to make noise.

Good luck.


magic




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