Saturday we had the good fortune to attend the Maker Faire, held every year at the New York Hall of Science. We went three years ago, and it was for us. It was fun, but so so crowded, and raining. This year they expanded the area and it didn’t feel nearly as crowded. And Simon had a blast.
I’m a bit amazed at the number of Makers (aka creators/inventors/programmers) who were all about letting the 4-year-old touch and play with their robots. Simon got to control dancing spiders (and used a track pad for the first time) he got to drive the mini-bots with a touch screen. He got to fly things and build things. And now he wants to make robots. I am completely on board with this.
He also got to run across a pool of “slime” and learned that you don’t sink and get stuck if you run really fast.
And Rob bought a paper airplane motor. So they are building airplanes and trying to fly them. The first draft didn’t go so well. So I asked Simon what you do when something doesn’t work. He sang “Design. Build. Test. Improve.” Thank you LeapFrog videos. We talked about how to build a better plane.
Fun! I love Maker Faires. We also have a maker space at our local science museum called the Shed.
Do you know snap circuits? They’re circuits kids can build that snap to a board. Not as fun as a robot, but it’s a good first step. Also littleBits. They’re snap circuits that work off a board.