Next Project: Treasure Finder

A few weeks ago I found a cool weekend project over @Make.  It was a metal detector and was considered a weekend build.  I have always loved the idea of treasure hunting, you know panning for gold, metal detectors and all that.  I don't remember ever getting anything worth it while doing these as a kid, but it was the dream that you would find a big nugget of gold, or some lost treasure trove from pirates, or bandits.

I think this would be a fun gadget to play with my daughters after we build it of course.  We can make some initial scans around the block to see what we can find, or I could possibly hid gifts or other items for them to look for.  Maybe I could incorporate it into a bigger picture type thing.  I could possibly use it as a starting point for a scavenger hunt....idea's are endless.

Overall the build states that it a moderate build, so I am not to sure how much I will be able to have my daughters work on it.  I saw that there was some PCB etching with a laser printer, that's beyond anything I have done so that will be interesting.  After that some soldering, which I am horrible at.  One change I think I will try and do is the length of the pole for the detector.

I would like it to have multiple height points, easy enough I think.  I could probably repurpose one of those Swifter/Clorox floor wipes.  Might have to put insulation around it (in case wires touch I would think).  Also probably add the headphone jack, and volume control.  I remember how loud those thing are, don't want to annoy the neighborhood.

Link to Make Article:  Treasure Finder
Picture from Make Article.

Playing around with the Crayola Chalk Maker

Over the weekend my daughters and I pulled out the Crayola chalk maker and decided to have some fun.  After checking out the results of the reshaping chalk (not so good by the way).  It seemed like this would be the better process for making chalk.

Overall the direction are pretty simple:
1.  Open jar
2.  Put 5 cap fulls of water inside jar.
3.  Shake
4.  Pour

Do & Discover Maze Challenge

Remember the game Operation?  This is sort of the same thing.  I made a post about this last week when I picked it up at the store. I found this at ToyRus for 7.99 and thought it would be a great project for the girls to try and put together.  The pieces overall were pretty big and easy to assemble.

I had to help my three year old push in some of the items, but my five year old was able to push them in.  I guided them by explaining where all the pieces go and how to connect them together.

I then connected all the wires for the projects and set out to let them play with it.  We setup this project twice, once for the younger one and then again for my oldest daughter so they each had their own turn building and playing with it.

Unboxing of the project it.

Overall I was very happy with the overall build quality, and ease of use of this project especially for the cost.  And I believe that if we purchase other items from the same company that these can be interlinked to do more.  We will have to wait and see on that one.

This is our end product once we put all the pieces together.  One issue I did have and it was probably more user error then anything else was the on/off switch would slide to off the more you touched the wire.  Or the swing arm would get stuck caught on a wire.  Both are easy fixes though.

Crayola Chalk Maker found.

Today while I was out in the pouring rain picking up batteries I happened to spy the Crayola Chalk Maker.  It was on the end of an aisle in Walmart, listed as a clearance item.  I think the original price was 15$, but it showed 10$, I found one of those price checker scanners and it listed at 6$ so I picked up two of them to use for next weekend.

It looks like it comes with about 6 colors per box which is pretty cool, and after a quick read it says that it takes about 20 minutes for the chalk to harden and be usable.  Much quicker then most of the DIY chalks that I have seen online.

I can't wait to try this one out and see how well it works compared to the nice pictures on the box.  And for 6$ you really cant go wrong in buying them.

DIY Silly Putty Fail

I don't know if I didn't read the directions right or I had the wrong ingredients but the DIY silly putty that is found on the net just did not work yesterday.   The most common recipe was glue and liquid starch in 1 to 1 or 2 to 3 portions.

I tried both portion setups but it was just liquid and never turned into anything remotely like silly putty.  I used Elmer's glue and Liquid starch from a can for ironing.  Maybe it was the wrong kind of starch.  Either way it was fun trying it out and we will have to try it again another day to see if we can get it to work.

I did try and add some Borax to the mix which resulted in a weird spongy glob, but it was not useful so it was trashed.   Until  the next experiment.

Tin Can Walkie Talkies

Over the weekend my daughters and I were able to do a few projects with varying degree's of success.  Overall it was a great success and more importantly we all had fun.  The first project that I am going to cover is the Tin-Can Walkie Talkies.

As you may know I have been searching for a way to build analog walkie talkies and finally decided to go the route of the tin can walkie talkies as a building block to the real walkie talkies.  A simple project, but I did the majority of the work on it today as I didn't want them to hurt themselves with scissors as the make a hole in the cups.

A simple design as you see above.  The hardest part was trying to find a place to test these while instructing the girls to hold the string taunt.  They kept wanting to walk closer together which would wreck the experiment.  Not to mention a cat who likes to jump and pull on the string.

I had each of my daughters in their own room and I stood in the bathroom between the rooms as directed traffic so to speak.  They were able to talk and hear each other, I had them each say a number with door slightly closed so they could not hear the actual talking.  They were able to pick up the words.

They were impressed with the project and it only took a few minutes of finding parts and building, another great project done.

Dynamo torch into Dynamo Flashlight

A few weeks ago I built the Dynamo Torch, but now I want to try and upgrade it to an functional flashlight of sorts if possible.  I am unsure of how to do this at the moment though.  I would think I would need to add a battery or capacitor of some sort to hold the charge from the winding of the hand crank.


If anyone has any idea's or finds some instructions on how to do this that would be great.  I might just go pick up a hand cranking flashlight from Target and take that apart to see how it works and then do that.  It kind of defeats the purpose of the build but I still think that I would be able to get something useful out of the project for me and the girls. 

The Potato Clock Revisited.

A few months back I tried my luck at a potato powered LED but I never got the LED to light up.  Tonight with the help of another "science toy" we built a potato powered clock.   The product is from the same company that I built the Dynamo Torch from.  Its n from the company ToySmith, and its their 4M Green Science projects.   I have found the products locally, but I think I need to start getting them on Amazon because they are a lot cheaper.

Dynamo Torch on a rainy day

It had been raining non stop for about 3 days in SoCal and my daughters have been couped up in the house as school is out for the holiday season.  My youngest was just put to nap, so my oldest and I were the only ones around.

I know its quite close to Christmas but I remember that I bought a Dynamo Torch a while back that was sitting in my car just waiting to be built.  If I remember it cost a little more because I bought it from a brick and mortar store not from Amazon, good to know for the next one right.  

The boxes the company make look really slick that might have been the reason I picked one up.  They also make it look super easy to build this projects.  A while back I posted about making a dynamo torch, but I did not know it had an actual name to it at the time.  

The whole build was really simple, and only took about 15 minutes, I kind of wish it took longer but there is not really much to do when building this project.  

Follow up to Spaghetti and Marshmallows.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend my daughters and I broke out the spaghetti and marshmallows and tried our luck on building some structures.  It took a little bit of explaining  on how to push the spaghetti into the marshmallows without breaking them, but after a while I think my oldest was sort of getting the hang of it.  It was also a lot harder then I expected, I guess looking back at playing the game and then trying it in real life you kind of forget the whole 3D aspect required for structures.

In the game everything is 2D and easy to build up, not so much on a table.  Also spaghetti is really not the strong either,  I don't know how I could have built big structures but I have some idea's now on how to build them a little stronger so maybe the would get bigger.

I wanted to try snowmaking

I wanted to try snow making as a project this year, but after looking through most of the parts list I think it might be a little bit expensive.  Even if I did one of the cheaper designs I would still need an air compressor and from looking on line they seem to be a little expensive for me.  Besides that I don't think that I can justify buying one just for making snow.

Another item that looks like its required to make any good snow is a pressure washer, that is another small fortune.  I guess I could see if I know anyone in the area that I could borrow the parts from and just assemble it from designs on the web.

Spaghetti and Marshmallow experiment

After playing the new addictive game Spaghetti and Marshmallows on my Captivate (Android). I went out and bought some spaghetti and marshmallows to do some projects with.  I think we can try and do this tomorrow as I setup some types of sceneries that I would like the girls to try and figure out.

This cant be to complicated because it is for a 5 and 3 year old, but taking at least one level or so from the game and building on that I think I can have some fun with it.  I already have the main two items for this project, all I need know are bracelet size rings, some string, and some cardboard.

For the first one I will use some cardboard and draw a circle on the board at a certain height.  From there the girls will have to build a structure that will have one marshmallow in that circle. Another idea is to have rings suspended in the air and have them build a structure that can get a marshmallow through the hole.

My last thought right now was to have them build a bridge to connect to structures and see if they can do that.  In all these we can add more rings/circles to make it a little more complicated depending on how they do.  I dont know how hard it will be for them to begin with.

I think that my older daughter should be able to do this with just a little help, and I know that I will have to help my younger daughter with getting the spaghetti in the marshmallows without the spaghetti breaking.  Either way it will still be a good time with them.

Makezine DIY Haunts contest ends tonight

Just wanted to send out a reminder that Makezine DIY Haunt contest ends tonight.  I cant wait to see some of the entries and who the winners are for this year.  Maybe I will be able to try some of these projects with my daughters or at least come up with some new idea's for projects.

I guess this also signals the end of Halloween as we move to the next holiday and see what we can tinker with.  Like I said not to sure of what type of projects we can do for Thanksgiving but I will try anyway.

Projects for Thanksgiving

Well now that Halloween is over its time to start research for the next major holiday.  That would be Thanksgiving. I wonder what kind of idea's I can come up with.  Its just not the same as Halloween where its expected to outlandish and fun.  Well thats the way I see it at least.

I mean its a turkey, maybe make a steam-punk turkey? A cornucopia made with LED's?  Nothing really stands out for me here.

I hope to have some idea's soon, but I guess its not a deal breaker anyway there are plenty of little projects to start.   If anyone has any idea please post some in the comments section.

Dark detecting LED Ghosties have been created

Earlier tonight my daughters and I created the two LED Ghosties that I have been working on for about a week.(one for each daughter).  I was planning on making three, right now I am kind of glad I only made two.  I thought I did enough pre staging of the parts but nope took a bit of time.

The first part in building of the Ghosties are in the previous posts:
Evil Mad Scientist (Dark Detecting LED Pumpkin)
First circuit build
Second circuit setup

Now that you are caught up on the initial stages here is the link from EvilMadScientist about the LED Ghosties.

I think I found a new project: Nimble Noggin

One of my coworker always brings in those "Skymall" or similar magazines selling the newest gadgets, so today I had a few minutes and decided to take a look through one of them.  I saw an interesting toy that I think I might be able to construct myself.  

It is a toy that reminds me of the game Operation, but you have a wand that you try and move it around a twisted wire without touching the sides.  If it touches it makes beeps, or lights up.  I found the one I saw in the magazine online : Nimble Noggin.

Working on sourcing parts for next project

Starting next week I am going to start sourcing parts for the next project which I think will be the HAB (High Altitude Ballon) photography.  I will have to start searching around and get a good idea of what things might be important to add onto it.

Right now I know I will need a

• weather ballon
• camera
• gps tracking capabilities
• a container

I know over at Make magazine they just had a post about a father/son team who sent one up, and SparkFun has some tutorials over on thier site also on things (though I think they may have gone a little overboard for my needs).

 I also will have to find a good place to launch from, and source some helium (maybe party city), not sure how much it takes to fill a ballon that size.  If anyone has any idea's drop a comment.  Once I start getting the project together I will post some updates.

Second Dark detecting LED built

I started this one at about 9pm tonight right after I finished eating dinner, and finished by 11:30pm.  Not to bad, getting better at this maybe soon I will get them done in a reasonable time frame.  If I had better skills and better accommodations where I was working I could have probably gotten it done a lot quicker.  Who's counting anyway the important thing is that they are done.

I think I did a better job this time with the soldering, not 100% better but better anyway.  I will have to take a class or something.  I also need to pick up so different color wires, everything is black again so it will be a guessing game were what goes to what, but hey it only really needs to work for Halloween right?

Its late and I need to get started

I got a flu shot today so I decided to take a nap after work, it was 7pm when I woke up.  But I needed dinner so I threw together some jambalaya, but I still need to get started on the second dark detecting LED.

With only a few more days I need to be prepared and ready to go with them to make the ghosts with my daughters.   I will try and start tonight hopefully it wont take to long to do it this time.  Might be an issue though that the tip is no where near pointy anymore, guess I will see.

I will post some pictures of the second one, hopefully it will look a little better then the first.  Will probably still be messy, but at least it should work.  I picked up some more "sheets" for the ghosts, and will have my daughters draw circles for the eyes so during the day you can see eyes.  At night the eyes will light up yellow, or maybe red if I can find the red LED's.

I figured out the dark detecting LED

With a constant eye on Evil Mad Scientist website, i sat down on a crude makeshift desk and started to try and piece together the dark detecting LED.  Mind you I don't remember the last time I tried to solder things, so I already knew this was going to be a long day.  I started probably around 5pm, and finished around 9pm (yes I know I am slow).

Its pretty crude looking and using the same color wire for everything so yea I would get pretty confused but I had to work with what I had which was not much I guess.  After initially putting in the batteries it light right up and I figured it was messed up.  But I decided maybe my room was not bright enough (hmm wonder if the first project might not have been a failure).  So I took it directly to the light and turned it on and what do you know the LED's stayed off.  Brought it off the light source and the LED's turned on.

Only one more of these to make (and I was planning on three of them) Three little ghosts.  First have to finish making the second LED setup.  Hopefully tomorrow's will go a lot quicker then today.  A few things I learned along the way.

1.  Tips of soldering irons burn away (yea I know its been a while)
2.  Its a pain to solder on the small perfboard.
3.  I need a real desk
4.  Need those alligator clip hands that I saw at other sites.
5.  Need a better camera to take pictures with.