Using just drawing paper, a black sharpie marker, colored pencils and markers, these easy optical art projects are great for kids of all ages. What looks like advanced drawing techniques turn out to be quite simple. In fact, none of these projects require a steady hand or straight lines. Optical Wave Designs Julianna Kunstler’s step [...]
Posted in Activities, Art, Make 
Tags: Art, colored pencils, DIY, drawing, easy drawing projects, kids art projects, markers 
Comments OffIf you are not yet familiar with Arduino, you’ve been missing out on arguably the biggest trend in DIY electronics. In fact, the Open Source hardware movement wouldn’t be complete without Massimo Banzi, co-inventor of the Arduino, a tiny, easy-to-use open-source microcontroller that’s inspired thousands of people around the world to make the coolest things [...]
Makerspaces have finally hit the mainstream. Even churches, schools, and libraries are incorporating makerspaces into their facilities so that community members; especially kids, can tinker, build, and hack toys, devices, and more to make something new. A Google search confirms the craze– the term makerspace returns 44,800 results. Beyond makerspaces, though, is the idea of [...]
Posted in Activities, Art, Back to School, Homeschool, Make, Online Tools Tags: Art, DIY, hand-made, homeschool, make, makerspace, Project-based learning, tinkering Comments OffWhat a fabulous idea! DIY.org is an online community solely for kids (and their parents) to showcase their maker chops. Free to join, DIY.org gives kids tools to collect everything they make as they grow up and a place to share it. Founded by a group of young men who make all sorts of things, the [...]
Posted in Activities, Make, News, Online Tools Tags: craft, DIY, Do-it-yourself, homeschool, make, Project-based learning Comments OffEnterprising engineers and graduate students are creating low-cost devices and methods for conducting basic neuroscience research. Using iPads, apps, blue LEDs, and other off-the-shelf items from Radio Shack, products like Backyard Brains are cropping up to support the DIY biology hacking movement. Building affordable scientific instruments is perhaps the biggest hurdle to accessible research in [...]
Posted in Biology, Chemistry, Electronics, Make, Science, technology Tags: backyard brains, Biology, DANA Foundation, DIY, hacking, Makers, Neuroscience Comments OffUnschoolers are radical mavericks who approach learning 180 degrees in the opposite direction from traditional education. Unschoolers learn in an unstructured environment almost completely devoid of teachers, separate subjects, grades, tests, or quizzes. Instead, unschoolers hack together their learning palette from many sources to create a truly personal learning experience. Unschoolers are active learners who [...]
Posted in Crowdsource, Eclectic Homeschooling, Economics, Electronics, Interdisciplinary, Learning Methods, Make, News, social change Tags: DIY, Hack, make, maker, Maker culture, Open source, Tim O'Reilly, UnCollege, Unschooling Comments Off
SpottyBanana loves project-based learning. We can’t think of a better way to showcase project-based learning than through chronicling a maker project. MAKE’s Zero to Maker column is chronicling newbie maker David Lang’s project-based learning approach to gaining Do-It-Yourself (DIY) skills. Follow David as he progresses from novice to maker phenom! At the bottom of the [...]
Posted in Back to School, Interdisciplinary, Learning Methods, Make Tags: child-led learning, DIY, hands-on learning, make, maker, Project-based learning Comments OffRadio Shack’s back in the do-it-yourself (DIY), maker business! For the average family, Radio Shack has always been the obvious place to buy specialized electric components for a DIY project. Now, the Radio Shack website, The Great Create, provides quality video demonstrations and instructions on creating some very nice DIY projects. Although a bit light [...]
Posted in Activities, Electronics, Make, technology Tags: DIY, Electronics, make, Radio Shack, Robotics Comments Off
