design toys

This is the really cool maker site for kids. They learn skills, invent stuff and get badges like scouts without the problems. https://diy.org/

http://makerfaire.com/live/ All day today. Check out the talks, live roaming feeds, and meet the makers.

Just watched a few minutes of an episode of Spark called “Playing with Technology” http://www.kqed.org/arts/programs/spark/episode.jsp?epid=143712
. One of the featured artists was a musical instrument maker named Walter Kitundu, who makes really cool instruments based on turntables and other stuff. I liked his description on what he does, he says he feels like he “climbed into the basement window of the church called music and is just hanging out there”. He doesn’t have formal training so he’s just sort of there doing his thing. cool.

I’m still interested in getting activity items for this student at the school we were doing research with.

I found two foam toys at Goodwill yesterday. One was a carpet with a checkerboard on it. It comes with foam checker pieces with batman or superman insignias. I just wanted the game board.

The other was a foam floor pad from Playspot. It was still $40 even at Goodwill but I bought it anyway. I’m hoping that he will be interested in assembling it.

I’m going to get some checkered table cloth material and make a snail race gameboard for the stuff I got him at xmas. I also found these great dice game printouts at Teachwithme.com that have some ideas for teaching multiples with dice and paper handouts.

I bought my grandaughter a couple of art project toys for xmas. One was this dollhouse kit from Roominate http://www.roominatetoy.com/

One of the projects I used to work on used this idea to teach simple circuits. We had kids make a room with a fan and lights. I spent a could of years trying to figure out ways to make dollhouse furniture out of recycled stuff. Its probably even listed here someplace in 43things.

So I wrote to them and let them know that I have a design for an LED lamp made out of recycled soda bottle lids. I promised to make a video that shows the process and send it to them this weekend. I’m going to do that.

I might take this if its free. https://www.coursera.org/#course/gametheory

I gave some xmas gifts to the students we were working with on our project. I found out yesterday that they like them so I got all excited about it.

One of the toys were some foam colored dice. In my small morning coffee alotment of time to be creative before I start working, I found this link http://boardgamegeek.com/forum/36/boardgamegeek/do-it-yourself

I’m going to make a dice game board to go with the dice I got for one of the students. I found a great idea for doing it with foam core board. Otherwise I could make it out of felt. This student tosses stuff so it has to be soft.

I found these beautiful little toys and dolls here http://clothandthread.com/

I want these.

I want to make some interactive ebooks but I have crappy drawing skills. I also love about a million handmade toys that people are selling on etsy. So my new idea is to cross market the toys with the creators and use them to illustrate the books. I’m pretty sure people are doing this already but it seems like a good idea to me.

I always loop back to toys for kids with disabilities. I probably must do this.