Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share

by Ken Denmead

  Putting It All Together

  You’re obviously going to need a fairly large pumpkin if you’re going to fit all these features inside. Power tools are a great way to do a lot of the cutting work easily. In my time I’ve used power drills and saber saws to build my JoLs.

  If you’re going to have electronics inside, the pumpkin will need to be well cleaned out, and pretty dry as well. Consider putting paper towels on the bottom to absorb latent moisture. And the bottom will need to be as flat as you can get it. To run external power into the pumpkin, simply drill a good hole in the back side to feed cords in. If you need to mount things on the inside sides, try building a scaffolding of taped-together bamboo skewers that pierce the fruit.

  In the end, a family’s JoL is a very personal creation, and no two are ever exactly alike. If you use any of the ideas in this chapter, please take pictures or some video and post them in the forums for this project at www.geekdadbook.com. I’d love to see them and share them with the community.

  WINTER HOLIDAYS

  As we’ve already discussed, LEGO is a geek’s best friend, especially when it comes to building things yourself. So, if you’re going to make your own decorations, why not break out the bricks?

  You can save the money you might be tempted to spend at a certain greeting card store on tree ornaments that look like the star-ships from your (our) favorite science fiction television shows. Build something cool instead!?

  LEGO Holiday Tree

  A really easy and very repeatable project is to build a small LEGO holiday tree and then use the battery and LED concept from the Fireflies project on page 117 to add tree lights. Indeed, because LEDs don’t get hot, you can get a very cool effect by their shining from within the colored, transparent LEGO bricks:1. Start with a 2-by-4-inch brown brick as the base, and then stack the following brown bricks onto it in layers, centered on the middle quad of studs: 2x2, 2x2, 2x4, 2x2, 2x2, 2x2. You now have the trunk of your tree.

  2. At the second 2-by-4 brown brick (or the fourth level), attach a 2-by-4 green brick under either side where the brown brick overhangs the smaller bricks below it (one green 2-by-4 brick on each side).

  3. Attach a 2-by-2 green brick on top of each of the 2-by-4 greens you just attached, so that the 2-by-2s are now adjacent to the 2-by-4 brown on either side.

  4. Attach a 2-by-3 green brick on either side so that it sits on the two exposed brown studs and the four exposed green studs of the bricks you attached in step 3.

  5. Stack two 2-by-2 green bricks on each side atop 2-by-3s from step 4 so they flank the two stacked 2-by-2 brown bricks that form the top of the trunk. The top of your green bricks should now be flush with the top of your brown bricks, leaving a 2-by-6 surface.

  6. Stack two 2-by-4 green bricks on top, centered.

  7. Add one 2-by-2 green brick on top of those, centered.

  8. If you have it available, use a single 1-by-2 green brick with a hole in the middle (common to Technics sets) at the very top, as the mount for your LED.

  9. At the fifth, seventh, and ninth brick levels, add a 1-by-2 transparent colored brick on the outside on either side. This should complete the treelike appearance and will look like glass ornaments. If you have them, put colored (perhaps, say, red and/or green?) studs on top of the tenth level on either side as well.

  10. Slip the LED of your firefly into the hole on the top brick, tape it down from the back side, and light it up!

  If it wouldn’t violate your level of orthodoxy, you could apply this idea to a menorah instead (or as well). Build a LEGO menorah, with each of the cups designed as a repository for one of the fireflies. This applies to the traditional lighting for Kwanzaa, too. But there is more to try beyond LEGO.

  Geeky Wreath

  One very common decoration, whether it be Christmas or its cultural predecessor, the winter solstice, is the wreath. From the Wikipedia entry under “Advent Wreath”:The ring or wheel of evergreens decorated with candles was a symbol in northern Europe long before the arrival of Christianity. The circle symbolized the eternal cycle of the seasons while the evergreens and lighted candles signified the persistence of life in the midst of winter.

  While these were horizontal wreaths (which eventually became the Advent wreath), at some point they also went vertical and were hung on walls or doors as decoration. These days, there’s quite a lively business around the design of decorative wreaths.

  For our wreath, however, rather than evergreen branches and flowers, we’re going to be a little more environmentally sensitive and repurpose some materials all of us good techie geeks have lying around.

  Somewhere in your house, there is a box or basket or plastic tub, and in that tub are cords. They may be extra USB cords, or Fire Wire, or serial, or even parallel. They may be AC adapters or power cords from old computers or monitors or the proprietary data cord that the 2-megapixel camera you bought eight years ago used to connect to your TV to display pictures. There is probably even a handsome selection of component, composite, DVI, and other AV cords, all piled together for that day when you KNOW you’ll need them. Which is why you’ve kept them all.

  The first step toward healing is admitting you have a problem.

  The next step is to take them all out and braid them into a holiday wreath.

  Depending upon how adroit you are at actually braiding odd-size cords, you may wish to cheat a little by going to your local crafts store and purchasing a wire or wood frame that you can braid the cords around. You can use zip ties or even just plain tape to keep them on (an artistic application of electrical tape could provide just the right look).

  The important thing is not to make it look organized and evenly assembled; a bit of chaos is good in this case. And if you really want to go that extra step, don’t stop at cords. Just as pretty front door wreaths can have ornaments or other decorations on them, you can do the same with the random technical detritus accumulating around your house: old hard drives, computer mice, webcams, routers, fans, speakers, whatever. Hang them from the wreath and spread the geeky spirit. Add one string of real holiday lights to bring it to life, then hang it on your door and impress the neighbors.

  Windup Toy Finger Painting

  Like coloring, finger painting is one of those quintessential childhood creative joys. Well, joyful for the kids, but less so for the parent or teacher who gets to do the cleanup afterward. At the end of the day, however, it’s all about letting your children express themselves so you can end up with an abstract piece of art to hang on the fridge or your cubicle wall for a few months.

  But as geeky parents, we’re always looking for a new twist. This is a project perfect for your younger kids, and just right for a summer day or weekend when you need to kill time in a creative way.

  On a creative scale, this projects sits somewhere on the line between classic finger painting and Spirograph. The simple idea is to use whatever windup toys you have as the brushes for your painting. But you can take it even further.

  The setup is easy. Butcher paper, available at your local craft store, is the easiest canvas. Lay it out on a floor or table to the size you want for your final artwork.

  Now, and this is key for this project, you need bumpers. Set up barriers to constrain the toys so they don’t go wandering off the canvas while they’re working. Carpenter’s levels, rulers, and lumber will all work, depending on the required size.

  Toy choice is important. You may decide just to use whatever you have lying around. There are quite a lot of windup toys in fast-food kids’ meals these days, so you probably have some of those lying around. But if you want to make this more a techie project, consider looking for the various toy mini robots that have simple sensors on them so they can sense and avoid walls. These will give you maximum painting bang for the buck.

  Unless you’re worried about the work of art lasting for all eternity, pick up the cheapest paints you can find at your art store, in a variety of bright colors. Pour a bit of each color into low cups or sauc
ers, and dip the feet or treads of one of the toys into it. Wind it up, then set it down on the paper to start doing its stuff. Repeat with different toys and different colors. Hilarity will ensue.

  Of course, one significant concern here is possibility of destroying the toys—you’ll need to wash the paint off the toys if you want to keep them. This is doable with most inexpensive paints; just be careful not to get water in the mechanisms.

  An Even Cooler Idea!

  If you want to make the artwork a bit more permanent than something to magnet to the fridge, consider using spray glue to laminate it onto a piece of board and then putting a spray poly coating or two over it.

  Simple fun for an afternoon.

  Create a Superhero ABC Book

  I hate having to hear my kids say, “Are we there yet?” when we’re on a car trip. So I always do my best to keep them entertained. (Okay, fine. The DVD player helps a little, too. . . .) One time, I decided to play a word game with them. Since we’d been playing with lots of superhero figures recently, I figured I’d work with that.

  “Let’s play a word game about superheroes,” I said. This got their attention and they stopped fidgeting long enough to show their curiosity. I presented the game: We would go through the whole alphabet and name at least one superhero whose name starts with each letter. A. Aquaman. Angel. Apocalypse. Soon we were off and rolling. We thought of Batman, Blue Beetle, and Beast for the letter B. Sure, ol’ GeekDad had to help jog their memories at times, but they were sucked into the game quickly and we still play it all the time. Sometimes we use superheroes; other times we try to come up with Super Mario characters.

  But the game got me thinking that it would be cool to create one of those ABC picture books, starring superheroes. I didn’t want to make it just for my kids, though. I wanted to make it with them. And that’s exactly what we did.

  STEP 1: Calling All Heroes

  Collecting the images is your first (and longest) step. You’ll want to get a number of different pictures for each letter. We used one side of a piece of construction paper for each letter. But you could easily use two pages as a spread, which means you’ll need more pics. The easiest way is just to jump online and start searching for superheroes whose names begin with each letter.

  There’s no harm in admitting you need some help, so a number of online superhero dictionaries came in handy when I was stuck for some letters or additional characters. These were some of the most helpful for me:The Superhero Dictionary (http://shdictionary.tripod.com) Comic Vine (www.comicvine.com) Marvel Universe: The Official Marvel Wiki (http://marvel.com)

  Find a good picture of each character (have your kids help pick out which one they like), save them to your desktop, and then print them on a color printer. You may need to do a little work to resize some of the images, but in the end you’ll have a big stack of printed pictures of colorful, spandex-wearing superheroes. And as long as you’re not planning to sell the book, you don’t have to worry about any copyright issues.

  After they’re all printed out, grab your safest kiddie scissors and have your guys go to town cutting out all the characters. The big rule I had was that just about anything goes. If my kids wanted to keep a background on an image, that was fine. If they wanted to cut out only a character’s head, that was cool, too. This was their book, so whatever they wanted was fine with me.

  STEP 2: Punch Out!!

  Once you’ve got all your images ready, it’s time to get the book ready. So prep the book itself by taking thirteen sheets of construction paper and punching three holes along the left side. Punch the holes before any real work is done, or you may end up punching holes over a picture or letter. Once that’s done, have your kids use crayons or markers to start writing one letter of the alphabet at the top of each side of each page. Just be sure the color’s dark enough to show up.

  My kids also wanted to include a front cover, back cover, title page, and dedication page. So I made sure to include four more sheets in the process.

  STEP 3: Break Out the Glue Stick!

  Now comes the fun part. Start making piles of your superhero pictures, grouping them by letter. When you have all the A name superheroes together, grab a glue stick and start attaching them to the A page of the book. Since our pages were double-sided, we did half the alphabet first and let those pages dry before flipping them over and finishing off the second half of the alphabet.

  As long as the pictures don’t cover any of the holes in the spine, you’re fine. We tried to cram as many pictures as we could onto each page, even if some of the pictures had to come off the paper to do so. It just adds a bit of 3-D magic to the fun.

  When all the pictures are glued on and dry, have your kids make a cover. Be sure they include a title and a byline so they can give themselves the proper author credits. A title page is just another excuse to write the title again and fit a few more pictures. Same goes for the dedication page, which gives your little geeklets a chance to act like a real author and dedicate the book to a friend or loved one.

  STEP 4: Avengers (and everyone else), Assemble!

  The final step is just putting everything together. Literally. Cut out a length of yarn and pull it through one set of holes, and then tie it into a neat bow. Repeat two more times and you’re all set. One handy dandy “Superhero ABC Book” ready to read, or to be read to you by your little ones. Just be careful turning the pages, and always have a glue stick handy to re-adhere any pictures that find their way free.

  If your kids enjoyed making it, you can very easily substitute any other theme based on their interests. Baseball players, video game characters, cartoons, food, etc. Good luck!

  Model Building with Cake

  Model building is a geeky practice par exellence. From snap-tight car and plane kits to Warhammer dioramas or Eiffel Towers made from LEGO bricks or toothpicks, the obsessive drive to represent something large on a smaller scale, out of alternate materials, has been with us for a long, long time.

  But there’s one kind of model building where two different corners of geekery come together. If you and your kids are food lovers, you can bring a little bit of that passion into the world of model building with this project.

  The go-to reference for this kind of project is the hit show Ace of Cakes. Star cake artist Duff Goldman and his team build what are, in effect, elaborate models out of cake and cake-related products, and if you notice they all are, to one degree or another, geeks. (Okay, we’ll admit, one or two of them come across as hipsters, but we’ll cut them some slack for the amazing work they do.)

  Building a model of something is a task that falls into the lap of every kid at some stage of their educational career. In California, fourth graders have to build a model of a California mission as part of their graduation requirements. In some school districts in Pennsylvania, students may choose to build a historical model to meet specific graduation requirements. And countless other schools urge their students to re-create historical buildings, places, or events in scale replica form as a means of imparting a deeper understanding of a specific subject or era.

  Usually these projects are built with Styrofoam or clay with plastic animals or people on a foam core board and are . . . uninspired. But if we add some creativity, we can achieve something much more interesting and fun (not to mention tasty). We can make our models out of cake.

  This project is based on the actual model of a California mission my son Eli and I built for his fourth-grade history requirement. Eli has been a foodie since a very young age—he loves to watch Alton Brown and Iron Chef America just as much as any cartoon or baseball game. It was his idea to tackle this model in cake. When my wife and I heard the idea, we beamed with pride.

  When you’re planning a model out of cake, especially a model of a building, there are three key materials to use: cake, generic puffed rice cereal treats, and fondant. You’ll use the cake for most major structures (in our example, the large solid structure of the mission church) and use the generic puffed
rice cereal treats for most of the other structures—as it’s very easy to mold and cut into custom shapes. Fondant is the covering that makes everything look smooth and finished.

  When you’re planning your model, you need to decide which materials are going to be right for the different parts of the structure. Basic geometric shapes can be done well with cake, since you can stack a number of small sheet cakes on top of each other and then use a serrated knife to cut and shape it. You should create more delicate or elaborate structural elements like columns or arches out of the generic puffed rice cereal treats since it can be molded almost like a very grainy clay and has some useful structural properties; it can be molded into shapes, like columns and arches, or other decorative three-dimensional features.

  A California mission is a fairly simple setup. There is a main church building—geometrically a rectangular prism with a triangular prism on top—and then the friars’ quarters and other facilities built off to the side of the church in a square surrounding a courtyard with a garden and fountain in the middle. These side buildings usually have verandas, or shaded walkways with arched openings. Our plan was to build the church itself in cake, and the buildings around the courtyard in generic puffed rice cereal treats, then cover everything in a layer of white fondant, which would end up looking very similar to the white-washed stucco common to the missions.

  1. Start by making four cakes, all cooked in simple rectangular baking pans. This can be from the cheapest boxed yellow cake mix you can find, or something nicer, depending on one major decision: whether or not you want to eat the cake. If the final product of the project is going to be a model for a school assignment, it’s likely it will sit out for days after completion, meaning it won’t be fit for eating and you don’t have to worry as much about taste. But if you want to have your cake and eat it, too, it never hurts to upgrade your ingredients.