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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   2835 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 26, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Mini STEMlord's mum here. I'll look into Lego SPIKE, but it's super-expensive and he's already bankrupting me by building 2,000-piece Lego sets in a matter of hours! I've got an Arduino starter kit, which I originally bought for myself but didn't use, so I'm going to work with him on that.

My mum's just bought him/us a Bambu Lab P1S. We're not at the point of doing CAD work yet. We're still working on 'how to choose and print your own project from your laptop (without your mum's help)'. Thanks for the recommendation of ONSHAPE, though. I figured a CAD package would be expensive, but ONSHAPE looks like it's free for home/educational users.

Mini STEMlord gravitates towards sci-fi horror (terrifyingly, as he's only eight) and loves complex board games, so I've been trying to get him interested in Warhammer 40k, mostly as an excuse to build the Adeptus Mechanicus army of my dreams... But, he's not really gone for the (family-friendly) snippets I've shown him so far yet. Maybe as he gets older...

I second the choice of OnShape! Yes, it's free for educational purposes. I volunteer at a local after-school STEM program, and we have elementary-school kids CAD designs for 3D printers.

OnShape looks a bit intimidating at first (it wasn't UX-ed to death), but there are lots of videos on YouTube that do a how-to. Get to the point where you can make a "Sketch" of something simple like a polygon, and then "Extrude" it, and you're on your way to make interesting designs. In my experience, so long as the kid is coordinated enough to use a mouse, he'll get comfy with the basics faster than an adult.

Best of luck!

Yeah, sorry, the stuff that sticks in my mind 20 years later are all kind of expensive options. Mostly I just used to read books, which are cheap. If you can get him onto something that uses raw materials like whittling or something rather than expensive electronics kits, that would help a lot. Even silver-smithing is pretty cheap as long as you stick to wire and semi-precious stones, though I doubt you have the space.

ONSHAPE is great and I have never ever used the free account to do semi-professional work.

EDIT: the lego sets are probably a bad idea, you want their make-anything kits rather than sets that can be finished.

EDIT EDIT: try those "101 Things A Boy Can Do" books from the 1930s for cheaper ideas.

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