6 ms·
Engineering challenges for children during lockdown
- RandomBacon 7y agoIt's taking a long time to load for me. The latest Archive link loads much faster: https://web.archive.org/web/20200424011530/https://www.jamesdysonfoundation.com/resources/challenge-cards.html https://web.archive.org/web/20200424011530/https://www.james... They're interesting challenges, but I thought the idea of a challenge was to be challenging, ie. Can you figure out how to do it? The challenges give away the sollution straight away.
- pintxo 7y ago> Please note that the activities contained here in are intended for children ages seven and above. Adult supervision is recommended for all projects. Explain it to the adults, so they can make sure the children will get a success?
- duxup 7y agoWho has that much spaghetti on hand? Also my local grocery store is limiting how much spaghetti you can buy...
- hendry 7y agoPopups and videos that don't load. UX failzone.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago"Dyson engineers have designed these challenges specifically for children." I'm certain that's not true. Balloon cars, was a school thing at least a decade ago. Spaghetti bridges has been used in Scouting as a challenge for 30+ years that I know of. The only one I've not seen before is cardboard boats, and I'd be amazed if that's novel. I suspect it's more like: "a junior content producer for our social media found these in 20 mins".
- HorizonXP 7y agoThis is a pretty cynical viewpoint. All ideas "have been done before" but the Dyson team took the time to assemble these, get their team to actually design them to be digestible by non-engineers, and produced a wonderful website and set of videos. Hopefully, it inspires others to take an interest in the STEM fields, and they'll eventually build upon the ideas of others. I'm an engineer, but I'm also a dad. I greatly appreciate the fact that they've done the work for me. Pretty sure 95% of my job is taking the work of others and slapping it together with some paint. That's most of humanity.
- scoot 7y agoI'm with @pbhjpbhj here. These are pretty run of the mill, and if child(ren) haven't already done most of these in school (or at home), I'd be very surprised. I have no problem with Dyson engineers collating them, and I'm sure there's some value in that (although there are plenty of books from the 70s and beyond with similar (if not identical) collections; but I do take issue with them claiming that "Dyson engineers have designed these challenges" like they are somehow new or special.
- rexpop 7y ago> if child(ren) haven't already done most of these in school (or at home), I'd be very surprised. Then prepare for this shock: 99% of children are not given the opportunity to engage in engineering challenges like these. Heck, even in my affluent milieu, a minority engaged in the available programs. In districts across out relatively affluent nation, children are getting abysmally poor educations with schools acting as little more than under-staffed daycares. I cannot fathom the levels of wealth and privilege that make these commonplace poverties illegible to you.
- mcshicks 7y agoIf you like those kinds of things, check out the tinkering studio page from the San Francisco Exploratorium. My wife works at a similar space in our local science museum (shut down now) and a lot of them are trying to see what they can do to get "virtual". https://www.exploratorium.edu/tinkering/projects https://www.exploratorium.edu/tinkering/projects
- illsorted 7y agoThe actual "Challenge Cards" that the videos reference can be downloaded here: https://www.jamesdysonfoundation.com/content/dam/pdf/US%20challenge%20cards%20with%20cover.pdf https://www.jamesdysonfoundation.com/content/dam/pdf/US%20ch...