I have been playing with AI to generate books with my kids for a long time, but now I can generate short animations based on the books. I know it is silly but it is kind of fun.
All posts by DanM
Science Saturday: Crunchlab’s Creative Kits
My kids found Crunchlabs on youtube and then nextflix, and my son really wanted to get a hack pack subscription for Christmas, which made my daughter really want to try their creative kits, so we got those as well.
We have now received and worked through the first two creative kits, and Sasha was able to do them entirely by herself!
Crunchlabs Creative Kits
The creative kits are simpler and a bit more like art projects vs engineering and robotics. They still do teach how to build and follow complex instructions to complete the project. Overall these are closer to many of the kiwi kits we have done in the past, but they have such good instructions and videos that Sasha was able to do these kits without needing a bunch of help from me.
Treehouse Kit
Our first kid was the Treehouse kit. Oddly enough they made a mistake and sent me 2 creative kits not one creative kit and a hack kit (they fixed this and we got our hack kit). So we had two treehouse kits, but Theo was pretty excited to do the kit as well. They both worked on theirs together and helped each other name their squirrels and design slightly different houses.
Ice Cream Stand
This was the the Ice Cream stand. We didn’t get two of these as they fixed the mistake, so we played a board game that was a bit to old for Sasha, while she built her creative kit. Other than helping after one piece was put on backwards she built the entire kit herself. She really enjoyed it and was engaged in the process and she likes it even better than the treehouse. She has been taking ice cream orders around the house ever since. She even got the treehouse back out and played with the treehouse and the ice cream shop and the little animal characters together.
Verdict
The creative kit is a hit and probably works well for kids 4-7. After that they might be leveled up to the next one.
The list of pro’s and cons is similar to the hack pack.
Pros
- This is one of the highest quality toy build kits I have had
- This has great videos, tutorials, and support
- The programming and hacking was very cool and fun
- The kids have enjoyed playing with this a good deal and are excited for the next kit
Cons
- kind of expensive
- not sure of long term re-play, but so far so good
Referral Code
Since we like these I am happy to share my referral code if you sign up we get some free credits.
Science Saturday: Crunchlab’s Turret
My kids found Crunchlabs on youtube and then nextflix, and my son really wanted to get a hack pack subscription for Christmas, so we did.
The first hack pack delivery was the IR Turret and it was a hit!
Crunchlabs Turret
So the kit first kit came and it was this IR Turret that shoots Nerf like arrows (Although I am sure crunchlabs is not allowed anywhere near the name nerf). It said it would take around an hour to make if you were new to building robots. We built it over 2 sessions that added up to about an hour (The kids got distracted and it was good to take a break). Our youngest at 6 was still able to help with some of the build, our oldest at 8 was able to do many of the steps.
A few days after we built it and fired many rockets, Theo wanted to “hack it” so we then went online and followed the video instructions. It was easy to get the software setup and start sending custom code to the turret, we started with the prebuilt stuff and within 30 minutes we were modifying the code ourselves with new customizations. Theo already wants to try to get some new sensors and possibly more motors.
Pros
- This is one of the highest quality toy build kits I have had
- This has great videos, tutorials, support
- The programming and hacking was very cool and fun
- The kids have enjoyed playing with this a good deal and are excited for the next kit
- They offer 3d printable versions of the pieces and the kids are interested in learning about 3d printing
- Dad had always been interested in Arduino’s and now he has written code for one
Cons
- one of our motors started to have issues a few hours after use, a few days later it totally broke we had to order a replacement for the up / down motor
- expensive
- Kids keep leaving it on the floor and I trip over it
Summary
This was a hit and we are looking forward to the next one.
Theo’s Mom Attack
Theo Showing Off His IR Turret
Science Saturdays: Crystal Tree
I didn’t have high expectations for this kit but was surprised at how much interest the kids had. They set it up quickly and checked in on it for 2 days before smashing it and throwing it out.
I think that because the crystals started forming very quickly and grew larger than expected the kids were pretty impressed. Obviously, this is just a quick one off but it was fun to check in on it through out the day.
Theo’s review: “not a scam at all!” You will have to trust me that is high praise.
Harvest Season
We all love harvest season.
Peaches Everywhere
A lovely peach season
Peach Ice Cream
The kids help make peach ice cream
https://photos.app.goo.gl/53YhZ4MX1DgbD7Mi8
Peach Caprese Salad
Erin Makes the peach version of our favorite summer salad
Apples Everywhere
A lovely apple harvest
Fun Apple Dishes
We make normal stuff, but also start to get weird as we need to use up so many apples.
- German Chicken with Apples in mustard sauce
- Home Made Apple Sauce
- Apple Crisp
- Shepherd’s Pie with beef, spicy peppers, and apples.
Spaghetti Squash
We have two plants making a bunch of spaghetti squash this year.
Our favorite dish is spaghetti squash burrito bowls… basically make taco filling and put it in a spaghetti squash and bake it.
Peaches, Gardening, and Japanese beetles
I was recently asked how I get such nice peaches and for tips on winterizing / care… I kind of laughed as I don’t really do anything in particular. I thought my response was kind of humorous so, here it is for others to enjoy, and I guess perhaps it might help someone out there.
Denver Peach Tree Care
I have crazy gardens both year round hydro-ponic and seasonal outdoors. I have what seems to be a very productive garden, but I treat all of it more as an art than a science. Too many of my hobbies end up very science, numbers, and on computer screens. So when I got into gardening, I basically made a rule of no book learning, just experimentation. So any advice I give needs that caveat, it might not be the best way to do it, but it works for me.
- winterizing, um… I don’t do anything… I do put fruit spikes into the soil near the tree twice a year and one of those is in the winter.
- You might get some tiny fruit in the first year, but if you pick them all off the tree will put more energy into making roots and you will do even better in the future.
- peach care… I dug a big hole and put 3-year-old trees in the ground. I have a watering system that waters a bit daily
- I prune the tree more on bonsai aesthetics vs any advice about being good for fruit
- I do prune any branches that look too thin to support fruit
- I occasionally thin the fruit, but I mostly leave that up to the squirrels
I distract the Japanese beetles by letting them eat all my roses, and some of my apples… So they really don’t have any time left to eat peaches. The squirrels sadly prefer peaches over apples, which is why I have two peach trees and one apple tree. When we have a boom havest I pull about 500 peaches and apples… Squirrels extract about a 20-30% tax on fruit…. Probably higher for the strawberries, which they seem to go nuts over, and I thought squirrels like nuts.
Occasionally I spray with a mint based organic bug spray, but I am not convinced it does anything, but it does smell nice which is a plus.
Anyways, happy to share anything that might help, but my urban farming philosophy can mostly be summarized as plants really want to grow, put them in the grown and give them water and sun.
Science Saturday: Windmill Generator
I like to do various semi-education activities with my kids, most often on Saturdays. We call these Science Saturdays activities. I am going to post about some of the successful activities and the less-than-great semi-educational activities. Recently, we made a windmill generator that powers a light bulb.
Given how much the kids liked the Green Science: Eco Lightbulb I thought this might also be a hit… but it was not.
Kid Approved? No
So what went wrong why wasn’t this as fun…
- The light even with a crazy amount of wind isn’t bright
- There isn’t really wind indoors and for lights they turn off all the lights in a room to play with something.
- It barely will glow if you blow on it
- Outside we have to get up really high above our fences to get enough wind to turn the windmill
- It keeps blowing the bottle over and falling at about the same amount of wind that will turn the windmill
Basically, building it was fine but they couldn’t find a way to play with it to drive the light in a way that would stay fun. So they lost interest quickly and now we have a plastic windmill piece of trash to throw out at some point when I give up on it.
Science Saturday: KiwiCo Explore Spain
I like to do various semi-education activities with my kids, most often on Saturdays. We call these Science Saturdays activities. I am going to post about some of the successful activities and the less-than-great semi-educational activities. Over a couple days we explored Spain, in fact we still have some activities left.
We ended up getting this KiwiCo Explorer kit for free from a camp. It sat around for a while, which might be over their heads. When we finally got it out, both kids were drawn to building the boat, while Sasha was also very drawn to making the cubist art sculpture. I knew we had a hit on our hands from the initial interest.
Spanish Galleon
The kids were both really into making the boat. They eagerly helped and quickly pushed forward the building to completion. They thought it was fun and played with it a good amount after first completing it. The longevity of this as a toy is low, but they really enjoyed the process and had fun with it for longer than I would have guessed (like 15m).
rocking boat 😉
Cubist Sculpture
Sasha, who is more into art, was very drawn to this sculpture and painting project. She needed a little help setting up the sculpture, which her mom lovingly did. She then pained and added all the decorations. She was pleased and proud with the result, which now sits in her room.
This turned out to be more interesting than I would have guessed.
Other Projects
We still have a cooking project from the kit and some reading, but this kit was a hit. A small warning from other parents who do kits like this often. One parent mentioned having a subscription to these, and after a few, they began to dread another arriving as it felt like a chore vs a fun activity with the kids. I get that, and if I had to do a new country every month, I would burn out, but if your kids are interested in some country or you are preparing to visit somewhere, these are great ways to explore and discuss another culture together.
Science Saturday: Keva Catapult
I like to do various semi-education activities with my kids, most often on Saturdays. We call these Science Saturdays activities. I am going to post about some of the successful activities and the less-than-great semi-educational activities. In this case, we made a catapult.
Keva: Catapult
This was a kit to make a Catapult… It does make a Catapult, but it is hard and slow for kids to build… I ended up having to build most of the kit. While the kit said 8+, aligning the wood straight to make things work is pretty difficult for a single adult… let alone an adult trying to do this with children… Also, many of the steps require applying glue, which means you have to wait 10+ minutes between steps. The kids really didn’t have the patience for that. While the kid was good, it wasn’t as kid-driven as I like some of these activities to be.
Kid Approved? Yes
Yeah, the kids struggled to get into the building and wait for everything to dry. They thought it was pretty cool and enjoyed playing with it and asking questions. This will also have a longer replay value than many other kits or toys. We shot candy out of it to knock over toys, and you would get to eat the candy after hitting a target.
Science Saturday: Eco-Tech Bulb
I like to do various semi-education activities with my kids, most often on Saturdays. We call these Science Saturdays activities. I am going to post about some of the successful activities and the less-than-great semi-educational activities. Today we made a light bulb.
Green Science: Eco Tech Bulb
This is a hand cranked or gravity powered light bulb. With a water bottle and a pull you can get around 60 seconds of light from the bulb. I know it sounds silly, but after an extended power outage the kids we very interested. After getting this all setup the kids played with it for a shocking amount of time and fight over who gets it in their bedroom. Now often before bed as all the other lights go out the cord on this light is pulled for a last minute of dim light in the room before bed.
Kid Approved? Yes
Honestly, for how simple this was I have been shocked at the staying power of the light with the kids. They enjoy playing with it and asking questions about it. They show it to friends and they enjoyed the project.
While this kit is mostly put together and requires far less build time, it was still a win and I assume will be a science toy sticking around for a number of years in this house.
Adventures of the Miller Mayers 