Fighting in Your Thirties – Capcom’s Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Competition
Geekdad Community member Wayne McManus shares his experience of competing in Capcom’s Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Tournament.
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Home Aquaponics Kickstarter: Self-Contained Fish Tank/Veggie Garden? I’m In!
I have designed my own hydroponic system. I have built self-sustaining mini-aquariums. But though I’ve thought about it, I’ve yet to get up the nerve to combine the two. Now, with the Home Aquaponics Kit, I don’t have to assemble …
Continue ReadingSparkFun’s Kickstarter Aims to Bring DIY Electronics to the Masses
SparkFun’s Department of Education has launched a Kickstarter Campaign to bring STEAM education to all 50 states through a National Tour. Help them reach their $150,000 goal by December 19 and make electronics part of our nation’s basic curriculum. …
Continue ReadingHappy Birthday, Terry Gilliam!
The legendary Pythoner and director is turning 72.
Continue ReadingEmpowering Kids with Kits and Bits
The idea was to help the kids understand the why and the how of Sandy. Oh, and to get them familiar with littleBits’ product while they were at it. An opportunistic move, certainly, but a pretty ingenious one: get kids …
Continue ReadingThe Crayola Digital Light Designer is Like a Crazy 3D Animated Light Bright
As a child my obsession was drawing; I filled pad after pad (as well as all the margins of my school notebooks) with scribblings and designs. Today my obsession is playing with LEDs and using them to decorate jewelry and …
Continue ReadingThis Week on the GeekDad Community
Our weekly round up of what’s happening over on the GeekDad Community.
Continue ReadingFrom the GeekDad Community: Last Chance to Read The Hobbit
GeekDad Community member Martin Williams shares some thoughts on reading The Hobbit with his children, before the upcoming movie changes the whole experience.
Continue ReadingA $13 ARM Single-Board Computer
We live in a great time to be an electronics tinkerer. What with the Arduino, Raspberry Pi, BeagleBoard and other single-board computers, it’s cheap and easy to get started with hardware hacking. And the options available to prospective makers continue …
Continue ReadingWhy Tablets Are Important for Educating Our Children
The other night I was at a information evening at my children’s school here in Melbourne, Australia. The evening was being held by the senior primary teachers and the school principal to discuss their research into running a 1:1 iPad …
Continue ReadingThe RoboBrrd Kit for Kids — Simple, Powerful and Oh So Cute!
RobotGrrl Erin Kennedy has launched an Indiegogo campaign for RoboBrrd, her popular educational robotics kit, and I’m excited! RoboBrrd is a project designed to give kids and other beginners the hands-on experience of mechanical and electrical engineering, and programming, with …
Continue ReadingA Smile for Marie Curie on Her Birthday
Today is the birthday of Marie Curie, one of the most famous and ground-breaking woman scientists in history. 2012 also marks the 101st anniversary of the award of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Marie Curie. Has there ever been …
Continue ReadingThe Birth of a Computer Chip Explained During NANOvember
Through a wall of observation windows, we could see banks of “tools” — actually, large machines lined up much like the room-sized computer banks — used in creating the microchips found in virtually every device imaginable. The clean rooms glowed …
Continue ReadingTony DiTerlizzi’s Top 10 Books for Creeping Out Kids
Reading creepy stories always set the mood for this festive holiday in the DiTerlizzi household. Here are some favorites that have endured for years.
Continue ReadingThe 10 Scariest Things I Watched as A Kid
It’s October. That means movie theaters are overflowing with blood and sharp objects, zombies are taking over shopping malls, and the total number of Kit-Kats you can cram into your mouth at once is what’s truly frightening. My mind’s been …
Continue ReadingNanoSpace — The Online Theme Park at a Molecular Level
NanoSpace is a “virtual theme park” that can be enjoyed anywhere there’s a computer and offers more than 25 games and animations that teach kids about atoms and molecules.
Continue ReadingGeekDad Community Weekly Round-Up
Our weekly round up of the goings on over on the GeekDad Community
Continue ReadingCitizen Science — Aquatic Robot Division
You can play an important role in the exploration of a dank, inhospitable environment which may harbor life forms still unknown to modern science. The place? The Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, a former toxic waste dump now designated as a …
Continue ReadingDo Kids Need to Learn Cursive?
My teenage son’s French teacher complimented him on his handwriting the other day. This is a big deal. The last time anyone outside the family saw fit to comment on his penmanship was when a friend’s little sister asked him, …
Continue ReadingFrom the GeekDad Community: Let’s Make Robots Maker Faire 2012 Summary
GeekDad Community member Andrew Terranova shares a summary of his “Let’s Make Robots” workshops from Maker Faire New York.
Continue Reading“You Let Our Kids Watch What!?” Halloween Preview Edition
Like any good GeekParent, I like to share my favorite TV and movies with my kids — forgetting that a lot of what I watched as a teen was “edited for television” … and that 12-year-old girls are “older” …
Continue ReadingNew Book Explains Albert Einstein and Relativity for Kids
Einstein and Relativity for Kids by Jerome Pohlen, the newest in the Chicago Review Press series of “For Kids” series of biographies for ages 9 and up, doesn’t worry about whether the topic of relativity is standard elementary school fare. …
Continue ReadingDr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog Gets its Broadcast Debut on The CW
Up until now the only place to see Dr. Horrible in all his horribleness has been on the internet or DVD. But the hard-luck bad guy gets his broadcast premier this week on The CW.
Continue ReadingRaspberry Pi’s Dilemma: ‘How Could We Enable Hacking While Preventing Cloning?’
“But if you want to hook up other electronics, the schematics are a great help. Especially since hooking up other stuff to the Pi – whether you’re inside or outside the classroom – is the whole point. How else would …
Continue ReadingGeekDad Photo of the Day: Piggyback
Another day, another great photo from the GeekDad Community – this time Michael Tierney shares an awesome shot of the space shuttle Endeavour, piggybacking a ride on a 747 over California.
Continue Reading2 Maker Faires to Choose From This Weekend in the Northeast
Oh, the abundance of riches! This weekend boasts two Maker Faires within reach of fans in the Northeast — the first-ever Champlain Mini Maker Faire in Shelburne, Vermont, and World Maker Faire New York in Queens.
Continue ReadingFrom the GeekDad Community: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part 1
GeekDad Community member Glenn Gass reviews the new animated version of Frank Miller’s classic Batman graphic novel, “The Dark Knight Returns” with some background on the original.
Continue ReadingHow Not to Kickstart Your Project
Dear Kickstarter Project Creator: Thanks for writing to us about your amazing [board game | book | art | music | movie] project on Kickstarter! I congratulate you for being bold and taking steps to make your [lifelong dream | …
Continue ReadingThis Week on the GeekDad Community
Our weekly round up of some of the cool stuff happening over in the GeekDad Community.
Continue ReadingGeekDad Photo of the Day: That’s No Moon
Today’s GeekDad Photo of the Day, by GeekDad Community member Rob Keisacker, captures Darth Vader and some Stormtroopers gazing up at …
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