kids – Get Smarter and Make Stuff

Podcast Episode 011 – Marshall Thompson

I speak with Marshall Thompson about woodworking with kids, Shop Night with friends, the purpose and perils of academic research, and his contributions towards finding a cure for cancer.

Home Eng Project #5 – Trick

My thirteen-year-old and I have continued to go into the shop for “Home Eng” (read more here) even after school has ended for her and we’ve shifted into summer mode. I have been trying to focus on shorter projects, since those seem to hold her attention a bit better. I do want to take onContinue reading “Home Eng Project #5 – Trick”

Home Eng Project #4

My thirteen-year-old and I have continued to work on our “Home Eng” projects. Our latest was a pretty quick one: pottery. I recently bought a small melting furnace for use in the shop for a variety of things – melting for casting, maybe heat treating – but it works perfectly well for low-fire clay. WeContinue reading “Home Eng Project #4”

Home Eng Project #3

My younger daughter and I have continued our periodic shop time I have entitled Home Eng. See here for a bit more information about the concept. We don’t manage to get into the shop every weekend, but we have kept at it. We also watch maker videos online sometimes, from channels like Peter Brown, DrewContinue reading “Home Eng Project #3”

Home Eng

My younger daughter is in middle school. Before things got totally locked down, she had chosen to take “engineering” as one of her second-semester electives. (We would have called this “shop class” back when I was her age.) She’s a sharp kid, though, and once it was obvious she was going to be remote, sheContinue reading “Home Eng”