This year, why not give your dad the gift of father-daughter bonding time? Maker Dad by Mark Fraudnfelder is the perfect gift for a tight budget and will ensure that you have many happy memories of building things together.
There aren’t many projects out there specifically designed for dads and their daughters – and while our Learn System has a bounty of projects, sometimes you just want your weekend plans in book form so you can flip through with your daughters and wind up working on something fun.
Enter Mark Frauenfelder, editor in chief of MAKE Magazine. With Maker Dad, Frauenfelder has put together a book full of 24 different projects that are specifically designed for dads and their daughters. It’s the first of its kind and has a bounty of tech-savvy projects for Maker parents to spend hours working on with their kids.
The book has easy-to-follow instructions with full-color photographs that help makers of all ages move step-by-step through projects. All of the projects teach kids and parents useful, lifelong skills and are specifically designed for cooperation between a parent-child team.
Twenty-four unique projects include:
Drawbot – A lively contraption that draws abstract patterns all by itself
Ice Cream Sandwich Necklace
Friendstrument – An electronic musical instrument girls can play with their friends
Longboard – For smooth skating
Antigravity Jar
Silkscreen T-Shirt
Host a Podcast
Lunchbox Guitar
Mid-Century Rocking Chair
Rainbow Pops
Retro Arcade Video Game
Kite Video Camera
The projects range from easy and quick to challenging – but always have kids in mind. There are no tools or materials included with the book – but we sell most of everything you’ll need like Wire Strippers, a Screwdriver Set, Sugru (silicone molding rubber), Battery Holders, and, of course, Ladyada’s Electronics Toolkit. Let the making begin!
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
