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Ask HN: Great maker projects for 8th grade kids and above?

75 points ostaquet | 6 comments | 17 Nov 24 10:36 UTC | HN request time: 0.211s | source | bottom

As a father of a 13-year-old kid, I tried to do my best to initiate him to different aspects of life. It could be watching a documentary about black holes, building coffee table or just enjoying a simple walk in nature.

I asked to some friends if they have great project idea that could be done by an 8th grade kid with or without support. I personally like to do it with him as it is a privileged time to build something together (for me) and learn new skills (for him).

The purpose of this thread is to assemble some ideas for Christmas presents.

I’m starting…

1. DIY LED Christmas tree kit for soldering (https://www.az-delivery.de/en/products/diy-weihnachtsbaum-kit-alles-inklusive-versandkostenfrei)

2. Software Defined Radios kit (https://www.rtl-sdr.com/about-rtl-sdr/ and https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CD7558GT)

3. DIY Internet Radio Alarm clock with touch screen control (https://www.az-delivery.de/en/products/radiowecker-mit-dem-az-touch)

Any other ideas or suggestions?

Show context
zachlatta ◴[18 Nov 24 02:31 UTC] No.42169221[source]▶
If he likes video games, we’re hosting a big game jam for middle and high schoolers next weekend.

It’s free and nonprofit. There are 60 locations. Maybe one is near you?

https://counterspell.hackclub.com/

replies(2): >>42209713 #>>42210727 #
nogridbag ◴[22 Nov 24 02:53 UTC] No.42210727[source]▶
hi, I waited for this thread to die down and reach the second page before I posted this because I love this topic and didn't want it derailed with a sensitive issue. I didn't realize this was restricted to school age kids and wanted to sign up as I needed some motivation to start on a game. But I reached the pronoun combobox and was legitimately confused!

I used to have a passion for UX and read books like "Don't make me think" and here I was stumbling with this silly field and didn't complete the form. Instead I was googling about pronouns to see if I should select "he/him", "he/him/his", or "He/Him". I didn't even notice there was an "any" and "other" value until I started writing this comment!

Hope you don't mind the question. This is a serious Q as I'm responsible for the UX of a public facing application and might at some point be required to add this field to our pages. I find it odd and kind of against UX best practices to make the field required. And presenting so many similar options "made me think" which used to be considered a bad practice because it's an obstacle to users completing a form. I now realize the target audience is school age kids. Do they automatically know what to select? I'm a xennial that somehow went into some time freeze spending every second of the day raising two kids with little time for social media. So please excuse my ignorance.

replies(1): >>42211101 #
1. freeone3000 ◴[22 Nov 24 04:08 UTC] No.42211101[source]▶
There’s no “correct” pronouns for you — just choose the ones you like.
replies(1): >>42211247 #
2. nogridbag ◴[22 Nov 24 04:38 UTC] No.42211247[source]▶
I know there's no correct answer. But I legit wanted to understand what my answer actually means and why we are presenting seemingly duplicate options. I tried googling "capital he him pronoun" and all the references were about god. From a UX point of view, we tried to eliminate non essential questions like "choose 3 items that interest you" from forms years ago. There's also no correct answer for that but some users drop off sign ups when they're forced to answer too my fields. And that's kind of what happened to me here. Sorry if this seems silly or nitpicky!
replies(3): >>42212226 #>>42214608 #>>42219279 #
3. episteme ◴[22 Nov 24 08:58 UTC] No.42212226[source]▶
I don't think there is any real difference between the three options you had to choose between.
4. sigseg1v ◴[22 Nov 24 15:32 UTC] No.42214608[source]▶
I would just say to implement it as an optional field or make "I don't know" the first in the list
5. sudahtigabulan ◴[23 Nov 24 04:55 UTC] No.42219279[source]▶
Letter case in pronouns is sometimes used in BDSM context to emphasize dominance (or lack thereof).
replies(1): >>42219354 #
6. nogridbag ◴[23 Nov 24 05:26 UTC] No.42219354{3}[source]▶
Hah I saw that reference in my search results but eliminated it as a possibility because the target app is for middle schoolers. But if that's the accepted underlying cultural meaning of why someone would select that now people reading my comments above might understand why I felt the need to Google this. Choosing an option is signaling something and in this case it might imply I'm into BDSM.