Youth Projects - Ideas

#1

After seeing Richard Kremendorf’s post on Kremendorf’s and Grandkids woodshop, and living in a house with four grandchildren (ages 2.5 to 7) that are now on house lockdown, I started thinking.

Does anyone in are community here have ideas on harnessing young minds with limited dexterity on being able to build things in a safe manner. I don’t want to let them around the power tools or sharp tools - still too young and may get overconfident and believe they can use without adult supervision.

But, I was thinking about building some kits that could be put together similar to what was taken to fair last year to demonstrate laser, i.e. box parts, then had kids assemble.

I don’t have laser but I can put together box kits with finger joints. So, that is one idea - boxes - they can assemble and point.

I also think maybe some toy parts but never made toys so could use ideas on simple projects that I can prepare, kids can assemble, and finish.

Or, if there are projects that can be made from scratch to finish without encouraging youngin’s to try something behind are backs and get hurt that would be good also. But, then again some of us have older kids we want to interact with - so should maybe we not be limited on what we post.

Let’s just post ideas that get our kids into expanding their talents and away from video games all day,

Would appreciate ideas. A bonus would be if plans and pictures could be posted.

#2

I’m a huge proponent of vinyl cutters for empowering, entry-level digital tool use. They’re inexpensive, incredibly versatile, and there are projects in great abundance for makers of all levels. With the self isolation with young ones you may be interested in this collection of projects.

My preference is for the Silhouette Cameo 4 which is remarkable in many ways but one in particular way for woodworkers. It has a second head which can apply 5 kg of pressure and a new head which together allow you to cut veneer. That’s in addition to vinyl, felt, paper, card stock, plastics, leather, etc. All this is possible while being very safe … the fabulous software is where the designing happens and the tools just does what it’s told.

These cutters can be had for under $250 but I’d recommend getting one of the bundles for under $350. They’re quite the good value for jump starting an adventure into sticker, heat transfer, construction, drawing, and much more. A quick visual of appealing kids projects can be seen here.

My last vinyl cutting project was heat transfer onto a t-shirt:

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#3

Travis…that is good input. I will check out the $350 version. My daughter has one of these machines she bought a while back - maybe 5 years ago. She uses it pretty regularly, but the newer versions may be worth looking at. Thank you for the thoughts.