Saturday, June 19, 2010

Be a Geek Dad on Father's Day

Well, a special shout out to father's out there this weekend. Good father's are involved in their child's education and there are ways to make it fun.

Enter the book Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share by Ken Denmead, author of the Geek Dad blog. There was a nice interview with him talking about the book yesterday on Science Friday. It sounds like a lot of fun...among the projects (from Amazon.com).

•Fly a night-time kite ablaze with lights or launch a video camera with balloons
•Construct the "Best Slip n' Slide Ever," a guaranteed thrill ride
•Build a working lamp with LEGO bricks and CDs
•Create a customized comic strip or your own board game
•Transform any room into a spaceship
•Make geeky crafts like cyborg jack-o'-lanterns or Ethernet cuff links

Many of these projects can be down with low cost materials, possibly even stuff you have laying around the house. What better way to spend Father's Day (or any lazy summer weekend) than showing your kids how much fun it is to mess around with science and engineering.

You can also check out his Top 10 Dads in Science Fiction and Fantasy while you are there.

Reprinted with permission from the Half-Astrophysicist Blog.

5 comments:

kkdither said...

No fair... I like to mess around with science and engineering! This book is sexist!

OrbsCorbs said...

No, it's good marketing. Now the sequel can be entitled Geek Mom, coming out next Mother's Day.

I like some geeky stuff. I had a number of chemistry sets as a kid. I bought additional flasks and equipment. Gary's Hobby Center was a good place for that stuff. (Later on I got into slot cars.) I was always looking for ways to blow things up. Even then, though, I knew it was the scientists who get to play with the biggest explosives and rockets.

kkdither said...

And it will probably have recipes to make home made play-doh, oobleck and making a cake rise with vinegar and baking soda.... :(

I bought my kids the science kits and erector sets so I could play with them!

hale-bopp said...

Well, kk, the Geek dad blog is a collaborative effort with multiple authors, much like this blog. Not all of those authors are men.

kkdither said...

For shame on those women for not representing the female potential! They should have at least insisted on a parentheses add-on!