I had a twitter turned email conversation with the parents of a couple of budding makers that was just too cute not to share!
It started when @KateHG4 tweeted a link to this photo:
Then a link to this video of their Rube Goldberg Machine in action! They bought the pieces from my Ponoko.com store. This is the first Rube Goldberg machine I’ve seen made using the plans from the book, and the fact that the whole family was involved is just amazing. Then our conversation went like this:
@dustynrobots: that just brought a HUGE smile to my face – looks like you and your kids were having fun! Mind if I link that vid to my site?!?
@KateHG4: Link away! Daughter (age 7) wants to be an inventor & we’re museum folk, researcher types, not makers. She has this book http://amzn.to/hin56N & we’ve been trying to figure out how to support her. Got your book & found it hugely engaging. Whole family watched the egg syringe video on your site over & over. Had to file down the ponoko pieces a bit to get it to work for this. But it worked & now we’re psyched about moving on to the next chapter. A whole new interest for us, now we’re investigating mindstorms too. Oh, and daughter was over the moon when she figured out you were female.
@dustynrobots: Wow! If she likes those, she’ll LOVE: http://amzn.to/dTZhBX Mind if I put up a blog post about this? My email is dustyn@dustynrobots.com btw. sorry to hear about the ponoko pieces – where were they off? i’d be happy to correct the file for future makers
After that we went to email, she gave me some suggestions for book talks at museums, and she said that even though her and her husband aren’t makers or artists, they found the book very accessible. Now this is what I call real success – when I first wrote the book, I had no idea I would reach a 7 year old little girl that would have fun with the projects and get excited that her cool new book was written by a girl too. Helping support parents that want to support their kids’ maker dreams is a market I had no idea existed. Even if it’s just a market of 1, it makes the whole project totally worth it. And hopefully the parents had fun too!
As the father of an 8yo daughter who loves snap circuits and wants to build everything, I look forward to getting this book(not just for her :-). Definitely not a market of 1 out there.
Parents of young makers are definitely not a market of one! Good recommendation on the ‘how things work’ materials. Favorite bedtime reading materials with my daughter include Make magazine and Fine Woodworking. I plan to add your book to the collection… and hope that possibly you will be inspired to provide materials for a younger audience as well.
Good to know! Some other people might be better suited already for providing info for younger audiences – for example, Vision Education and Media in NYC is actively developing after school curriculum that focuses on “constructivism” (aka learning by making): http://www.vemny.org
I will certainly post if I get a chance to get more involved with younger audiences!