My Greatest Hack Yet
- March 26th, 2011
- Posted in Electronics . Hacking
- By Brett (FightCube)
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Malachi is only 5 years old, and he’s already soldering very well! I let him make various mistakes so that when I told him how to fix them, he understood why he was doing it. The Weller soldering iron is a little big for him to handle, but that didn’t stop him from completing this project in a short period of time. He knows a lot of names of components already and hopefully the things I taught him on this project will retain in his brain for next time. He located and inserted all of the components, with very little help from me. I taught him about polarity, and despite capacitors being labeled as (-) on the cap, and (+) on the PCB he did not get confused. He soldered everything! (except for 3 LEDs). I wanted him to be able to say he built the entire thing. The next kit we build will have to be a double sided board, so we don’t have the issues we were having with this one. I had to take over cutting the leads and ended up damaging some pads myself because of how bad the PCB was. I guess don’t buy kits from Fry’s Electronics… unless you can live with having to fix problems that pop up.
I guess by now you figured out what my greatest hack to date is 
He’s so cute, good job dad !!!!!
I can’t wait for my son to grow up a little bit and being able to teach him
Thanks Philippe! Start teaching now!
I always underestimated my son being a first time parent, but he is so very capable of absorbing tons of knowledge and skill, caring and emotion. I quickly learned this and now know that he should just “try it”. The worst that can happen is he succeeds in trying.
2:37 listen to that sound he’s making while bending the wires
Yes, he takes after his dad… I’m always adding a soundtrack to just about everything I do. It’s fun! One time he heard me making that noise and asked how I did it. I showed him just put your tongue on the roof of your mouth, and suck in and pull your tongue down, “clop!”. It was one of the easier things to learn for him. We’re still working on whistling
Just an update… whistling has been learned… and it seems like a LONG time ago now because he’s whistling ALL of the time. He just finally got it one day, and not he can hear a tune and mimic it. It’s very cool, but it can get out of control at times because he loves to do it.
ohh man, this is awesome. im soo glad my uncle convinced my mum to let me solder at 8. this kid is going to be a genius!
Thanks for the kind reply! He’s already coming up with all kinds of inventions and asking to go down in the basement to build them. Half of them I don’t even know where to start, but I try to accommodate where I can!
Wow. Awesome. Motivates me to let my son and daughter help out with little projects like that. Mine are 4 and 6, so it seems like I should let them try some of this as well. Very encouraging.
Thanks Doug, to answer your question about what age might be the right age, certainly 5 years old works for my son…but your mileage may vary. Here’s what I said over on Brett’s site SaskView: Home of the Most Useless Machine! http://saskview.com/?p=1089
“I would say whatever age your child is starting to develop strong hand-eye coordination skills, understands dangers of things like HOT STOVES, has an attention span longer than 10 seconds ( I think all kids go through this phase ), will wear safety goggles, and can hold a soldering iron steady without shaking too much… they are ready to go! All you need is an encouraging parent that can make learning fun, and is willing to have some patience to let mistakes happen. Mistakes are practice! And you know what they say about practice
If you child likes to build things, with legos, or likes crafts… soldering is a step up for sure, but will be much easier to digest.”
Kids absolutely LOVE to feel empowered with learning something that “Mom” or “Dad” does, especially if they can do it with you. Happy Hacking and be safe!
Awesome hack! Cheap labour!! You made your own “reprap”!
Just kidding. My parents told me that one time, when I was a kid and my dad was busy soldering, I picked up the iron and put it in my mouth…. What an idiot!
Back in the ages he was teaching me how to build micro FM transmitters and other stuff from electronics magazines. I’m hugely thankful for his inspiration and I hope he’s proud of me as I’m proud of him. Hopefuly one day I’ll be able to show him how much I care.
Thank you for making me cry at work!
Aww, sorry bout that MG. Glad you found some inner meaning in my son’s story
Grr, envious. I have two sons, 13 and 11. Neither of them has shown the slightest interest in making stuff or learning. All they want to do is read manga and play Nintendo DS. So passive. Where is the hunger for knowledge I felt at their age? I feel cheated…
Sometimes I wish my son were a little bit like yours
He’s always on, 24-7-365. If he could, he would play every game (video, board, phone or otherwise), eat every snack in the house (healthy, sugary, crunchy, spicy, messy), expend every ounce of energy (running, screaming, talking, inventing, asking), and test every nerve his parents have… heh heh. At the end of the day our kids will become their own individuals and do things we probably never thought they could or would. I just try to stay tuned in for those “good moments” when they make us proud.
First off he didn’t even pick the kit out, you did, lest I continue so obviously from the start it was built by you, I’m a father of 3 and have dual phD in engineering and education and at that age is only mimmicry and direct repetition, let the poor kid go play and spend time with his terms, running around playing tag etc, play is most important work for child , even better with you so go running with him get some exercise…, maybe let him play reading, as that is a skill we need DEARLY, or social interaction with children his own age, no wonder engineers have such bad social skills font force the kid to be your Chinese child labour slave or take him to work and stick him at a desk soldering … Whisper “the horror, the horroh”
Not to be rude, but there’s no need to burst bubbles.
So what if Brett picked out a kit for his son? Malachi doesn’t know yet what a good first soldering kit should include. A traffic light is a cool kit to begin with — it has blinky LEDs which every engineer loves. Plus it would work well with his growing collection of toy cars as Brett pointed out in the post. Maybe Malachi can pickout the next kit to assemble?
Malachi can still play with his friends outside, but every boy needs some father-son time and making stuff is a great way to spend it. You never know? Maybe Malachi’s friends will be interested in soldering & electronics too and they could end up doing stuff together?
At the end of the day, there nothing wrong with something that brings that kind of a smile to a child’s face. He seemed to be enjoying himself assembling the kit and was extremely excited to see his hard efforts pay off when the kit was finish.
Yes I did tell him the next kit would be his choice, or we could even design something together that he could then build.
As a side note: This coming Thursday, April 28th is Take our Daughters and Sons to Work Day and I plan on bringing him in for a while after school to show him what I do here. Obviously there are a lot of boring parts of my job to a 5 year old, but there are a lot of cool mobility products he can check out too
Bill, Yes I picked the kit well before I thought he would be ready to solder it. He did locate every single component and insert them, with regard to polarity. This new and fun activity “for him” helped him to recognize letters and numbers together, which is not super useful for a 5 year old… but this exercise does reinforce patience and determination, something everyone needs. He soldered all of the components, and if you notice on the video decided to narrate the process. I did not bait him on that or any part of what you saw. He sees me build things, and learns. He has been known to draw up some plans for circuits, including an attachment for a baby swing that delivers a bottle to the baby when it cries, picks up and washes it’s binky for them, and changes diapers. He doesn’t have a sibling yet so he’s coming up with this stuff from limited exposure to these needs.
I love how you presume this is the only thing we do. In fact, quite the opposite. This was his first and only soldering experience to date. We have yet to work on another kit, but he did help me with a circuit bending experiment recently.
My son spends LOTs of time playing. I don’t force him to do anything he doesn’t want to, except occasional force him to TRY things like eat some green beans. He has been going to school now for two years, and has a late birthday so he hasn’t even started Kindergarten yet. He does read books, and knows how to figure out words that he doesn’t recognize immediately. He is usually the most outgoing kid at the playground, introducing himself to everyone and asking what their names are and what games they know how to play. Usually the other kids are the anti-social ones. He has a huge heart and cares a lot about people.
We’re signed up for T-ball this summer because he has a great arm and can hit the ball even farther. He’s very excited about that.
I know a few PhD’s myself, and they don’t know everything
I like how you use that as credibility. You may know books and I’ll even say you ARE a super smart individual (even though I know nothing about you).
While you know your kids… you don’t know mine.
Wow, that was an awesome and inspiring video. Malachi is a cute and bright kid and he obviously greatly enjoyed putting the project together. Well done, both of you.
The only negative thing I have to say is that I feel sorry for Bill Baylor’s kids. What a self-agrandizing, pompous prig.
Thanks Bruce!
This video just put a big smile on my face.
Fast learners the small ones.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks Michael! Happy Turkey Day!