HOLIDAY HOMEWORK We look at five sites that can help your children learn, build and create things
FROM BUILDING A DOG COLLAR OUT OF PARACORD TO A HOME CLOUD SERVER, THE NET CAN BE A TRAINING TOOL FOR MANY THINGS
It’s that time of the year when most of us would be planning our summer breaks. However, if you are among the unfortunate few who cannot take a break from work, and are worrying about how to keep your children occupied when schools are shut, the Web can be the answer to your prayers. Be it building a dog collar out of paracord, or a home cloud server for all those digital goodies you have lying around, the Internet can be a training tool for many things. Here are few projects: let the kids (or the kid in you) explore a wonderland..
1 HOW STUFF WORKS (http://www.howstuffworks.com/
There was a time when the public library was the one-stop destination for all our queries. Today the Net has rendered it obsolete. Hit the browser and find the answer. How Stuff Works is a great place to start with. It answers questions on almost everything from adventure to tech through videos and quizzes. If curiosity is your Achilles’ heel, and you want to find out how a vacuum cleaner sucks up all the dust, this is the place to go. A step-by-step slide will show you what’s inside a typical vacuum cleaner and explain the utility of each component in detail. It will also give you a few tips on how to service it.
2 INSTRUCTABLES (http://www.instructables.com/
Now you know how things work. But now you want to get them done. Whether it is making a piece of jewellery, or building a tree house, or even making a ‘perfect’ mint chocolate milk shake, Instructables gives stepby-step instructions for nearly everything. Explore technology, workshop, living, food, outdoor building projects and then create them. While some projects will require you to buy stuff from the website, in most cases old, discarded stuff from the storeroom will suffice. Instructables is also available as an App for iOS, Windows 8 and Android, and offers a subscription at $39.99 ( ` 2,400) for two years or $1.95 for one month. The subscription will let you access ebooks, down-
load PDFs and a lot of extras.
3 MAKE [http://www.makezine.com/]
This Website offers projects in art, home, science, craft and electronics among others. It rates projects with difficulty levels and gives you instruction videos. You can also shop for kits that you can build around, though these kits will need to be shipped from their US warehouse and will require you to pay customs import duty over and above the US dollar price. So, if you have been looking to build yourself a 3D printer or a an electronics project, Make’s site will tell you how to, and where to get the stuff from.
4eHOW (http://www.ehow.com/)
Did you know that the best way to pack is to roll garments together? Not all of us are interested in complex projects. Some of us just want to excel in everyday things like packing the suitcase or growing one’s own herbs for the kitchen. e-How shows you how to do these things, useful and creative at the same time, in both text and video formats. So, if you want to learn how to waterproof your blue suede shoes or to make yourself a pumpkin-based peel for your skin, eHow holds your answers.
5 DIY (http://www.diynetwork.com/)
From tips on home improvement that let you to fix electrical problems (do remember to wear rubber gloves and footwear) or leaking pipes to ideas for throwing a bachelor party or making new cocktails, the DIY Network has a huge video library of things to do. Its ‘entertaining made remade’ blog also lets you recreate things from what’s around you.
So, if you have time on your hands, put your hands (and mind) to use. Who knows, you may end up with an invention of your own?
Source | Hindustan Times | 29 April 2014
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