Plumbing Project

Griffin helped to replace the ugly old faucet in his bathroom. He put a bucket under the pipes and turned off the hot and cold valves. He unscrewed the PVC pipes and stuffed a washcloth in the end of the pipe because it was stinky. He wondered if it had methane in it. Mom helped remove the old drain. Then Griffin unscrewed the hot and cold hoses and removed the plastic nuts that held the old faucet on. Next, Griffin put in the new drain plug. It clicks open and closed instead of having a knob like the old one. Griffin put the shiny new faucet on and attached it with the plastic nuts from underneath. Dad helped tighten the hot and cold hoses, and Mom reassembled the PVC pipes. Griffin turned the hot and cold valves back on and checked for leaks.
Griffin says, "If the pipes are stuck like superglue, call your parents for help."

Model Rocket Launch

Yesterday I launched a model rocket.  I got these rockets when my Uncle Mike moved to San Francisco and he quit model rockets because there was no where to do them there. I have launched them in a big open field and a parking lot. The parking lot was the most recent and safest location because it wouldn't catch on fire (unless someone poured hot lava on it). It took more than one try to launch the rocket. The first failure could have been the battery or the igniter. I think changing the battery helped. The second failed attempt it was the igniter. The third attempt was successful. I used my 12 volt battery that I told you about earlier. The launch controller was originally designed for 6 volts but because our batteries were recharged with the supercharger they weren't as good. I had to unscrew the back cover of the launch controller to take it apart and I had to slide one of the battery leads off a part of the battery compartment and relocate it so that I could use an alligator clip. I clipped alligator clips to the battery. I wanted Mom to do it but Dad clipped them to the battery. We did black to black and yellow to red.

For yesterday's launch I used an A engine. I call it the wimpiest.  It is the smallest and least efficient type of model rocket engine. Bigger engines are the C and D engines. I have never used a D, but the C engines are the most spectacular and efficient. The difference between the A, B, and C engines are just a different amount of fuel. The D engine has more stages and fuel. The first stage is the fuel and it just propels the rocket straight up. The next stage is the tracking smoke. It sort of propels it and helps you to know where your rocket's about to land. The last stage is the parachute ejection charge. It doesn't burn slowly like the other ones. It just explodes, releasing the parachute and removing the nose cone and almost propelling it forward.

Getting Ready for the Mini Maker Faire

Today, Griffin went to see where his booth will be at the Mini Maker Faire in Austin. He discovered the location of the power plugs in the floor, and got to take a look at the loading dock behind the building. On the way home he went shopping at a battery store.

He says: Today I bought a battery charger for a sealed lead acid battery that I got a couple of weeks ago. This battery charger also works with six volts. I put it on the 12 volt setting. 

Lego lathe with clay

In this project from January 2010, Griffin used his motorized Lego set to build a lathe for modelling clay. It didn't have to spin very fast because the clay is so soft. Mom did not like it because it was messy.

Snow Day at the Workshop

We don't get snow very often here. This picture shows a good view of the workshop last time it was covered in snow (February of 2011).
Griffin says: I didn't use the workshop that day. The snow made my workshop unsafe to access. There is a cold and hungry bird on the side of the picture.

Stick Insect Visits the Workshop

Looking through old pictures of the workshop, Mom found this photo from July 2010 of Griffin with a giant stick insect.

He says: There was a walking stick on my workshop. It walked away slowly. It was about to lay eggs. It was gray and blended in pretty well.

Chair Art Contest

Griffin has decorated a chair for a local art contest for two years in a row. He goes one step further than just painting a chair by building it as well. Last year, he made a stool with tree branches as legs. He cut out the top with the scroll saw and then asked Mom to make a smooth edge with the router. Then he painted a picture of a tree on it. He added sawdust to the paint to give it texture. He made the legs out of a branch we cut from a peach tree. He painted a fake vine on one leg, and hot glued plastic leaves, toy frogs, and other decorations. Finally, he painted it with clear spray paint.
The year before, he made a chair that looked like a cat. He started with a board from the Home Depot discount bin. It had some flaws, including pink spray paint. He cut off two corners to make a rounded shape, decided that they looked like ears, and the idea grew from there. He even figured out how to add a tail that could move. The different types of paint (water-based house paint, acrylic craft paint, enamel clear coat, oil-based clear coat) resulted in an interesting crackle effect.

Remote Controlled Buzzer

When Griffin was 8 years old, he got a remote controlled power switch as a present from Uncle Robby. It is the kind of switch that might be used to turn off Christmas lights. Griffin attached it to a small buzzer with a universal AC adapter, creating a remote controlled buzzer. Another time, he plugged in a lamp and a radio to the remote control switch. When Mom wanted to wake him up for school, she could press the button on the remote control and the light and sound would wake him up.

Toy Drill Press

Mom bought Griffin the "Rock Driller" by Elenco. (only $2 used!) Here is his review:

Today I got a toy drill press and it is a good tool. It was designed for drilling rock but I changed the bit and converted it to wood drilling. It wants 9 to 13 V and right now I am running it on 10 volts and 1 amp because most of my 12 V AC adapters are less than 1 amp. It has some safety features that are good for rock drilling but not for wood drilling. It will only work when the door is closed and it will only work if there's water in the reservoir located underneath the drilling table.

Toy drill in Griffin's workshop

Super Charger

Griffin is interested in how different kinds of batteries and AC adapters work. He wants to get an adapter to convert something that runs on D batteries to use AA batteries instead because they are cheaper and we have more of them around the house.  He knows how to use a universal AC adapter instead of batteries. Or if he buys a used toy that is missing the AC adapter he can find one that will work with it. He is very careful to read the labels and make sure the voltage matches what it's supposed to use. He does not like it when AC adapters get very hot. Dad makes sure that Griffin doesn't leave the chargers or AC adapters plugged in overnight or if no one is at home. Mom tells Griffin to always wash his hands after handling batteries or power cords.
Here's what Griffin says about the special battery charger he got from Grandpa:
One of my favorite devices I have is a supercharger.  It can charge alkaline batteries which aren't normally rechargeable and nickel cadmium rechargeable batteries.  But watch out for ticking batteries and never leave unattended while charging.

Recharging non-rechargeable batteries doesn't work very well even though the special super charger says it can do it. They don't hold the charge as long, and it can make them leak. It is even possible that they could explode. But wouldn't it be nice to put off tossing them in the trash/recycling?

Waterglass

Grandpa gave Griffin several boxes of stained glass samples. Normally, these would be used to choose colors for a project and then order more glass of that style, but he hadn't ordered any for over fifteen years. So Griffin decided to go ahead and use these up in projects. He likes them because they are already cut into small rectangles. He did two projects with samples of wavy clear glass. It reminded him of water, so he paired it with glass that looked like sand. He added a seashell to the first piece, and a carved dowel to the second one. 

Dissolving Styrofoam

Griffin decided to carve some bowls out of Styrofoam. It was easy to carve with the dremel tool because it's so soft. Mom didn't like it because it made a mess of  little beads of foam all over the floor. Mom was also worried that Griffin might breathe the dust. Then Griffin decided to spray paint one of the bowls he had carved.

He discovered that the paint made the foam dissolve. So he decided to take it one step further. He took a foam block about two inches square and four inches tall, and coated it in several layers of paint. He dipped the the block in outdoor latex house paint, which is water-based. He waited until the thick layers of paint were completely dry. Then, he took it outside where there was plenty of ventilation and had Mom pour paint thinner on the exposed foam. The paint thinner dissolved away most of the foam, leaving the skin of latex paint behind. This worked really well to dissolve the foam, but it also softened the latex paint a bit. So he decided for the next block that it was better to gently carve out the foam instead.

 

Robot Arm Kit

For Christmas, Griffin got a robot arm kit from Granddad. It was the "Robot Arm Edge" by OWI (owirobot.com). He loved this kit and would have finished it in one day if Mom hadn't made him go to bed. The parts came in sheets still connected by extra plastic, which kept the pieces from getting lost. Griffin had fun punching the pieces out and then smoothed the sharp edges with his set of mini files. This kit was fairly easy because there was no soldering. Griffin had no trouble following the directions to assemble a case with gears around each motor. The motors already had wires attached with small plugs at the end to connect them to the controller. The hardest part was getting all the screws in correctly. The directions mentioned that the self-tapping screws going into plastic needed to be tightened and untightened a few times to work their way in slowly. Mom's arm was tired after that.

Griffin likes this toy enough to take good care of it and plans to store it out of reach of younger kids. However, right now it is causing mischief at the kitchen table. Griffin used it to pass marshmallows to Mom one at a time. He offered to have it shine a light on the newspaper Dad was reading. He even used it to squeeze a packet of ketchup onto his fries. He thinks it's funny that the arm can push itself up off the table.  

Sting Beans

The Texas Mountain Laurel is a common landscape plant here. It is a tall shrub with nice purple flowers in the spring. Hidden inside brown bean-like pods are toxic bright red seeds. Griffin found out a secret about these at summer camp. Kids call these seeds "sting beans". They rub the seed on concrete and then shock their friends by touching them with it. Apparently the friction of rubbing the seed on the ground makes it unexpectedly hot for a few seconds.

Griffin experimented to find out exactly how hot. He tried rubbing the beans on different surfaces. He found that the damp new seeds did not get hot. He used a point and click thermometer to quickly measure the temperature. It was meant for measuring body temperature so it maxed out around 110 degrees. Maybe an infrared thermometer like the one we saw on TV in an episode of Dirty Jobs would work better. They used it to figure out where bees were living inside a wall by looking for hot spots.

Griffin also had an adventure in economics with the Mountain Laurel seeds. One kid at camp had a plant growing at his house, and he brought a bag of the seedpods to Griffin. That made him the manufacturer. Griffin took the pods home, opened them, sorted and counted the seeds, and put them into sandwich bags. Then he sold the whole batch of seeds to his friend Austin for a dollar. Griffin called himself the wholesaler. Then Austin sold the beans to other kids for 50 cents each. Austin was the retailer. 

T-Shirt Quilt

Before Griffin started making collage bookmarks, he used a similar technique to create quilt squares out of old T-shirts. He worked on this project when he was 7 years old. First, he cut the fabric into squares with a rotary cutter. Then, he sent each square through the sewing machine at least once. He tried all the different stitch patterns that the machine would do. He added yarn, sequins, and scraps of other fabrics to each square. He even made one square into a pocket. Then he helped Mom arrange the squares into a pattern. Mom cut an old sheet into 12 large blocks and then sewed about 16 of the t-shirt pieces onto each one. Then the 12  blocks were sewed together and Mom added batting and a fuzzy blue fabric for the back.

Electronics Kits from Radio Shack

Griffin went to Radio shack with Dad and bought two electronics kits. The first kit was for a metal detector. He got very frustrated when it took Mom & Dad several days to help with the soldering. When the kit was complete, it didn't work. Mom and Dad double checked the steps and tried to help with the calibration, but the LED wouldn't even light. Griffin got so annoyed with this project that he decided to put it away for now and move on to the next kit.
The second kit was for a blinking circle of LEDs. This kit had 10 LEDs, resistors, capacitors, and 2 integrated circuits. This kit was easier than the first one, and Griffin did some of the soldering himself. The lights blink around the circle but the switch doesn't seem to do anything. The problem could be with Mom's soldering(the soldering iron is set up for stained glass, not electronics) or it could be a problem with the integrated circuits. Griffin found out that the tiny pins are very delicate. He tried to make sure the IC was plugged in securely, but broke one of the pins in the process.

Visit to a science museum

Griffin loves science museums. Recently he took a trip to the Perot Museum in Dallas. His favorite exhibit was a demonstration of an air regulator.

Building a remote control vehicle at the Perot Museum

Tree Slices

Griffin decided to make coasters out of slices of an old branch from an oak tree. First he brought the branch to the garage and asked Mom to cut thin slices with the chop saw. Then he used his dremel tool to take off the bark, and sanded each slice. He added white paint to one because he thought it would look good. Finally, he sprayed a clear coat on each slice.

Collage bookmarks

One of Griffin's favorite projects is collage bookmarks. He has made a few batches of them for his school library, because his friends love free bookmarks.
When Grandpa cleaned out his desk, he found some old rolls of adding machine paper. Griffin tried using an adding machine(which is like a plug-in calculator that prints receipts). Then he had the idea of using the paper to make bookmarks. His collage process starts by sewing yarn down the center of the paper with a zig-zag stitch. He might place shredded paper or sequins on top so that they get sewed on at the same time. Then he uses stickers, paint, markers, stamps, and punches to decorate the bookmarks. Finally, he laminates the bookmarks by adding packing tape to each side. This prevents ink from rubbing off onto the books.

Dec 2011 batch of bookmarks

Stained Glass

Wood Series

Yellow Triangle

Yellow Triangle- side view

Griffin lets Mom and Grandpa borrow the bottom floor of his tree house workshop for their stained glass. He likes to design stained glass projects of his own.
One thing he makes in his workshop is small turned dowels. He doesn't have a lathe, so he uses a drill to hold the dowels and carve them while they are spinning. He also made wooden beads by cutting sections of a tree branch with his hacksaw, and then drilled a  hole through each piece. Then he decided that he wanted to find a way to incorporate these wooden parts into a stained glass project. He had fun delivering them to the stained glass studio by dropping them through a hole in the floor.

For the Yellow Triangle he chose existing scraps of glass to make a modern art piece with minimal support points. He drilled a hole in the gray glass with his dremel tool so that a wire could go through. I wonder how this would look if it was 100 times larger?

For the Wood Series, he chose glass that reminded him of wood colors, and cut it so that it would NOT be square. He had the idea of making a set of coasters that could also hang on the wall as art, but decided that they didn't need to be functional.

Welcome to Griffin's Workshop

Welcome to Griffin's Workshop. Griffin is 11 years old and likes to build, invent, and create. He will be posting some information about his projects in his own words, and Mom will be adding more project descriptions. Of course Griffin would rather be out in his workshop instead of typing.