Shopsmith Forums

OK guys, put your idea caps on.
Each year we set up at a large living history museum for a weekend event and do a number of things with kids. The old standby has been letting them shell an ear of corn with an old cast iron corn sheller mounted on a wooden box. After shelling the ear they have the option of taking the cob with them and most take it.
The current most popular extra thing we are doing with that is we put a beam on the ground and put one of those rubber backed entry mats you see in stores on each side of the beam where the kids kneel and drive a nail in the beam with one of the half dozen hammers we have laying there. One of us or our helpers start the nails to avoid bleeding and the kids drive them. Goes over better than free lollipops.
We have done a lot of other things and still do other stuff but since I am getting older and my son gets really busy in the fall I have cut back on the tractors and machinery that we haul up there (plus the fuel for a bunch of hauling trips about 50 miles one way is getting painful too). I like to be doing something too like last year I built a garden type gate (just hand tools) just working on it at odd times for something for people to look at.
OK, the thinking cap bit...
I am looking for something "EXTREMELY" simple and very small to make a bunch of over the course of the day, maybe lathe related. Just as an example one thought I have had was yoyo's. Maybe make them and generate some tiny contest like a wheel of fortune type thing to give them away.
Please flood me with ideas...


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Pre drill holes in some wood scaps (make a box of potential) and lathe handles in front of the kids (like making them a balloon animal). In the hole, insert their favorite color of crayola crayon or pencil lead. They can whittle it sharp as needed. I dunno..just came to me.

If you have the lathe there already how about tops, kids love them and they are pretty easy to make. I was also thinking of the old climbing clown on the strings. Would take a jig saw and hand drill and that could be something fairly easy to set up ahead to time. I have seen it made as firemen, santa clause and clowns so you could mix it up.
Just a thought.

I was thinking tops as well. Here is a video on making these small tops -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwnr-nx_ ... ature=plcp --

These in the video are quite elaborate with chatter work and coloring, but they really can be made quite simply with dowel rod and some thin wood for the body of the tops, avoiding the chatter work, etc. Simply drill a hole in the center of a disk of wood, glue the dowel into the disk, and then turn on the lathe. You can hold the dowel axle in a drill chuck or the router chuck (if you have accurately sized dowels) and turn the little tops between centers. After you make a couple of these, you can knock them out quickly.

How about making a bunch of small simple tool totes for the kids. You can cut the pieces ahead of time and the kids can help assemble them and then take them home. Make them out of pine and use a simple dowel as the handle. Easy to do, not particularly expensive, and something the kids can do and take with them.

Just a thought.....

There's a game called "tricky triangle" which would be easy to make with plywood triangles and various colors of golf tees. Each would need 15 holes drilled, which the kids should be able to do safely with an eggbeater-style hand drill.

Here's a link to a picture:

http://www.amazon.com/Tricky-Triangle-S ... B002C1OYOI

Gary

What age group are we talking about here? I've done some different things here but I have found that the age group kind of dictates the interest level.

As mentioned before, tops are simple and many of them can be made out of single piece of spindle wood. You will need some type of scroll chuck to make them because while turning the point on the botttom of the top the tailstock can't be used. They are quick to make and when my club has made at our booth at county fairs, etc. seems kids of all ages (1-100) love them.

I don't know if it will be that simple if you want the kids to help make them though. To solve this problem, my club members do the turning, and then we set-up a coloring area for the kids to color the tops with markers and water color paints. They get to go home with something they helped to make and with a smile.

dforeman wrote:What age group are we talking about here? I've done some different things here but I have found that the age group kind of dictates the interest level.

Dforeman is right. Farmer, any idea on how many kids at one time, age range, city or country kids (makes a difference). Also, how much supervision is available? And, do you have local woodworking/woodturning clubs you can get involved?

Look at old time games like the one of rolling a hoop with a tin can bent and nailed to a stick.

Woodburner's set-up for tops with the club making them and the kids coloring them is a great idea.

fiatben wrote:Dforeman is right. Farmer, any idea on how many kids at one time, age range, city or country kids (makes a difference). Also, how much supervision is available? And, do you have local woodworking/woodturning clubs you can get involved?

Look at old time games like the one of rolling a hoop with a tin can bent and nailed to a stick.

Woodburner's set-up for tops with the club making them and the kids coloring them is a great idea.

They range in age from babes in arms to 90 years +... The most common ages lean toward 2 to about 15. We find that foreign travelers are especially interested in what we do and spend the most time.
We can't really get into letting kids make stuff. We probably average less than two minute window per kid and on a busy Saturday we might interact (very very briefly) with a thousand kids...
We have to grab their interest quickly, do something quick and be ready to handle the 3 to 20 kids walking up behind them.
It can get pretty challenging at times.


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