DIY Project Ideas for Beginners - Elementary Education Focus

[Stephenk53]

I am pretty new to diy engineering and my main focus is to build things that are either useful (ie the multitool I am working on) or useful for a demonstration. I am currently studying Elementary education and thus I am inexperienced in engineering and I was wondering if you guys have any ideas for things I can build or other people browsing this forum might want to build with a focus on simple projects.

 

[Borg]

instructables.com is my first stop when I'm looking for a project.

 

[berkeman]

I was wondering if you guys have any ideas for things I can build

Have you browsed projects at https://makezine.com/ ? Also, you can search for a Maker Faire near you -- they are pretty fun and inspirational...

https://makerfaire.com/

 

[chemisttree]

You could make an analog device for calculating pi. Randomly toss a ball at a target consisting of an open circle in a square frame. A blindfolded toss of the ball will either hit the circular hole or the square frame around it. Area of the square is Length X Width. Area of the fully inscribed circle is (Length/2)squared X pi. The area of the square corresponds to the number of tosses and the area of the circle corresponds to the number of throws that go through the inscribed circular hole without touching the edge. The ratio of the area of the circle to the area of the square should be equal to the ratio of the fraction of tosses that go through the circle without touching the edge to the total tosses should equal to pi.
Very interactive and your audience can help build the apparatus.

 

[256bits]

I browsed "DIY things to make" and found some crafty ideas, using things around the house, or from a collection things such as pop can tabs, or

No 17 from
https://www.boredpanda.com/creative-diy-project-ideas/Uses, I guess, hexagons and pentagons to make a ball ( lamp shade ).
If that isn't mathematics and engineering .
See geodesic dome for building made out of triangles to approximate the curve of a sphere.

 

[Couchyam]

A set of balance scales (sometimes called 'scales of justice') would be extremely useful.

 

[Stephenk53]

I will definitely have to look at those links, thanks for the ideas

 

[BillTre]

Usually, when I do a DIY project, it is usually for some purpose in my life (like automating a fish room, or setting up a photograph studio), or to make a gift for someone.
This will usually provide me with more than enough material for projects that will keep me motivated to finish (an important criteria for productivity). Random projects are not as long term motivating to me.
Gift projects frequently take me the furthest from things that I already have done.
Art projects would be a nice motivation, but my thoughts are usually elsewhere.

 

[berkeman]

like automating a fish room

Okay, I'll bite (pun intended). What the heck does that mean? I can envision at least 5 different things...

 

[BillTre]

Okay, I'll bite (pun intended). What the heck does that mean? I can envision at least 5 different things...

Light Cycle: lights with timers is the simple way. Electronic controls and software can make it possible to gradually increase and decrease lighting, often considered less surprising (less stressful) to the fish.

Water Changes: can easily be automated if the plumbing is set-up properly. Turn on water in, excess water goes out overflows. These can be water changes to individual tanks or to whole water systems. While a lot can be one with biological filtration to avoid ammonia poisoning, eventually end products of bacterial metabolism will build up in a water system. This is usually done by water changes, fancy and expensive chemical filtration is usually not used,except for special purposes.

Salinity: Salt mixes of various kinds(or other chemicals) can be added, from a tub of concentrates. The dosing pump can be controlled by a conductivity controller (electronic box for our purposes) for adding general salts. pH: Alternatively, you could have a tub with acid, base, or a buffer, controlled by a pH controller to keep the water system's pH at some preset level.

Feeding: There are a variety of ways to set-up feedings. Feeders on top of tanks are pretty easy to set-up and use, but are not that much of a labor saver, due to their fidelly nature, requiring frequent hands on attention. Big places like some universities (>10,000 tanks) use robots for feeding. One fidelly thing rather than 10,000 of them.

More smaller feedings are considered better. Robots and other automation approaches make more feedings less of a labor burden.
I feed by hand at home (few hundred tanks at max), but I did make a cool feeder gun.

Temperature: Thermostats/heaters, fancy systems like automated monitoring systems (including some of the hobbyist level ones) can control out puts and set points. So temperature up and down with morning and evening. This can also be done with two sets of heaters with two different set points and a timer controlling when one of them is on.

Monitoring: Both professional (universities, fish farms) and advanced hobbyist level systems we have auto-monitoring systems which can receive a variety of inputs. Some are standard (temperature), but often these systems will accept standard industrial inputs, so signals from a huge variety of monitors. At universities, we would look for water on the floor, temperatures in various places, motor (pump) function, water pressure, water level, pH, lights on/off in different places, salinity, UV light function, power.

At home: only had some water on the floor and temperature alarms.
If alarm parameters are exceeded, calls are placed to people.
It also gives you a continuous readout of conditions, which can be very handy for figuring out problems.

Maybe I'm forgetting some...

 

[BillTre]

I have also developed a mechanically based way to control some aspects of berometric pressure in a fish tank. Changes in berometric pressure are often considered important in getting some fish to breed. It has mechanical auto-control mechanisms for air pressure.

 

[chemisttree]

Maybe I'm forgetting some...

Well, if it was my fish tank, I’d need a skimmer for... well, you know!

 

[BillTre]

Skimmers are mostly for salt water. They don't work so well in low salt conditions.
I have predominately freshwater.

 

[chemisttree]

Dead fish are part of both ecosystems, right?

 

[BillTre]

If you leave them in there.