I’ve been collecting little projects and computer parts and tools for a few years now with the mind set they would be used for projects with the kids. The Bottom story of the shed has been mostly a mess used as temp storage since we moved from here to the house. A few moons ago Maddex and I had a brilliant idea. We would setup a lab space for Maddex and I to build projects and have some science time. Maddex has coined the space Dad and Maddex’s Lab – I call it The Lab, either way it’s been a great space for us to hang out in while the girls are napping in the house from about 1300-1500. Most every time we’ve been down here we’ve added something like more monitors, shelves, tools, storage, lights, wiring, ETC; Someday it’ll be done, then we’ll need a bigger space.
After cleaned most of the stuff from the basement we built a work space using left over melamine and 2×4’s we had laying around. We added about 8,000 lumens of LED lighting and carried in some chairs
Our first project in the lab after creating the work space was repairing a bunch of watches momma bought at an auction. We’ve fixed about 40 of them so far and have plenty left to fix once we order more parts. Momma’s sold a few of the watches on the Ebay. Sooner or later she’ll break even and make some money to buy more things for Maddex and I to fix.
Today Maddex is building an Avengers Lego set while I am printing out some inserts for his Pipband thing. You can see the walls and desk space are covered with more stuff since we started. We’ve pulled a bunch of stuff out of storage and picked up some other random tools and storage bits. Yesterday we picked up the yellow storage bin from harbor freight for about 30$ and the chair Maddex is sitting in we purchased at the goodwill for 5$. Normally 9.99$, Monday all furniture was half off. Was hard to resist getting him a chair upgrade.
Last week we picked up a Microscope for about 10$ from a goodwill auction. The Mount on the Microscope to take pictures with an Iphone cost more than the scope. Found the scope on the internets for 600$ new. It’s crazy talk what you can find other people have tossed in the rubbish. The scope came in the original packing with a nice dust cover.
Image above of a peacock feather on low magnification. The scope came with a box of premade slides for kids to look at, this was one of them.
We’ve also taught Maddex some resister math while building a few electronics projects, made some slime, built a wind generator, setup the PC in the office, grown some crystals, built a catapult, practiced soldering, and some other bits. We keep track of the stuff we build in our build journal.
Build journal, filled with my chicken scratches and Maddex’s words.
Da Vinci Catapult project we built. We filmed this build because Maddex wants to make YouTube videos like the ones he watches of kid unboxing or playing with toys.
I found a sweat wrist band thing made for Madden 2015 in the trash at work the other day. I brought it home and gave it to Maddex to wear. He was wearing it on our walks using to control his turbo boosters. Love the imagination our kids have. While in the lab today he asked if we could make it look more computer like. We printed out some PIPband images and replaced all of the game shortcuts with them. He is super excited to try it on our walk today to check out the ant hill. He figures he can get there in half the time with better booster and shield controls.
About 2/3 of a mile from the house there is a large ant hill on topaz lane. We like to walk to the hill and watch it for a bit. This week we tried feeding the ants. We gave them edible cookie dough made without eggs, and some orange peels. They ate some of the cookie dough, but not all of it. Much like momma felt about the cookie dough, it was Meh. We’ll check out how they do with the orange peels on today’s walk after the girls wake up.
Dad and Maddex Shot
Dad and Maddex shot from earlier in the week.
