Any Project Ideas for Children?

[Bananaguns]

When my niece lived with me she always wanted to help me build or work in computers. Ever since she moved almost every time she'd visit she would ask if we could fix my computer, so I thought getting a Pi and making a custom case together would be a cool day project while she visited. She loved it, picking out the materials, drilling, filing, securing the nuts and bolts, and the end result of playing Minecraft. it was a joy to see how much she enjoys computers.

She's 7 and I want to get her a Pi for her at her house and I want to find some projects that she will enjoy aside from the listed ones. Anything is a good idea in this case. If you have kids or children that you use your pi with and have done a project I'd love to hear it, or if you've read about one that seemed like a good way to allow children to get their feet wet I'd be happy to hear! The projects don't need to be super creative or indepth, a simple dot matrix emoticon display would do, however I'm not limited to a budget or anything so an arcade machine, robot, bird feeder cam, bedroom alarm system, etc would also be cool!

[kusti8]

The MagPi is a good place to start. It really depends on her interests as well. I would suggest finding a project which can incorporate python to have an incentive to learn python, because it is useful later on when you want to whip up a quick program.

[cdo]

A good place to start with plenty of ideas is also http://www.raspberrypi.org/resources/

[Bananaguns]

A good place to start with plenty of ideas is also http://www.raspberrypi.org/resources/

I've looked through the make section, I'll check out the others though!

[rpiswag]

That is amazing! I would get a Raspberry Pi 2 model B and if you are going to make a custom case with your niece you are going to need to know where the mounting wholes are so I will post the mounting hole placement later in the post. Be aware if you have made custom computer cases it is different that modifying a regular pc atx style cases for example. If you want to make a pi case with your niece you will need a way of making the holes in the case. For simplicity because you are doing this with your niece I would make the case simple with two pieces of wood or the material you use. I two pieces would be connect with two long bolts that would run though the holes in the board. If you make the case this way it will be easer to build you won't need to make square holes for things like usb or Ethernet. I am so happy you are doing this with your niece. My grandpa made electronics with me and that is what inspired my passion for computers and in my case build in computer security devices. Mine are a brief case Raspberry Pi computer with a monitor, rfid reader and writer and Arduino and a small 500 gb hard drive with a 4g dongle and a high power alpha wifi dongle with the pi running Kali with a buttons on the case that will run programs when the buttons are press through the gpio cables. I was inspired by the projects I did with my Grandpa to build my projects and I hope your niece is inspired to learn more about computers and electronics. When she is older I would recommend when learns Python 3.1. It is a great language and I use it almost everyday. Here is a link with the hole placement measurements as well as some other good details https://learn.adafruit.com/system/asset ... 1405287230

[DavidS]

If she is 7, I would say any electronics project, the more the marier.

Get her some bread boards, some perfboard, a bunch of 74HCxxx IC's, a bunch of resisters, a bunch of voltage regulators, capacitors, LED's, FET transistors, ROM's (crude programable logic), etc. And get a few good teaching references for her, she should have all kinds of fun.

[Gravesy]

I've been helping my daughter in her quest to build a birdfeeder with a built in Raspicam that posts pictures to her Wordpress blog every time a bird comes in to grab a bite (she's the same age as your niece).
You could also do projects where she could create a door buzzer (with camera), led light projects, etc etc.
Like others have said, MagPi is a great source for these projects, and i've seen a top 10 list on pcadvisor that had some fun projects as well : http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/gadge ... -for-kids/
If she likes lego, there are a number of lego mindstorm related projects you could work on with an RPi (my inner child is having a ball just looking at the possibilities here).

[edit] perhaps get her started with a Unicorn hat and have her program her own 'pixelart' images on it ? [/edit]

[Bananaguns]

That is amazing! I would get a Raspberry Pi 2 model B and if you are going to make a custom case with your niece you are going to need to know where the mounting wholes are so I will post the mounting hole placement later in the post. Be aware if you have made custom computer cases it is different that modifying a regular pc atx style cases for example. If you want to make a pi case with your niece you will need a way of making the holes in the case. For simplicity because you are doing this with your niece I would make the case simple with two pieces of wood or the material you use. I two pieces would be connect with two long bolts that would run though the holes in the board. If you make the case this way it will be easer to build you won't need to make square holes for things like usb or Ethernet. I am so happy you are doing this with your niece. My grandpa made electronics with me and that is what inspired my passion for computers and in my case build in computer security devices. Mine are a brief case Raspberry Pi computer with a monitor, rfid reader and writer and Arduino and a small 500 gb hard drive with a 4g dongle and a high power alpha wifi dongle with the pi running Kali with a buttons on the case that will run programs when the buttons are press through the gpio cables. I was inspired by the projects I did with my Grandpa to build my projects and I hope your niece is inspired to learn more about computers and electronics. When she is older I would recommend when learns Python 3.1. It is a great language and I use it almost everyday. Here is a link with the hole placement measurements as well as some other good details https://learn.adafruit.com/system/asset ... 1405287230

Thanks for the link and your experience! We actually made a case for my Pi 2 while she was visiting a couple weekends ago. as you mentioned, we used two pieces of acrylic, 4 m4 screws/nuts, 4 #6 screws/nuts, 4 tiny tube pieces to keep the top pieces elevated and thats mostly it. I cut the bottom vesa mount section and drilled the holes and she filed, measured and assembled. Next time i will use the actual measurements for the holes rather than trying to get it close as possible though since one of the holes is a bit wonky because I was a off. It was fun though and she enjoyed it. I really appreciate you sharing your time with your grandfather! I know its incredibly important for kids to have an output for their creativity and the Pi has almost unlimited possibilities. I also believe that having good computer/technological skills is going to be crucial in her generation, plus it gives us something to bond over, givers her necessary troubleshooting skills, patients, critical thinking skills, I could go on and on. Im actually planning to learn python (I only use lua and a little bit of java now) so hopefully after i learn i can teach her.

[Bananaguns]

I've been helping my daughter in her quest to build a birdfeeder with a built in Raspicam that posts pictures to her Wordpress blog every time a bird comes in to grab a bite (she's the same age as your niece).
You could also do projects where she could create a door buzzer (with camera), led light projects, etc etc.
Like others have said, MagPi is a great source for these projects, and i've seen a top 10 list on pcadvisor that had some fun projects as well : http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/gadge ... -for-kids/
If she likes lego, there are a number of lego mindstorm related projects you could work on with an RPi (my inner child is having a ball just looking at the possibilities here).

[edit] perhaps get her started with a Unicorn hat and have her program her own 'pixelart' images on it ? [/edit]

Awesome! I think she would like the bird feeder cam. Just downloaded Magpi on my phone, I'll take a look and see if I can find some cool stuff!