DIY Robotic Arms for the Girl Scout Senior and Ambassador Programming Robots Badges

 

Step 2 of the Girl Scout Senior Programming Robots badge asks the kid to build a robot arm. Step 2 of the Ambassador Programming Robots badge asks the kid to build a motorized robot.

Let's streamline the process of mentoring a Girl Scout Senior and Girl Scout Ambassador through earning this badge together by asking them each to build a motorized robotic arm!

Each kid built her own OWI Robotic Arm Edge kit, obtained via a grant from the Civil Air Patrol.

You guys, these kits were TOUGH!!! I would consider both my kids adept at reading and following step-by-step directions, possibly even a little more adept than your average teenagers, just because we do a lot of step-by-step tutorials and crafts and hands-on activities in our homeschool.  But they both struggled quite a bit with these robotic arm kits, and each made several mistakes that they had to go back and troubleshoot. 

The older kid wasn't quite as careful as her sister, and she even managed to break a couple of pieces--she stripped a screw that she really needed to be able to unscrew to get back into the plastic casing to see what she'd done wrong (she'd put a piece of the motor on backwards), and she accidentally pulled a wire off of its connection. That one, at least, was an excellent learning opportunity, as it then became the first time she ever stripped wires and soldered them to their connection:

It was VERY satisfying when the motor then worked perfectly!

Other than the couple of times they got stuck (and thank goodness their grandfather happened to be visiting, because he had the patience both to compare every step of the instructions to their work to find the mistakes, and to sometimes disassemble the robotic arm back to that step so they could try it again), they mostly worked peacefully while we listened to podcasts together. We got through the entire 36 Questions podcast while DIYing robotic arms!

Finally, all you have to do is assemble the battery case and add SO MANY BATTERIES--

--and then you've got a fully functional robotic arm all of your very own!

You can see in this photo how a little hot glue was also required. The older kid was so rough on her poor robotic arm!

These robotic arms have already come in handy for more than just earning Step 2 of the Programming Robots badge. The older kid is at work on the Ambassador Designing Robots badge, and used her robotic arm, along with some of the hydraulics that were last used building a cardboard robotic arm the last time the kids earned the Programming Robots badge at the Cadette and Senior levels to make a working model of a robot that could dispense a drink into a cup. 

The kids will soon have yet another use for their robotic arms, as well, as for Step 5 of this badge, they'll each be using the USB Interface Kit to write a program for their robotic arm. So it's a good thing that they got their robotic arms working... even if it did require a bit more hot glue and duct tape than I'd been expecting!

P.S. Want to know more about all the weird math I have my kids do, as well as our other wanderings and wonderings? Check out my Facebook page!

That Time I Got an Abortion and Didn't Get Arrested because Roe v. Wade Existed

Me in the good old days, back before people knew how to focus their cameras.

It was Fort Smith, Arkansas, somewhere around 1992-ish. I was 16 years old and an A student. I had some extracurriculars I loved, some friends I liked a lot, a grey 1985 Lincoln Town Car I drove to school and back, and a boyfriend I was obsessed with. I'd had an excellent high school health class that had actually taught me how to have safe sex, down to the correct type of spermicide to look for  and the importance of latex condoms over sheepskin.

Because I considered myself a smart girl and had had what I still consider to be good sex ed, I've always judged myself for being exceptionally stupid and careless for getting pregnant. But you know what I'm just now realizing right this second as I write this? Here's what I didn't have: access to birth control pills, access to a medical practitioner to talk with about my specific situation, and reliable access to those latex condoms with Nonoxynol-9 spermicide that I'd been taught to use. I would have utilized the snot out of a Planned Parenthood, unless there were people protesting outside it like there often are at my local Planned Parenthood 30 years later, and then I wouldn't have dared be caught near it.

In Fort Smith, Arkansas, in the late 80s and early 90s, at least, from junior high on, there were a LOT of kids who got pregnant. People pretty much all just kept their babies, too--I knew kids who tried to DIY abortions but that never worked, and I didn't know anybody who carried to term and then relinquished the baby for adoption. We were probably all trash, though, because Matt swears that he never knew of a single kid in his entire education through high school who ever got pregnant. But he grew up in a sweet suburb in the Silicon Valley, and I grew up in a city that was known for having the lowest cost of living in the country, and my high school chemistry teacher would threaten us with future employment at the local chicken processing plant when he thought we weren't studying hard enough.

I didn't want to work at the chicken plant, or the factory that made disposable plates and cups, or the one that made lined paper, or the one that assembled washers and dryers when I grew up, and it felt like just the absolute end of the world when I got pregnant. And I didn't even know how bad it actually would be. I didn't fully realize what the negative impact on my education and economic stability, not to mention my long-term mental health, would be if I bore an unwanted child. I didn't think about how bearing a child into poverty, as a teenager obviously would, would mean that we'd both most likely remain in it, doing blue-collar work and living in subsidized housing and forever struggling to make ends meet, forever a half paycheck from disaster, forever locked out of the benefits of the middle class and unable to build wealth in our own generation, much less advance the quality of life of our descendents. I didn't have any thoughts about forced motherhood as a means of patriarchal control. 

My 1980 Lincoln Town Car, which is still my dream car and the BEST CAR EVER.

I mean, I saw all that played out in front of me, saw literally all of those scenarios among family and friends and acquaintances, but I didn't have the insight to recognize them as systemic or connect them to the myriad of societal factors that caused them and that I also witnessed. Honestly, I just focused on how my unwanted pregnancy would ruin my life right then. I did not want to be pregnant, and I did not want to be a parent. That should be reason enough.

Looking back, I kind of can't believe the level of helpless despair that I shouldered, trying to figure out a solution among my limited options. I can't figure out a way to accurately relay what it feels like, to know this thing is happening to your body, it can't be stopped, it's going to change the entire thread of your life in ways you actively do not want, you are going to become someone that you do not want to be and have a life that you do not want to have, and YOU DO NOT WANT IT. 

Probably the best thing that's ever happened to me in my life so far is that my sole trusted adult at that time, an aunt who came over for dinner one night, heard me sobbing in my bedroom, and did the work to get out of me why I was upset and what I wanted to do about it, agreed to drive me over to a clinic in Oklahoma so I could obtain a proper medical abortion from a licensed medical practitioner. It cost almost more money than I could scrape together at that time, and my aunt and I had to pretend to my grandparents that we were going on a fun weekend trip to get me away from home for the appointment. 

And after all that, the solution turned out to be the simplest thing ever: call long-distance, make an appointment, drive to Oklahoma City, give the receptionist sixteen years' worth of birthday money and two months' worth of school lunch money and every quarter you ever found under a couch cushion, put your feet up in stirrups, breathe the nice gas, and just like that, your life is back online. 

My shining moment of high school glory in my favorite extracurricular.

It sickens me now to think about how hard I struggled to access that simple abortion, how much mental, emotional, and physical energy I devoted to it instead of to my education, extracurriculars, and relationships, how many dangerous ideas I considered. I would never tolerate that amount of helplessness, despair, panic, anguish, and fear in a child under my care, if I had any way to provide a solution. Looking back, I kind of can't believe that I tolerated it as a child, myself, especially when in reality the solution was ultimately so simple. Just a phone call and a day trip and a very fat check.

I am SO glad for that abortion. I've never felt angst about it or regretted it--why would I regret something that I needed so badly and was so desperate to get? I've never been sad about it--why would I be sad about anything other than what a terrified, helpless child I was? I don't talk about my abortion only for the same reason that I don't talk about anything else having to do with my sex life--it's personal, and like all the other aspects of my sex life, generally kept to a need-to-know basis. I think about the abortion I got 30 years ago about as often as I think about the tonsilectomy I got 35 years ago, because the whole situation became a total non-issue as soon as I got caught up on my homework and won my first part-time job because I never want to be that broke again. 

What I do end up thinking about quite a lot these days is "abortion." Abortion, the human right. Abortion, the accessibility to which is crucial for humans to thrive and prosper, to live in safety and security, to be able to own and live in their own bodies. I think about "abortion" in the context of being furious when I see evidence of people being denied that piece of medical care, or being shamed for accessing it. I drive by the people protesting outside our local Planned Parenthood, and I roll down my window and flip them off while thinking how much I hate them for what they're trying to do. I see that leaked decision by the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, and I feel a pit in my stomach at how much harder it's going to be to live our lives while being deprived of yet more fundamental human rights. 

My younger child turned sixteen this week. She and her sister have grown up with lessons of consent, with their bodily autonomy respected, with great sex ed, multiple safe adults, all necessary and requested medical care, and the knowledge that anything they need, whatever they need, will be provided to them with the best of my abilities.

Before she's seventeen, my younger child and her sister may have fewer rights to their own bodies and less official control over their own fertility than I did back when I was sixteen and sneaking across state lines to find a legal abortion practitioner. I hope that they will never be compelled, by force or by legislation or by simple lack of access or options otherwise, to use their uteruses as incubators, or to have their biologically female bodies perform in any way they do not completely consent to. But my ability to maintain their basic personhood is limited, apparently, by the religious tyranny of a minority of politicians, and by Supreme Court justices who flat-out lied during their confirmation hearings. Politicians who do not even have uteruses or medical degrees get to insert themselves into the medical decisions of those who do, and legislate their personal decisions about their own bodies. 

Blessed Be the Fruit, I guess.

I Took My Teenager to Otherworld

Tbh, I thought for sure that she was going to ask to go to the Columbus Zoo, or at least the bookstore so large that they give you a map. 

But on the way home from our college visit we had enough time to do only one activity in Columbus, and the kid chose, for perhaps the very first time ever when such a choice has been presented to her, not animals or books, but Otherworld, an immersive postmodern art installation.

It was SO GREAT!!!

The premise is that you're exploring a mysteriously abandoned research facility, one that you learn has been exploring a connection between two realities, with results that seem to have gotten wildy out of hand. There's no handbook--or map!--to guide your explorations, as you wander between rooms, interact with what you find, and discover secret passages and hidden connections of your own:

Different artists designed different rooms, so there's no overarching organization to lull your senses:

I really loved this room, which had lighting that made you, too, look black and white:

The kid discovered a secret passage in the guts of an arcade game that led us into the world inside the game:

The entire warehouse was a terrific multi-sensory experience, with the ever-expanding premise good for keeping your intellect engaged:

The mirror mazes were also pretty epic:

My favorite room was designed to look like a museum, with displays created by the research team's archivist:

I also really liked the mad scientist's laboratory:

It looks like we'll be traveling through Columbus pretty regularly over the next four years, as the kid chose a college just on the other side of the city, so I guess we'll have plenty of time for the giant bookstore and the zoo on future visits.

Not gonna lie, though--I am MOST excited about the kid being in shouting distance of an NHL franchise. I am thisclose to buying season tickets for next year so I can 1) have an excuse to visit my kid every home game, and 2) have an excuse to go to a LOT of hockey games by visiting my kid.

Go, Blue Jackets!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Non-Seasonal Craft Alert: Plaster of Paris Sugar Skull Models, Because We're Studying El Dia De Los Muertos in April

Okay, what we were ACTUALLY doing was putting together a Mexico-themed take-home kit for another Girl Scout troop as part of our Service Unit's World Thinking Day celebration, but as my kid was researching stuff we might want to include, she said, "We should study El Dia de los Muertos sometime."

Let's just ignore, for the moment, the fact that we HAVE studied El Dia de los Muertos before--many times, actually! With this kid, you have to strike like a viper when the iron is at its very hottest. 

Seriously, remember just the other day, when we went to the local historic cemetery so the kid could take reference photos for her AP Studio Art classes? While we were there, she was literally griping that these photos wouldn't come in handy at all, because her special focus for the class was absolutely going to be mushrooms, which she was super interested in and spent all her free time sketching in various forms. 

So after the cemetery, we drove to the public library to find her a couple of reference books on mushrooms that had big, glossy photos, but then I also put some other big, glossy mushroom reference books on hold for me at our local university's library. Those finally came in for me a couple of days ago, but when I excitedly handed them to her, she was all, "Ugh! More mushroom books?!? I am not even interested in mushrooms why must you always task me with these unendurable burdens blah blah blah gripe gripe gripe!"

And that is why, the very second that my kid mentioned wanting to study El Dia de los Muertos sometime, I was all, "OMG what a coincidence you said that! Because our very next project actually happens to be El Dia de los Muertos! Weird that I didn't bring it up before. Oh, right, and the project actually begins now! Yeah, yeah... you're going to... write a research paper, that's right. Definitely a research paper. And, uh... also you're going to model a themed craft for our take-home kit."

Her research paper is quite good, although I do not understand why I have to beg both of my children to include in-text citations and a Works Cited page--surely it's so much more effort to go back and remember all your sources and add the citations later?

Anyway, along with the research paper, the kids and I made sugar skull models from plaster of Paris, and then Syd embellished them with dimensional fabric paint. It's a super easy project that does have some prep time, but the results look really, really good. To make your own plaster of Paris sugar skull models, you will need:

• plaster of Paris. Any brand is fine, but Dap is what my local hardware store carries. When my kids were little, I used plaster of Paris to make them little figurines to decorate all the time. Plaster of Paris is pretty eco-friendly, and it takes all kinds of artist media like a champ. 
• skull mold. I used the skull mold we've had for years, most notably to make our mashed potato skulls every Halloween dinner. It was already on its last legs, and I wore it into the ground with this project. I'll have to keep my eye out for a new skull mold before next Halloween, because we can't do without our mashed potato skulls!
• dimensional fabric paint. These stick great to the plaster of Paris, and have a cute, puff paint look to them. They're a little spendy for what you get, though, so if you've got younger or messier kids, you might as well put tempera or dyed school glue into little squeeze bottles for them. 

The main job is to make the plaster of Paris skull models. My skull mold held about four cups of plaster, and took several hours to harden, so it took me a couple of days to make the seven skulls that I needed:

Fortunately, embellishing the skulls is a lot less work--and a lot more fun!

Because the paint is dimensional, it did also take a few hours to dry, so if you're doing this in a shared space with a group, bring a cardboard box or tray so everybody can transport their skull home to finish drying. I noted that in the instructions I wrote to go in our Mexico take-home kit, and included a plaster of Paris skull for each kid and a large set of dimensional paint for them to share.

If I had this project to do again, I'd embed twine or wire into the plaster of Paris to use as a hanger when it dries. For Syd's sugar skull, though, I think I'm going to sand the back flat and then glue it to a bookend. 

Crafting with Kids: Make Your Own Plaster of Paris Figurines

I originally published this tutorial on Crafting a Green World way back in 2010!

Summer is for kitschy children's crafts. Popsicle sticks, pom poms, the ubiquitous lanyard, plus a few thousand mosquito bites are all that's necessary for the perfect summer. 

Kids' crafts, however, can compete with the eco-friendly lifestyle that we try to teach them. They want foam stickers and plastic beads, and we want them to craft with twigs and pine cones! 

One of the ways to teach children to craft positively is to teach them the DIY mindset. Plaster of Paris is a kid-friendly material, made from powdered gypsum (just like the dunes at White Sands, New Mexico!) that you rehydrate and then dehydrate again in a mold, and those little plaster of Paris figurines that craft stores sell are cute and fun to paint. But what sweatshop were they imported from? Who knows? 

Here's how give your kids the fun of making your own plaster of Paris figurines, all with stuff that you already have around the house. 

You will need:

• Plaster of Paris. I bought mine half-used from a garage sale, but it's an inexpensive and easily found craft supply to find new or used.
• Measuring cups and stirrers. You can either use cups and bowls and spoons that you can rinse off with the hose outside (NOT down your drain!), or you can do what we do and give one final use to stuff that we're just about to throw away, anyway- souvenir non-recyclable plastic cups or decorative tins or toothbrushes or used-but-dry popsicle sticks, or paint stirrers.
• Kitchen or postal scale
• Household objects for molds. Silicon muffin molds work well for this, as do conventional metal muffin tins, as well as any plastic or metal container. Be creative!

 1. Using the kitchen scale, measure out your plaster and water in a 2:1 ratio. This means that you need to have twice the weight of plaster that you do water. If you measure out 12 ounces of plaster, for instance, then you'll need to weigh out 6 ounces of water. 

2. Combine the plaster and water into one bowl and stir well until they're combined and there are no lumps. 

3. Pour the plaster of Paris mixture into your molds, smoothing out the tops with a popsicle stick or the flat end of a knife. 

4. After at least 30 minutes, the plaster of Paris will be firm to the touch and can be unmolded and painted with acrylic paints.  

Plaster of Paris figurines make great paperweights, party crafts, and grandparent gifts. To make them extra crafty, you can embed found objects in the plaster before it's completely firm. May I suggest twigs and pine cones, perhaps?