OK, I need a break from the serious posts, and I suspect you do, too. Here’s a clever little online app that’s been taking too much of my attention: Fantastic Contraption: A fun online physics puzzle game is exactly that. Add rods and rotating wheels to move a ball from one part of the screen to another, over a variety of obstacles. (Thanks to Good Morning Silicon Valley.)
Another fun stop if your kids are as Lego-obsessed as mine (and as I am, let’s face it) is Gizmodo’s exclusive Inside the Lego Factory video series. There are three parts, about a minute long, with great images and fun facts like “The machines produce more than two million pieces per hour.”
Of course, I’m old-fashioned when it comes to Legos, and think they’ve gotten way too specialized. I also have a certain fondness for the consistently happy, smiling, clean-faced Lego minifigs from years ago, not the sometimes scowling, unshaven ones we have now. I know it’s an unrealistic utopia, but hey, I can have that in at least one part of my life now, can’t I?
If you’d like something similar to Fantastic Contraption so you can have even more online distractions, I highly recommend Launchball http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/launchpad/launchball/
It gave my son a good introduction to concepts around electricity and magnetism (as well as being lots of fun.)
Oh, very cool! Thanks for the suggestion!