DIY Inspiration

I stumbled across a true treasure through Pinterest. Oh beloved Pinterest who has united me with fabulous recipes, crafts, ideas, books and inspiration galore. And I've done a lot of the things I've stumbled across! I've made the crafts, followed the ideas, tried the recipes. A few weren't fabulous but even more were wondrous.

Today my discovery was diy.org, explored through the DIY app. It is an unschoolers dream resource. In a way, there is a strong similarity between Pinterest and DIY but with many significant differences.

DIY is geared towards kids. It reminds Sean of Boy Scouts. Think scouts, DIY fashion. Joining up, you choose an animal avatar and look through the Skills. There are a huge array of skill sets. Each one has multiple areas with even more subsets. For example, the Wind Engineer skill has build a kite projects. There are then multiple different types of kite projects to choose from. Each one takes you to a different website, much like Pinterest. In the Biologist skill, one of the first projects is to build a DNA model. Other ones walk you through building a theremin, learning programming, making a quilt, creating dioramas, beginning a sour dough starter, tracking animals, and so on.

When you complete a challenge, you take a photo and upload it. Once you have three completes within a skill, you gain the badge for it.

Kids can share their projects with each other and choose favorites and comment on each others work. And as the parent, I receive an email every time my kids upload a new project. I love that!

Badges include: Animator, Astronomer, Baker, Bee Keeper, Bike Mechanic, Camper, Cartographer, Chef, Chemist, Circuit Bender, Dancer, Entomologist, Film Maker, Forager, Fort Builder, Gamer, Gardener, Geologist, Hardware Hacker, Illustrator, Industrial Designer, Instrument Maker, Magician, Maker, Mechanic, Mechanical Engineer, Medic, Meteorologist, Musician, NooB, Oceanographer, Painter, Paper crafter, Photographer, Physicist, Potter, Printmaker, Rapid Prototyper, Rocketeer, Salvager, Sculpture, Sensor Hacker, Shoemaker, Solar Engineer, Special Effects Wizard, Stitcher, Toy Maker, Tracker, Transport Engineer, Veterinarian Weaver, Web Designer, Wind Engineer, Woodworker, Yeti

Aidan has been enjoying the app tremendously and has been working towards a few badges. I'm excited to try a few things I've been coming across too. It is inspiring!

I love inspiring. I live inspiring.

Aidan wanted to make fire starters and set to doing it all by himself.
I helped just by gathering materials and managing melting the old
crayons he gathered over the stove.

The email I received after he uploaded a photo of
his project.

Stuff for Gamers too! Aidan makes a snowman in Minecraft.