Alana, my daughter, newly turned three, was sick. She did not have COVID or the flu, but had croup, an infection little ones apparently get.

By Friday, her third day of convalescence, my second day home from work, she seemed to be doing better enough to walk around and do small activities. For her birthday, our close friends gave her a few Tinker Crates that they had grown out of. Let’s go!

This tinker crate, I was well aware, did not fit the age level of my little three year old, but rather ages 9-16 but I am sure it would still be a type of fun for her.

The tinker crate we opened was “Animation Machine.”

I have a history of tinkering with art type projects. I might paint, or arrange photos, but do not gravitate to STEM tinkering. Also, if I’ve learned anything from my early adult years of assembling my own IKEA furniture, I do not follow directions well. So let’s try this thing out.

It was great! It was very easy to understand (easier than building an IKEA dresser in my opinion), and we did it in less than 15 minutes.

This might be something worth purchasing a subscription to at $19.95. However, it is not practical for the library. I am familiar with makerspaces.com, but need to talk more to my library peeps about what other websites and resources are out there for kits that are economical.

The video is really low quality. I recorded it myself while actually building the machine while reading directions. Neither was I consistent with my use of landscape vs. portrait recording. There is legit one panel that is upside down. There is one panel that is sideways. I would never show this to students. However, this needs to be included here for anyone to see because it is part of the learning process. Yeah, this video is really low quality, but it is a risk, a challenge and gives me the confidence to go forward to do better. I suggest you do the same. Go and do, and don’t worry about how rough the edges are, just do and then hone. You have your whole life to hone…so tinker away!