Things Dad Should Know

Cubelets: Modular Robotics

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Jan 062012

Stuff like this makes me wish that I was a kid again. OK, so maybe it appeals to me because I’m just a big geek, but really, this is cool. It’s a company called Modular Robotics, which is a spin off from Carnegie Mellon University, that sells a product called Cubelets. It’s a bunch of, well, cubes, that are electronic and electromechanical components that can interconnect and interact and form larger systems that act like robots. And no programming required. You just plug them together and let them interact and respond to their environment. Any kid can use this to create some very cool robots. Below is a Youtube video that showcases the product.

Never mind the creepy bearded guy with the faux-Einstein accent – just take a look at what these can do

Now it looks like the company is new and the products are in pre-order, but still, I’m thinking about how much more mature and cooler these things will be when Nathan is old enough to play with them.

You know, this reminds me of Capselas and Erector sets from when I was a kid. Remember those?

How To Teach MATH To Your kids–Starting Early

Jan 042012

I’ve always wondered how some kids become so good at math, well, really anything, at such early ages. Think Tiger Woods at golf, Bobby Fischer or Josh Waitzkin at chess, Terence Tao at math. My theory is that you get them started early, and you get them going in a way that makes it fun for them so that they will like what they are doing and continue doing it even when the parent isn’t there driving them on. So with that in mind, take a look at this article from canada.com that talks about teaching math to babies – or more precisely, how to begin the process such that they get a good “number sense” so that when they get to school, they already have a good feeling for the “mathiness” of the world.

In a nutshell, what the article proposes is that a child’s number sense is established by the time they get to kindergarten and sets them on a trajectory that can determine how well they do in math when they’re in the fifth grade. I don’t know if I buy this completely, but I’m all for doing whatever you can to help them along.

There are some theoretical concepts that would be useful to understand in how a child learns numbers, such as math talk and (according to the article) the five numerical conceptual processes that a child goes through to gain that number sense. I quote:

“- Stable order. The child learns number words have an order. For example 1, 2, 3 is correct. 1, 2, 4 is not.

– One-to-one correspondence. The child learns each number can only correspond to one object in a set of things counted. For example, when counting, each truck has its own number: the child can’t skip a truck or count the same truck twice.

– Cardinality. The child learns the last number used when counting a set of things is the number of things in that set. For example, when counting 4 trucks, when they label the last truck as number 4 that is how many trucks there are in the set.

– Abstraction. The child learns anything can be counted, even things that are not the same. For example, 2 trucks and 2 cars is 4 things in the set of things counted.

– Order irrelevance. The child learns that things can be counted in any order. For example, a set of trucks can be arranged in a circle and then in a line and there will still be the same number.”

And in keeping with the spirit of what I was talking about earlier – that is, motivate and inspire your babies by making these learning exercises fun, the article also has some very interesting suggestions for what you can do. Again, I quote:

“- Encourage your child to the list off numbers 1 to 10 in the right order. While not necessarily counting, it helps them become familiar with number sequence.

– Count objects that are in front of the child and label the set size: “Let’s count your dolls. 1, 2, 3, 4. You have 4 dolls.” Point at each object as it is counted and encourage the child to do the same. Counting something is better than just counting.

– Vary what you count: count objects, but also steps, stairs, and sounds.

– Numbers can also be talked about in the context of reading stories to young children. There are often objects in pictures that can be counted and then the set size should be labeled. After counting something, labeling at the end is just saying “so there are 3 bears”

– Line up two sets of things: 3 trucks and 2 cars. Then count each set while pointing to each member of the corresponding pair: “1” (point to a car and a truck that are side by side); “2” (point to a car and a truck that are side by side); “there are 2 cars”; and “3” (pointing to the one extra truck that is not paired with a car); “there are 3 trucks. There are 2 cars and 3 trucks.” This helps kids learn one-to-one correspondence.

– Parents should find contexts in their daily routines when they can talk about numbers with their children. For example, “tonight there will be five people at home, so we need to put five plates on the table. Let’s count them: 1-2-3-4-5. We have 5 plates.” This lets kids know people do math all the time.

– When you are walking in the neighborhood, count the number of red cars you see, “1 red car, 2 red cars, 3 red cars — today we saw 3 red cars.” This helps give kids a clue to the fact that things can be categorized, and therefore counted, in different ways.

– Counting can come up when you need to share. “We have 4 cookies and 2 children — let’s give 1 to you, and 1 to your friend, another 1 to you and another 1 to your friend. Let’s count how many each of you have — 1, 2 — you have 2. 1, 2 — you have 2. Each of you has 2 cookies!” This gives kids a clue to the fact that the same items can be counted in different ways.

– Introduce basic calculation. “You have 2 trucks. If I give you 1 more, you will have…?” (Wait for child to answer, or supply an answer if the child doesn’t know: “Now you have 3 trucks.”) Subtraction: “You have 3 trucks — if you give one to me you will have…?” (wait or supply an answer).”

All excellent ideas, I say. Now Nathan is just getting to that age where he can recognize when we are talking to him and he’s now responding back. I don’t know if he’s going to understand “2 cars and 3 trucks” yet, but I’m certainly going to give this a shot as soon as possible.

Creative Pop Up Cards

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May 092011

I want to use this opportunity to put in a small plug for a website a good friend of mine has started. His name is Rich Chen and he is a very talented fellow. He’s a great engineer, and very clever artist, and he is particularly talented at what would be called “paper arts.”

In particular, he is really good at making pop up cards. He recently started up a website called creativepopupcards.com to showcase some of his talent and his work.

To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, take a look at this youtube video below. You can see the cards he’s made at this website, or at his Youtube channel. He provides examples of his amazing creations as well as detailed information, tutorials, and templates on how to make them yourselves.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnGQlBokkG0

This type of papercrafting is an excellent way to impress your kids, your wives, heck impress anyone really, if you even want to give someone a card. It’s also just a good way to spend some time with your kids making an amazing creation that they’ll be proud of.

The Art of Memory

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May 082011

When I was in high school, I happened upon a book at my local library called “Page-a-Minute Memory Book” by Harry Lorayne. Harry Lorayne is a mentalist – one of those magicians who would do mental tricks like asking you to pick a number and then figuring out what it is, or feats of “telepathy” where he would ask you a few simple questions and then from there be able to figure out everything about you (it’s called cold reading). One of Lorayne’s specialty was in amazing feats of memory – being introduced to 50 people and their life stories and after an hour recalling every single detail about them. Or being shown a shuffled deck of cards and being able to recall their order – backwards. For a teenager going to through school studying and trying to learn and memorize a million different things at once, this seemed like a godsend. I read the book, and learned some of the techniques, techniques that I’d later learn are called mnemonics. I applied some of them to my classes, some subjects better than others, and made some use of them. They held a lot of promise, and if I had pursued the matter further, I’d have gotten quite good at it. But, as with any other skill that isn’t diligently practiced continuously, I didn’t do that and the skill slipped away. I made some half-hearted effort to revive it in my college days, but I was struggling though engineering classes and problem sets and frankly couldn’t figure out a way to make them work for me.

Now, some 15-20 years later (!!) I’m about to have a son and perhaps by coincidence, perhaps by fate, I recently came across a book called “Moonwalking with Einstein” by Joshua Foer. I couldn’t put down, and I read the thing in three days. The author was a freelance science journalist who one day decided to cover the US National Memory Championships and by doing so, became exposed to the esoteric world of “mental athletes.” Not as glamorous as physical athletes, but nonetheless equally impressive (in my not-so-humble opinion). The book was essentially about how Foer went from journalist, to participatory chronicler, to actually winning the event and becoming the US Memory Champion – all in the span of one year. In the book he talks about his training, and how we underwent “deliberate practice” (a topic I intend to write about in a later post) to progressively improve and enhance his skillset. He writes about how we mastered the “method of loci,” the “major system,” amongst many others – all part of the mnemonist’s toolbox and arsenal. And, incidentally, all things that I had once learned once upon a time from Harry Lorayne. But more importantly, Foer provides a little history to what he calls the “art of memory.”

To Really Learn, Quit Studying and Take a Test

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Jan 242011

I’m stealing the title of this post from this NY Times article. It’s an interesting story they tell: a recent scientific study indicates that to best learn and retain what you have learned, the most effective means of doing this may be to stop every once in a while and take a test to quiz yourself on your knowledge.

The study was conducted at Purdue University by Jeffrey Karpicke. He divided the participating students into four groups and each was asked to study some material that they didn’t know before, and asked to follow up in different ways. The first group was asked to simply read the text for a single sitting of five minutes, the second group was asked to read for four consecutive five minute sessions, the third was asked to engage in mind mapping to organize what they read once with the text in front of them, and the last group was asked to take a “retrieval practice” test. This test involved writing down in a free form essay what they read without looking at the text. They then reread the passage and took another retrieval test. A week later all four groups were given a short-answer test that assessed their ability to recall facts and draw logical conclusions based on the facts.

The group that made the mind mapping did well initially, but in the long term, one-week after test, the group that did the best was the one that did the retrieval test as they were learning. In fact, they were able to retain up to 50% more information than the groups that used the other methods.

I am a little chagrined to hear this. If you recall your school days, at the end of the chapters in all the textbooks I’ve ever used, there were various “end of chapter” tests, to supposedly test you on what you just read. I never used them. Seems like these tests were supposed to do exactly what this study seems to indicate is beneficial for students. So this is important mental note for the future, when the little bambinos enter school and they’re studying their science or social studies. I will teach them all the mental mapping and note taking techniques, but I guess I will also be making sure that they take those end of the chapter tests, too.

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