Making a blender 🥤 feat. Zubin

As a kid, I wasn't actually all that into technology. When I was 7/8 years old, the only real things that mattered to me was going to chess club and studying. So I was really surprised when I was introduced to Zubin, a rather inquisitive kid who just wants to tinker.

I was approached to coach Zubin, and help him along with the projects that he would want to make, and I met him for the first time yesterday! The first thing that caught my eye was how his parents had encouraged his maker habit, he had a room with a 3D printer, cardboard boxes, LittleBits, literally anything a 7 year old with maker ambitions might want. On top of that, when I met him, he was working on a 3D printed boat which he was in the middle of designing using TinkerCAD.

My first task with him was to help him finish his boat which came along splendidly. Unfortunately, it took about 4 hours to print it out, and our session was only 2 hours long so we had to come up with a way to keep ourselves busy. I told him that brushed motors are actually waterproof, he got all excited and we proceeded to spend a good portion of the afternoon splashing water on anyone who walked past!

To be honest, the playful, cheeky yet inquisitive vibe that you get from kids is unparalleled and gets your own brain in a curious mood. When I asked him what he wanted to do with the motor next, he said, "Can we make a whirlpool?". I was confused, how was I going to make a whirlpool, and then I thought what if we took a glass of water and dangled a motor vertically downward into the water.

And that's exactly what we spent the whole lesson doing! Making a whirlpool of water using a brushed motor attached to a piece of cardboard on top of a cup.

The sheer irrelevance, uselessness but entertaining nature of the endeavor made me miss what it was like to have nothing to really care about. He called it his Whirlpool Blender, and I called the lesson a success for the both of us.

I'll write these segments once in while about my misadventures with him, I will be seeing him every week so stay tuned!