Lessons

Lesson Info

Making Mixie Sticks

This next project is that is a fun game that actually jane, my daughter invented. She described it a little bit in the previous segment, but its a color matching game, and you can make it so that you have a simple version. That's great for toddlers, and you can do a much more complex version. And so chain want to just recap a little bit about what makes these sticks are and how you came up with the idea. So make the sticks are on it's like a I need to show. Okay, so it's, like two of these, will be painted the same color, and they have velcro on them, so and that was all them. And then what happens is they all got mixed up, so, like red one will be attached to a blue one or a green one attached to a yellow one. And then you have, like, one minute to put them all back in the correct order or, like, ten seconds. I forgot something like that. And so I came up with the idea, because when I was younger, I always used to do carnivals in my bedroom and and one of the times I cannot think of a...

game, so I took markers, and I basically did the same thing, but with the like with the actual markers and their caps since, like, one markers all the same color and so that's how I came up with the idea. And so when we the mixes sticks version that we have in the book, we actually use little magnets that are embedded inside the wood and if they clicked together, but we thought for this project we would change things up a little bit and use thes velcro dots see how it works. Yeah, and it's ah, it turns out that it's a really good way to do it and it's easier, but it's still really effective and something that I think is more accessible to people. It's it is interesting is probably actually an improvement over the version in the book, and I find that that happens quite a bit when we're working on projects that something maybe I'd like to just talk for a minute about is that when I was working on this book, I note I would come up with an idea james would come up with an idea or something, and I would make a prototype of it, and it would sometimes working sometimes wouldn't work. I would try it again, and maybe just proof of concept. Okay, I know it can work, then you'd have a second version where you would take care of the major problems. Once you have the second version, you still think, you know, it really could use this to make it better. There's still problems with that? It's not, you know, quite the right feel it doesn't work as well as I think it could see you improve on it again. And you do this in every project. In this book, I went through at least four generations before I hit something that I liked with it, and often more than that. And then, for example, of these mixes sticks, they're a good idea. I actually think the velcro dots are better than using the magnets. So this is another improvement. So when when you think about doing these projects, don't think of them is like a closed and go like, ok, I did it. I'm done if you want to that's, fine, but keep on thinking about it and just let it run is a background process in your mind. You might see something interesting, like, you know, coming, you might come across something like velcro dots and say, I never thought about that I could actually use that in my project and make it better that way so it's kind of a fun way to to always be improving on the things that you have and then you can like actually start thinking about ways you can fix an improved things that you already owned that you may not have invented or made yourself but you can modify them or enhance them somehow so it's a good way to just kind of think about the world around you so in this case now using these velcro adults we don't have to drill the wood we don't have to use hot glue we don't have to have the magnets it's going to be a lot easier what we need are these little pieces of wood that have been cut with the miter box that we showed you in a couple of segments earlier on and so you need these cut into shape that he's our point seven five square cross sections you could have them larger smaller might not work as well they could though and this is a good lane this looks like it's about three four inches long maybe the's about an inch and a half two inches it's not you don't really need to worry about it being that specific so you have that we need the paint and brush is acrylic paint dries quickly and then velcro dotson these are he's a classic hook and loop kind of velcro so that you have one that's like kind of these little cooks and then the loops this is the softer material and so that you press two different kinds together and you get a nice nice huh adhesion like that and that's what we'll use to stick these mixes sticks together so right now what we will do is we'll take this wood and we will it's it's uh just for purposes of this project will put together a total of six sticks and, uh that would be twelve separate this one's don't stick early weaken will set that one aside of it as the speaker and so we will start out with these two go together okay and just make sure the ends are kind of square there might be some that are a little rough um so just make sure they fit together well because you are going to be applying the velcro dots on them. So find good good matching pieces here and we're going to be making the simple version of the game and then after we put it together hard kallias challenging version that is challenging definitely challenging for adults and it's even challenging for kids jane's age who are much better at this than I am so I think front I found a good match here that's you know what? If you're what has the stickers in it you guys um try something else he is a different stick or sanded off well, I found some pieces here that looks like they don't have and if you if you need to clean up the that rust spots with some sandpaper, you have sandpaper there, so go ahead and do that that way you won't get splinters and it will look better when you paint it to again to cut fees. The miter box is great under ten dollars we think things to size so you start out with a long stick of stock and like you can get them for about four feet long seven five point seven five inches across sections you bring that long stick home, stick it in the miter box, cut your first piece off the lane that you want and then just lined it up on the remainder of the stick with a pencil mark on just drop pencil mark all the way down along and they're all the same way up and then you just run it through the miter box saw poll saw poll and you'll have these pieces in no time it's really quick and an expensive way to do it if you just had a song and you had it in the vice or cutting it off the edge of the table, we take a lot longer finish cleaning these up okay, so now that you stand in them that you probably have them mixed up again, find find good matches and so I said we're going to dio six complete sticks is that right six complete mixes sticks ok I just thought of something if you wanted a real super duper duper hard challenge you could make that suma cube things or whatever they're called soma cube yeah make like five of them they know you'd have to make seven of them on that and the nude paint each of them one color and then you would mix it up and make cubes with the mixed up one and then you would have like five minutes three do all the cube with the correct colors well you get yes that would take a super long time to d'oh that's why it's a challenge to do in five minutes so what we do it is with mixes sticks as we see how long it takes somebody we just time that whoever has the best time when yeah ok so let's go ahead and paint them jane you could take three and I'll take three and paint him any color you want you guys ready to paint so each pair gets the same color so like this pair could all be read this pair could be yellow and so on weigh only a five colors we're going to make six cubes so I want to do red orange and yellow okay, you get these okay, that sounds good so let's paint heats up so I uh jane always comes up with ideas for games at play when it's something that she likes I'm just curious if and bob you're actually a game designer which is what I want to be with you did you did you create a lot of games as a child yourself? I think I think I do told it a lot on paper my favorite kind of paper was graph paper yeah speaking of doodling on broke off paper actually made this giant game on graph paper there's like all these different levels and like I actually cut out tiny squares from another sheet of grass paper than like drew little tiny face on it and then that would be that the person's character and they'd have to go through all these different levels on the piece of paper that I drew on our time how long it would take that on the back I have the tie score sheet and it's and we try to be whoever does it the quote guest so yeah paper that like it gives you a starting pattern and then everything is to scale yeah, you're first thing that you draw if it's an animal or a house it's all everything is to scale so I guess that I did that a lot when I was a kid that way a little too much in high school doodling on graph paper that way you don't accidentally make the person bigger than that looks all wet dusting I like that and um so they get but it's kind of pixel based thinking too in a way yeah you stay inside your sixteen by sixteen you know come fall but you do know I'm doing uh gay maps that will build some gay maps for ah my tube my two best selling game maps are swordfighting aps and one is called finger fencer and the concept is the fencing sport itself is it's just poking each other and in high school we used to work our moves by poking each other like this so I just took the eye the iphone and said oh there's a a point of view of another fencer today so you just drag your finger along the the screen and try to tap the poem an opponent and it's all right you know really rules really olympic fencing way could hit off target or hit on target or miss a block and a perry and they could hit you and then I built it also into so if I have a phone and cal has his iphone we can fence each other over wifi so it's kind of fun to go against each other yeah that's because my best selling one latest the latest game I just put out is an outdoor game and that is um you go outside with your iphone and you wear your headphones and listen for audio cues and there's six virtual targets spread out around you and you try to race to all six of those targets as fast as you can and those air all that that game is really fun outdoor game, but it was inspired by my sister who's, an eye doctor, and she works with blind kids and so she suggested I make an audio an audio game basically so you have to use your ears to go through that game outside audio game, I thought that one's called open field echo sounder? Yeah, a lot of fun brainstorming games with little kids to cows coming up with some good ideas and, well, he definitely tests all my games out to some of them don't make it out of the workshop, they just e sure you have a shark the shark versus steal game that off eventually get to that one, but I have to make a board game for it tv show I did in the u k many years ago and I was really, really proud of it and part of the exercise the project we were doing was to picture tio major cames I rejected it, I've never got over it wears a really good game is called hollywood or bust in you you are the winner got alaska mainly made pregnant yeah, I mean it was it was a lot of fun, but reading why it couldn't be accepted as the games with israel that was really disheartened thing what did they say? You know I can't remember now maybe I'm just blank blank to door let's just move on but it was just fun that's coming up with the concept and then actually having the prototype maid was really quite firmly well I think the opportunities for game makers are much better now I had a friend who developed the game and he tried to sell it to the traditional game companies and just had horrible luck with it and and he gave up basically I mean, you learn about how these big stores you have to pay to get your product in the store a lot of times well, that was actually part of the report that we were doing it was actually for a financial program but the it is just the time when trivia games they were taking over the market and traditional board games of kind of dying on dh so it was kind of all that's kind of an old fashioned kind of game, you know, throwing a dyson moving counters it was all about trivia at that point, I'm sure and then of course it moved into electronics yeah, but board games are I mean, they've made a huge comeback I'm loved and super popular, but I'm boring like that first one for good in the minority looks great. I would leave at least one end unpainted so that developed row will be here but kicks you wipe it off six starters, they're doing really well on the board games. Doing well on kickstarter, a friend of mine started one called robot turtles, the most successful kickstarted game in history and it's a game to teach kids as young as age for how to program I directing this little turtles and in certain directions and things. And then I found out that there are actually cos online where you can you can send them your board game design with your cards and pieces and dice and everything and they will make he won off version for as little as forty dollars that's pretty good that's. Amazing! So you can, like now, make games and then sell them online. I mean, the market for that kind of thing for independent makers of things has really opened up in a great way. I love that maybe we should have done this is a kickstarter gene you could have with mixes, sticks, there's a game people could buy challenging to you both play elektronik games as well. And aps yes, I actually have a podcast after her kids will mean my dad d'oh, but do you prefer to play with physical toys like this what's what's your choice well, sometimes I prefer the physical ones because I don't know and then sometimes I prefer the electronic ones it always changes but you like both yeah, cal say what's your favorite uh what's your favorite game lately I mean his legos all the times like eighty percent legos for you and then does because you never let me play minecraft I rather play minecraft is actually does you have the physical world is just a cz important is a virtual world that it's nice to keep it is equal is possible minecraft is an amazing game it's just really kind of great builder game kind of like um kind of real life and kind of non it's for the monster skills are not realize for minecraft has a such a physical feel do it that's what I do and so are you guys doing with your like kent is again using a unique color palette and he's making it more challenging, especially for people who it looks like a colorblind think they're close together and jane they used to call it I was like a look like I had some spots to maybe make it more interesting. I think it's really cool somebody should make one that's white with black dots a pink one uh I don't know, but just they should all look like farm animals yeah that's I think we could talk about farm because you're you did a soma cuba look like cows spots almost one year selma pieces well that's I think in the in more challenging versions what you could do is have patterns and colors or you could make it look like a cow has gotten really stretched out and to be white with black dot then on the very end of one of them would be a cow face that would be cool that's a great idea you could also have ones that air three sticks um and there could be one with that pink. Yeah, so that the possibilities are really bright open and when it started applying the velcro dots very easy to do that, but I'm not even done with grand. Maybe you should take your time. Do you need another white? Yes, I was like you do like here. I mean, sure, take two. Thanks. My hands and I will talk a little bit about these delicate dots. They are on any keys of backing which really helps because you don't need glue or anything. You just peel it right off and it's ready to stick. Now we we bought uh dots that fit perfectly onto the wood this the right size and diameter it's the right diameter, so that doesn't overhang, I think it's the other point seven five inches across and uh you just press it down till it that he's have stick on there and then on the other matching piece put down the other kind of velcro there two types of velcro and you need to have one of each kind so that they stick together so this is so much easier than the magnet version when lift that dry a little bit if we had more time we would just go ahead and let this paint drive before we did this but just bear with us we're going to have kind of messy fingers and the colors might mix a little bit but we just want to get through the project so you can see how it works so see visibility so it sticks like that it becomes a part and sticks and you could just keep on doing that over and over again until the velcro like wears out yeah I don't know what velcro does wear out or not well what if this sticky part like what if the two velcro sides come on toe one oh yeah that could happen actually and that's why I think it would be really if you're doing this at home make sure that you sand down that that end that not only stick to the ground so it's super smooth and you might even want to lacquer it so that it has a nice surface for this felker to stick on okay there's another one these velcro dots are pretty inexpensive you can buy them like rolls of tape I think people use them too. Hang pictures. I did it. I did my first orange one looks good one more orange to go well you're like practically done on we're going to mix a color so that's ok, you should paint the tops so that looks cool that I paid you maybe I will do it ok? Because it will take longer for you that way you can catch up. Okay, that sounds good. How are you guys doing? Well, I always going to get up go you mix them up for me already cool you're you're already one step ahead of you everyone like three steps ahead is maybe pizza slowly drying I'm good at mixing. I should make my own paint company call it mixed he sticks pain so for a billion dollars a pound so jay kay, I'm excited to see the things that people have been uploading. It sounds like the way I always encourage our students online to share their images with us and this is the perfect course for this in the crafting channel in general we have so many wonderful structures like yourself who come in and we do so many great fun things live on the air but it's great to see then how the students do them yeah, they put them together as well. So that's why we created the gallery to please share them with with us so we can see those and chris, we'll put the link into the chat room so you can follow it directly or just go to the course page and you'll be able to do to be able to follow the lincoln upload took out your image is really as well I can't wait to see it do that. Okay, jane so, uh now I get to stick on the bad stick close on most exciting part about it some more needs more wife's so you don't you can't just got very, very creative here. You seen? Whoa, that was a beautiful hour thiss giant beautiful with it. Let me just scooped it up so beautiful going to waste now we need one in the soft felt grows wasn't vocal like inspired because, like this man saw how like pollen seeds in the air stuck onto his dogs for nothing like burgers. Yeah, and then he thought that's a good way to do stuff. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, people have probably observed that, but it took, you know, someone before I was saying what if this happened, it happened, okay, well, that's, a good thing to know and what we've learned from that is don't put paint on the whole thing, you know, pain on the whole thing. What I'm going to do is sandy's often stand the pain top of them. Ok, I'll put looks like I mustered all over this way. Okay, jeanne, why don't you try that one? And I will sand off this one, see how we're doing. Wait, wait getting there, okay? Team tried those. I'm trying them. Hey, it works it alive. All right? Looks like dining room. It looks almost like something out of minecraft way. Just need some brown ones to make the trunk of the tree and then some green ones to make the tree. Then we've gotta minecraft tree. So what I'm doing now is mixing them up, mixing them up in remember mixi part of the name? Really? Yes. And I'm gonna just isn't kind of fix. So let me just and if you want, you could just color them with marker so that day there would be quicker go quicker and then they don't get all growth. Yeah, did one working the piece I know, but let's, just do it so it doesn't make too much of a messier messes are clean. We've got a competition over here already see the game is so much fun that people play with it that's unusual the yellow and the orange look almost the same all right so you can see here we've got them like mixed up and you go on the idea is tio okay all time you okay done fifteen fifteen seconds okay oh, you should have said that jane because now we're gonna have to time you okay so you know it makes them up I get to mix them go ahead and try to do them in a way that really confuses you five by putting yellow and orange county I'm not twenty seconds that's pretty for us well one second so dad was twenty one yeah well done okay on your mark get set go thirteen and a half seconds good job that's very quick john master luke can't would be a challenge that is a champion but you know I don't want to try yours because you should never joke is that those there are pieces there wasn't that is beautiful well it's like black yellow I was going to go for a lightning bolt but I got that's cool so what leaves so so bottom tell it looks like you guys having a good time with those already we're tied at twenty seconds oh so what I wanted I wanted to give you an example of how to do a more challenging version and I have something in my boot is like on each of these you like pink each side a different color so like pink, white, orange, yellow and then you might have another one that pink wife green blue so then you see the two pings anything to put them together in the sides don't match up and just so here I'll set this book down so you can see this is this is looking at what the four sides would be like so if you had a set of fifteen sticks and each one looked like that and then you broke him in half so you had thirty pieces and they all look like that and the only match up one way that will take several minutes to get it together so that gives you good room so you can like so we find this too easy and you're like somehow a superhero so you can do it in like three seconds do this yes so you can see it's it's uh I have that color combinations painted her blue red, black, green, blue, black, red, green basically it is five different colors and I I made I think every possible combination of four sticks like that so it's pretty crazy and that's that's a really fun one to do that that's to take it to the next level what have you had like fifty different sticks like that then it would take a really long time so the other thing beyond that if you wanted to you could have sticks that three pieces long and that would make it even more complicated, because, plus, you need to see which one is the middle one. You could not just take the two sides and going like this, and then you would realize that you're putting they put velcro on all the ends of them so that it really confuses you as though does it fit that way? Or that way, you could do patterns where you have diagonal patterns, and so you'd have to flip the sticks around to fit the patterns. So there's a lot of ways, you could have been evolving whatever you did it, so that it was always like this. That would be an interesting thing to and follow the curve around or something like a t one care and then another one here. So, like, so, like many of the other things we've done in this third starter, you know, whatever you're in this session, exactly. It's, just the beginning and there's so many other things you can do with it.