Web Reviews

Howtoons and Instructables Make Learning Fun

Indianapolis, IN - June 23, 2006

“Howtoons are 'designed to encourage children to be active participants in discovering the world through play-that-matters'”

- Saul Griffith

It's summer, and apart from miscellaneous sports and trips to the pool, kids tend to become bored easily. I'm always on the lookout for activities to keep us occupied, and if they have some educational value, all the better. I recently happened on a site that fits the bill: Instructables.

Instructables is a collaborative project where people the world over can teach others how to make something. According to the site, "making things is part of being human. Whether you make bikes, kites, food, clothing, protocols for biology research, or hack consumer electronics, a good way to show 'How-To' is critical." Since the folks at Squid Labs make things for a living, they spent some time looking for a convenient system to document their projects. When they couldn't find one that suited their needs they (what else?) built one. Instructables is the result.

Instructables is a social network built on the concept of self-styled distance learning. If a project is documented correctly, you can learn to do it wherever you are, at your own pace. You can also make modifications and improvements. Many of the processes used to create something contain any number of sub-processes that are essentially the same across projects. A key insight for Instructables was to create a way of sharing these sub-routines in a library that people (craftsman, hobbyists, you, me) could tweak and update until the best practice was found. This allows the entire library to be ever-evolving and improving, making everything that's created better.

Projects on the site cover a mind-boggling range: from office supply trebuchets to smoke bombs to lightsabers. (Not sure why those examples jumped out at me… there are plenty of non-weaponry items, too.) Each instructable is associated with step-by-step instructions, photos, and comments from users.

The really fun things, especially for younger kids, are found in the Howtoons section. Howtoons are based on the same premise as Instructables, but they each have cartoons showing kids how to build things. The Howtoons are "designed to encourage children to be active participants in discovering the world through play-that-matters – fun, creative, and inventive – and to rely a lot less on mass-consumable entertainment." Howtoons was created by MIT graduate students Saul Griffith and Joost Bonsen, and continues today under their tutelage. All of the projects ("tools of mass construction") are built and refined before published and everything works.

These projects range from scientific (the ever-popular Mentos and Diet Coke fountains) to the inane (duct-tape bodybuilding), but they're all fun. The cartoons accompanying most of the projects are masterfully created by Nick Dragotta, and there is an effort in the works to create a Howtoons book. Since the site is now built on the Instructables engine, visitors can post their own ideas for projects, which currently include things like Tin Can Stilts and a Rain Dectector. Still, the best Howtoons projects are the originals, like the Turkey Baster Flute, the Soda Bottle Rocket, and the Hippo Harmonizer (which you really have to see – and have boys – to appreciate.) Roll up your sleeves and start working on these projects with your kids and you'll find that you'll rely a lot less on mass-consumable entertainment, too.