But the hobby is under assault from government agencies that are terrified of terrorists, from anti-fireworks campaigns, and from the war on (some) drugs. “Home science experimentation-model rockets, chemistry sets and playing with explosives-are a gateway drug to serious nerddom, having inspired the likes of Internet co-inventor Vint Cerf and Intel founder Gordon Moore. “What do the nine letters I’ve redacted from a Wired article spell? Neither ‘pot plants’ nor ‘child porn,’ but.glassware.” But in their search for terrorist cells and meth labs, authorities are making a federal case out of DIY science.” “Garage chemistry used to be a rite of passage for geeky kids. I wonder if there will come a day when programming and scripting experimentation will be considered too dangerous. Part of the problem is that people today want reward without work. These changes in point of view cannot happen overnight, for they require acceptance of painful truths: that children daydreaming in class, for example, might be using their minds much more profitably than children paying attention.įree play is an extraordinarily important part of a child’s growth, and it’s something they’re losing year by year. It had a bar space with a sink that washed away quite a few smelly chemistry experiments.ĭan’s posting reminds me of something Andrew Weil There wasn’t a lot of space between those slanted ceilings, but there was enough for a desk (where I did a lot of writing), a ham radio, and a used TRS-80 Model I on which I first learned to play around with programming.Ĭhemistry experiments were saved for our new, spacious basement. We (my dad, that is) took out the wall that had to lead to this space, and converted what had been an unused and inaccessible attic space into a small bedroom.

When we first moved into that house, there was a window that we couldn’t get to, directly between the sides of a peaked roof. My basement was an upstairs room in our barn at first. I often think the most underrated social injustice is the different self-educational opportunities available to kids who live in a house with a basement versus kids that live in an apartment. It’s bothered me, too, but it bothers me more that even parents are becoming more and more worried about their children having time to play on their own. One of the things that has bothered me for a long time is that educators and policy-makers don’t seem to understand the crucial educational role of unstructured, unsupervised, childrens’ activity, from, say, about age 7 to 14. It is becoming an example of the struggle between structured and unstructured education. The Wired article about chemistry sets is spreading slowly through the geeknet. June 1, 2006: The basement was my university

Clarke would write: a science fiction novel about children huddled in dark corners performing forbidden rites… holding glass vials above a flickering flame, as the safety police close in. This Wired article sounds like something Arthur C. I ignored most of the experiments in favor of randomly combining different chemicals and taking my own copious notes about which combinations made the loudest noises or otherwise had the most interesting results.Īs I recall, it also came with a microscope and a few slides, to the horror of the insects in our yard. It was a big white cardboard box whose wide cover lifted upward to reveal dozens of tiny vials of mystery, and experiments written in tiny text. It might even have been a Gilbert chemistry kit. And I had a chemistry set filled with strange chemicals that went snap, crackle, and pop, changed colors, and created strange and lasting smells in our basement. Yes, I was one of those kids who had model rockets, and always had a handful of model rocket “engines” on hand.

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