Geekscape Talks With GeekDad About His Guide To Weekend Fun

Hello, Geekscapists! I’m Meg and I’m new around here, so promise not to stuff me in a locker and I’ll be your best friend, okay? 

I come from an incredibly geeky family. My dad was one credit shy of a computer science degree and we’ve had more than one Star Wars vs. Star Trek debate; for the record, he’s the Trekkie and I’m the one who’s right. As such, I have an appreciation for geek dads. I was honored to get a chance to speak with Ken Denmead, the king of geek dads! No, really, he runs Geekdad.com – one of Wired’s parenting blogs. His newest book, The Geek Dad’s Guide to Weekend Fun is jam-packed with fun, simple tasks that can actually – gasp – teach you a thing or two in the process. Sweet bonus? You’ll learn how to make homemade root beer and a Death Star Tamari Ball! What more could you want from a book? 

Ken shared his plans for this year’s Maker Faire, how he comes up with tasks for the book, and refuses to answer my claim that he wrote this entire book just to get people to watch Pokémon. Suspicious. 

M: Are you exhausted from the process of releasing the book or are you just ecstatic that it’s out?

K: Ya know, it’s ongoing. This is the second one, so, I’ve been through the process before. So, with that respect, I’m not quite as, “oh my god what’s gonna happen next”. There’s still stuff happening from the first one, now the second one has come out – that’s going on – and they’ve actually got me working on a third one right now. So, it’s all over the place right now, but it’s good. I’ve just been sitting here all day obsessively refreshing Amazon to see if my book rank is going up and things like that.

M: So what has been your favorite project from your new book?

K: There’s been one project that I thought up and went “Wow, that actually works! That’s so cool.” In the first book, it was the camera on the balloons. In this book, it’s what I think is the simplest project, and that’s the Nerf Dart Blowgun. It was just completely hit-or-miss – I was trying to come up with a couple projects I could scrape together here at home to get into the book. My kids have every conceivable Nerf gun and there are hundred of darts everywhere – if you pull up a chair there are going to be NERF darts sitting under it. So, it just occurred to me: “I wonder if you can do a dart blowgun?” I thought of using air pressure, but I had a lousy experience with that before, so – we’re lucky our next-door neighbors own the Ace Hardware [near us] and it’s been handy. One day I just took a couple of NERF darts and went over to their store and was just sort of looking around at what was there to try and settled upon normal, straight, plain half-inch copper pipe that you use for water lines in your house. The first time I tried it, I had an 18-inch length, was standing at the counter, chatting with the guy, and put the dart in the thing and with the good old-fashioned – HUPT – the damn dart flew 60 feet across the floor and actually hit the far wall of the store. It’s further than the darts shoot out of the guns! So, I was like, “Alright that works! Next!”

M: How many animals have been harmed with the NERF blowgun?

K: My dogs hear “It’s time for target practice,” and they say “No, daddy! No!”

M: What’s one project that’s a little too dangerous or mature for them right now that you’re excited to do in the future?

K: Hmm… that’s a good question. Nothing in the first two books… I might have something in the third book about doing a true potato gun. Usually you build something that’s got a true propellant and that has a small margin of error for possible explosion —

M: Or blindness.

K: Well, ya know, they could blow off a finger. So, we’ll see whether or I try to do that one here or work with one of my writers who is more experienced with it, so he can do the leg work and I can just write it up. 

M: My favorite task in this book (because I’m a big Pokémon fan) is the Pokémon Bingo Game, but I don’t think you put it in there so people would watch it with their kids; I think you put it in there so that geek parents would have an excuse to watch more Pokémon. Is this true?

K: Well…. no comment.

M: What are you guys doing for Maker Faire? Last year you had tons of Legos and it made for an awesome booth.

K: This year, Chris is financing the booth – which is awesome – out of Wired magazine and we’re going to have a 20×30 booth space, so 6x the size of [our] first booth. We’re going to have electronics, we’ll have gaming… we’ll have guys running D&D and Munchkin…We’ll be doing some electronics building. One of our Geek Dad writers also works for Hex Robotics that puts out the Hex Bugs and he’s going to have an 8-story nanobot environment… so we’ll have them flying all over that. We’re getting a table filled with electronics and gadgets from ThinkGeek. A bunch of the Geek Moms from the Geek Mom Blog will be there, too and we’ll be selling t-shirts, and I’ll be selling the book. 

M: So your booth is more a lounge where people can come to play.

K: Exactly – people can come play and there will be some giveaways. We’ll have LEGO kits to give away and people can build some electronics and take it with them. I can’t wait. Oh! And I made contact with the Diet Coke and Mentos guys – EebyBird. I had a good talk with them and they actually sent me a box – I have it right here – of 20 different nozzles they use for bottles. If I can make it work, I’m going to try to set up an indoor Diet Coke and Mentos display. I’m gonna go out and buy 6 or 8 inch clear plastic and make an 18 foot long tube and every hour, we’ll get a bottle of soda and release it in this tube over the booth.

M: I foresee sticky… everything! But I wish you lots of luck. I’ve read that you wrote your books to give parents something to do with their kids instead of to them.

K: Yea, that’s the big differentiator. This is a parenting book not for parents who want to do things to their kids to change them, but who want to lead by example and do things with their kids, so your kids will fall in love with what you like to do.

M: Do you think parents nowadays have lost touch with their own instincts in the sea of “do-this but oh-god-don’t-do-that” parenting advice?

K: I think you see it in every generation. Why did the Dr. Spock book get written? Becoming parents…even with all the support of your family and all the support of your community, it’s a daunting task. You can remember everything your parents did for you and remember that at least half of it you probably never wanted to repeat to your kids even though you will subconsciously fall into those patterns. Everybody wants somebody to give them ideas to help them along and to try to keep them safe from making stupid mistakes or things like that, and an industry of book writing has built up around that. 

For me, it comes down to letting our kids be who they’re going to be and the best thing we can do for them is be happy ourselves – be happy as a couple – demonstrate that when you become an adult you can still be a happy person and enjoy the things you loved when you were a kid. So, leading by example is the best way to raise healthy kids and happy kids. That’s why I have a little anecdote at the start of the book: At one point I wanted to get my kids into D&D and I told them “Alright, let’s play this game. You get to play warriors or wizards and stuff like that.” And they were like, “Ehhh, whatever dad, we’re going back to the TV.” And so one day I just left my D&D player’s handbook lying around the house somewhere and within a day or two my older son had looked at it and then brought it up to me and said “This looks awesome! Can we try this?” And it was like, “total win!” Now, they love D&D. So, that’s they way you do it. Never push them into it. Obviously, there are going to be times when you need to push your kids and you have to lay boundaries and all of that stuff. That’s common sense, but the better part of parenting is always going to be lead by example. 

M: You said earlier that you’re working on your third book. Can you let us in on one task that might be in it?

K: Let’s see…The third book is going to be much more focused toward actual science projects that can be adapted easily for science fair projects. So, less just having a little geeky weekend summer fun project, more little projects that really illustrate some aspect of science. 

A big thanks to Ken for speaking with us! You can pick up Geek Dad’s Guide to Weekend Fun or his first book Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share on Amazon ooooor, you can win it here! Just leave a comment on the story about your geekiest memory with your dad and share this story on your facebook or twitter, that simple. Make sure your current email is on your Geekscape account so we can contact you if you win.