HOW TO PLAN YOUR OWN EVENT HOW TO PLAN YOUR OWN WIRED GeekDad is taking over Father’s Day on June 17, and it’s time for a celebration. Gather your family or invite your favorite geeky dads, moms, and EVENT kids to a nerd extravaganza. All you need is a theme, the right food, and some engaging projects that everyone can work on together. Here’s how. CHOOSE A THEME INVITE YOUR GUESTS Having a special theme can Since the day’s activities will be There are lots of options for Be sure your invitation clearly inspire you and help guide do-it-yourself, be sure to invite invitations. If you want to go states your theme and lets guests decisions about putting the party parents and kids who like getting the printed route, you can use know what to expect when they together. Pick something your their hands dirty. You don’t want the Zazzle website to design arrive. The basics: crew loves—and won’t get tired of anyone throwing a wrench in the your invites, keeping your theme • Date, start and end times, seeing. The options are limitless: fun, sitting on the sideline while in mind. For the more digitally party location science, robots, space, DIY, even everybody else is busy building. inclined, there’s always Evite, • Planned activities and a list Hollywood (science fiction, Also, make sure your guest list which lets you monitor RSVPs by of any tools or supplies they superheroes, zombies, fantasy, isn’t so large that the projects are iPhone or Android app. You might should bring vampires). Or mix and match difficult to manage and the cost of also check out alternatives like • A note about National themes for a party that’s all yours. supplies becomes prohibitive. Of Punchbowl, Anyvite, Crusher, or GeekDad Day so they know (Zombie makers from space, course, you can always provide a PurpleTrail (which has digital and they’re getting in on an event anyone?) Remember: Your theme shopping list and tell them to bring print options) and see which one that stretches coast to coast should find its way into every part their own tools and materials! best meets your needs. of the event. DECORATE! FEED THE PEOPLE SET THE MOOD Etsy.com is a great place It’s not a party without party Every good party needs music, so crank up the volume on to get started with party food, and there’s no better way to your favorite streaming radio service to create a playlist that paraphernalia. Just type make your guests remember your fits your theme. Make it something you can set and forget— “party” into their search GeekDad Day than with geeky you don’t want to fiddle with the radio in the middle of the engine and you’ll be eats. Skip the sit-down meal and fun. In fact, we’ve already curated an hour of music for you. presented with unique go with snacky dishes that can Just hop over to Spotify and queue up the National GeekDad banners, flags, decorations, be eaten with your hands. Make Day Hiptrax Playlist. and trinkets. “Robot party” sure there are choices for kids, returns homemade robot- then throw in an adult optiona or shaped chocolates, banners, two. For some cool, nerd-themed decoration kits, invitations, food solutions, visit ThinkGeek. stickers, bottle labels, and The site has astronaut ice cream, GEEK OUT! a clip-art set. Want to amp bacon in a tube, Angry Birds pork Once the party’s in full swing and everybody is enjoying up the DIY factor and make rinds, Ninja cookie cutters, brain- their hafnium (Hf) element cupcakes, gather the troops decorations on your own? shaped jello molds (perfect for and get them busy making, building, and tinkering. We’ve Craft Magazine is the digital zombies), lightsaber ice pops, and put together a list of projects excerpted from the books of sister publication of Make a lot more. Also check out the the original GeekDad himself, Ken Denmead as well as 14 Magazine. Craft has a website science-inspired cookie ideas (like projects from the June issue guaranteed to make you the filled with ideas for do-it- a periodic table of cupcakes!) at coolest Dad on the planet. Bonus: Many of these projects yourself party crafts. Plus, Not So Humble Pie. will let you send your guests home with toys and crafts their designs trend toward the they’ve made themselves. nerdy side of life. THE WIRED GUIDE TO BEING THE COOLEST FATHER* ON THE PLANET. 14 projects to jump-start a lifelong love of science, technology, and making your own fun. PHOTOGRAPH BY DAN FORBES * OR MOTHER OR UNCLE OR GRANDPARENT What a difference a few decades make: Geeks are no longer social out- casts. Indeed, my obsessions have seeped far enough into the main- stream that even my kids share them. My sons’ passion for exploring every last detail of the role-playing video- game Skyrim mimics my own love for pen-and-paper D&D campaigns. They race to the latest superhero movies at the multiplex, just as I frequented the comics shops for the source material. And my tech skills now let me play IT manager for their devices, which when I was young existed only in science fiction. Yes, my kids actually think I’m cool. Well, about some things. They still recoil in horror when I wear my Jedi robe. (It’s very comfy!) But rais- ing geeks goes beyond teaching them the difference between Darths Vader and Maul. It means teaching them an empowering worldview. It means showing them how things work and that with a little research, determina- tion, and trial and error, they can bend the world to their will. It means rais- ing them with the maker call to arms echoing in their ears: “If you can’t open Before I was a geek it, you don’t own it!” It means getting dad, I was a geeky them to approach problems techni- kid—with all the cally and solve them with imagina- tion, which makes anything possible. reative; c classic credentials. It means encouraging them to tinker, O I played Dungeons & even if it means voiding warranties. It NC Dragons, watched means building a better world. uncan/FO For five years, we at the GeekDad d Star Trek reruns hn blog have been coming up with proj- O every night, and had ects that dads (and moms!) can do an awesome HO-scale with their families. We’ve published uilding by J a bunch of them in a series of books, b p O train layout. But at including—plug alert!—The Geek Dad r p that stage of our Book for Aspiring Mad Scientists. And on the following pages we’ve culled rebuchet) cultural evolution, el kimmel a bunch of tips, tricks, and projects t jo geek was still an to help turn your offspring into Geek- ns: O Kids. We’ve also asked übergeek and emeth; ( epithet. I didn’t n awesome dad Adam Savage (of Myth- want to identify Busters fame) to share some of his s; illustrati O family projects. Whatever your chil- m with such a a n tyling by Jesse O dren’s age, whatever your level of s p blighted subclass. O r technical expertise, you’ll find some- hann p s thing here that will inspire you to by Ken Denmead editor and publisher of the GeekDad blog have fun with them, educate them tyling by about geek values, and do your part to s p O r p build a better future. Opening spread: Making Fun With Adam Savage (dad and hOst of discOvery netwOrk’s Mythbusters) Build a Trebuchet My son had to build Amazing as it may seem, I’d never small wooden hook and attached it to the arm. One end of the sling got tied a trebuchet for a actually built a trebuchet. I know, I to the arm, and we tied a loop in the other end to go around the hook. Time school science proj- know, I’m not sure how it happened to test-fire: We put a 1-inch ball bearing into the sling, lifted the weighted ect. It turned into either. But it wasn’t like I was totally end of the swing arm, released it, and … a case of trial and in the dark. A trebuchet is a rela- Total, hilarious failure. The sling neatly whipped that sucker straight error—and error. tively simple medieval projectile down onto the table. Made a little dent. It was awesome—loud, and with weapon. Basically, a weight swings a lot of force. So at my son’s suggestion, we gentled the angle of the hook an arm around and slings something outward. Except … I realized I’d never from 90 degrees to 45. Again we loaded the sling, lifted the weight, and … learned how a sling works. And that provided a unique opportunity for me Again, failure. Instead of smacking the table, the sling released too and my son to do a little problem solving. I decided not to look it up. I told my early. But we were getting somewhere. The right solution occurred to us at son that we should just get building, and we’d figure it out together. exactly the same moment—the proper hook wasn’t a hook at all, but just a Working from drawings his teacher gave him (and inch-thick Trupan little stick jutting out from the end of the swing arm.