Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share (28 page)

For the numbers 1 through 7, which will represent the days of the week Sunday through Saturday, here is the day-to-decimal-to-binary relation:

If we’re going to do the same with months, we have to expand a little. There are 12 months in the year, so we’re going to need a bigger binary number set to count up to 12. This time we’ll use a 4-digit binary number set (2
⁴
gives us 16 possible combinations, of which we’ll only use 12). See if you can see the pattern in the 3-digit set.

And last, we have to do the same with the numerical day of the month. Since there are up to 31 days in any given month, we’ll need a 5-digit binary number this time (2
⁵
gives us 32 possible combinations, which is just enough to cover our needs).

Now that we’ve got the code, what are we going to do with it? Well, what we want to build is something that lets us easily differentiate between two choices: 0/1, off/on, black/white—any pairing that makes it obvious that one of two possibilities are being displayed to demonstrate a binary state. There are a number of variations on this project online, the simplest of which uses pennies faceup, or facedown, to represent 0 or 1. But we like LEGO bricks. With LEGO bricks, there are some simple options available: either colors or face. And to make things really visual, we’re going to use both!

Here I’ll acknowledge we’re really stretching you and your kids’ quick translation abilities with this project. The end product will require quick translation from a color/surface combination to the binary digit it represents; then translation of a group of such digits to their decimal version, and from there to their calendar meaning. Pretty tricky! But it’s doable, and a great training device for a sharp mind.

This will be a pretty simple build as LEGO projects go. It makes use of pretty standard pieces, and if you don’t have them all on hand, you can improvise. Or even better, there is a downloadable file of the LEGO Digital Designer file for this project on
www.geekdadbook.com
, which you can take to the online store at
www.lego.com
to order the pieces you’ll need, or print out and take with you to your local LEGO store to buy the loose pieces.

My version of the calendar is made on a 12-by-24 base plate. It’s somewhat of a nonstandard piece, and if you can’t find one easily, you can user smaller plates, overlapped and built up to get the same size and shape.

All we’re doing is creating a double layer of black bricks that cover the entire base plate except for the places where our 2-by-2 bricks will fit to be used as the binary counters. In each of those slots, there will be a 2-by-2 base plate with a 2-by-2 smooth-topped plate at the bottom. This will allow us to slip the binary counters in and out easily.

Make sure you put the smooth plates on the 2-by-2 plates before you start building the second level, or you’re going to make things harder for yourself later on.

Once you have the base set up, you’ll make your binary counters—the easiest part, really. Just pick sets of contrasting 2-by-2 bricks, and make two-layer stacks. You’ll need three pairs of one color combination, four of another, and five of a third combo. You’re probably way ahead of me here, but these are going to be our 0/1 choices for our three different binary numbers that will represent the day, month, and date as we worked through above.

So now you have to decide, for a given set of color-combined blocks, which color is going to be 0 and which will be 1. Whichever you decide to be 0, make that the bottom brick, so that when the pair is upside down, you actually see the circle shape that looks just like a zero, making it easy to remember.

With all that figured out, assemble your counters and put them in their appropriate slots on the appropriate rows, all upside down (or 0) to start with. Then figure out what day it is, and use the charts above to figure out what the calendar should read. For example, the day and date of the writing of this chapter is Sunday, May 17th. Sunday is the 1st day of the week, so the decimal number is 1, and the binary number is 01. May is the 5th month, so the decimal number is 5, and the binary number is 0101. The date is the 17th, so the decimal number is 17, and the binary number is 10001. And the calendar readings should look like this:

With a few weeks’ worth of practice, reading and adjusting the calendar should become second nature, and your geeks-in-training will have gained one more cool math skill that will hold them in good stead in the future.

B
ack in the day, there was nothing more intrinsic to the education process—especially the part of the education process that favored rote memorization over a holistic understanding of ideas and problem solving—than the flash card. They were, and continue to be, a simple idea: 3-by-5-inch rectangles of heavy paper stock, often with lines on one side, and available in a rainbow of colors. You write the question/problem/ buzzword on the blank side, and the detailed data or answer on the lined side. Then you take the cards and run through them, over and over, testing and confirming or correcting until the whole stack of learning has been transferred (hopefully) into your long-term memory—or at least into your short-term memory long enough to pass that upcoming test.

These days, save for the hipsters and their Luddite PDAs, paper is passé, and toting around sets of cards for the sake of memorization seems so . . . quaint. But the function of first creating the cards (tactile learning through writing the data), and then repeated self-testing (visual and verbal learning), is still a valid technique. And it’s not as if our kids aren’t already used to carrying around portable information transference systems everywhere they go—Nintendo DSes or Sony PSPs, various Web-browsing smartphones, and so on. So what if they could carry around their flash card decks on their portable entertainment devices? Well, why not?