8-year-old Sylvia's Super-Awesome Maker Show

I met 8-year-old Sylvia and her parents at Maker Faire this weekend. She handed me a cute business card with robots she drew on it. The card had a URL for her Super-Awesome Maker Show, and I watched episode 1. It's super awesome!

Sylvia's Super-Awesome Maker Show: Episode 01, Drawdio

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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sonipitts

I am waffling between squeetastic excitement over her excitement and skills, and deep depression over the fact that at 8, she’s already vastly more talented a geek than I am ever likely to be (in my 40′s).
JIMWICh

Best show ever!
jamiethehutt

I see this girl going far.

Also do we get to see the Robot action? :-P
lewis stoole

superawesomealagisticexpialidocious!

it was interesting until the copper tape, then it just became fun. a nice simple kit for a kid with a soldiering iron too.
scifijazznik

This really made my day. Best thing I’ve seen on BB in weeks. Sylvia is awesome and I’m getting one of those kits for my kid this week. He turns 4 next month and wants a hovercraft for his birthday…
Anonymous

I just bought a Drawdio to make with my 4-year old son. Great show.
nina

Cool parents who make super-abundant time for their kids & encourage their weirdness, are the bestest! Go Sylvia, go! :)
ZippySpincycle

What a very privileged little geek girl, with her own tools, and her own lab coat and her sense of security. I wish I could lie to myself and believe that making things can really bring any change to our sick sad world, but alas, I cannot. Sigh.
- Bear Naff
  
  Zippy, if you’re that certain that the world is doomed, why are you wasting time on the internet when there’s heroin you could be shooting? With the loss of most of our industrial capabilities throughout the 80′s and 90′s, and the rapid exodus of a lot of our remote service work to those countries that can use the English language, what kind of person do you think is going to thrive in the first world? If you don’t think that they’re people like Sylvia, what kind of brain-killing drugs are you on right now that are getting in the way of the aforementioned heroin bender?
  - japroach
    
    “Zippy, if you’re that certain that the world is doomed, why are you wasting time on the internet when there’s heroin you could be shooting?”
    
    but what if hes not interested in trying heroin? I don’t get it.
  - ZippySpincycle
    
    Oh dear–I had a feeling that I might run afoul of Poe’s Law with this post, especially since it was separated by several hours from its source material. Apologies to all for my Parody Fail–I really do think that both Sylvia and Jessica (from this morning) are nifty beyond words.
    
    On the other hand, mmmmmmm, heroin….
Cormac

That was great, it definitely added some brightness to my day. :)
HowardsGrl

Entertaining and well done! Great show!
lolbrandon

Sylvia is my hero. That’s just awesome. And what super cool parents! I’m jealous.
Anonymous

@nina – agreed!
@ZippySpincycle – relax, just do what little you can.

what a superawsome show!! ^.^
Chris Spurgeon

Just the greatest thing EVAR! I look forward to seeing Sylvia packing ‘em in Adam Savage style at a future Maker Faire!
devophill

I really really want a pointing finger now. (available soon in the boingboing bazaar?)
Anonymous

does anyone know how to make the rocket at the end?
looks like an acid/base reaction but i like the “flip the rocket once” model instead of “shake it up and get it all over your shoes’ type i have made before.
- Anonymous
  
  It seems easy enough. The PET bottle contains coke (or soda). You fit a tube half as long as the bottle tightly into the opening. Put on fins as you see in the video. turn the thing up-side down, put mentos in the tube and seal it with a cork or rubber.
  
  After that, do what Sylvia does. Mentos goes in the cola, pressure builds up. At a certain point, the cork would pop, and the rocket sould take off.
Anonymous

I’ll take this over Everest climbing any day of the week. Oh and @ Zippy–my husband did this kind of ham radio-esque stuff when he was a kid, and his family lived in a trailer. So try not to diminish her because she is “privileged”.