Thanks for introducing me to this. I hadn't previously considered there was a range of tools for kids to work with cardboard. It makes perfect sense.
I'm excited to try some of these with my kid. Paired with the Microbit and bag of various motors, LEDs and sensors, she can really start expanding her projects and imagination. I love it.
I have the makedo and the screws are legit amazing. I never imagined that they could possibly work so well. It's one of those things I always recommend to other parents.
The very real downside is that your kids become attached to their creations. So you end up with a house perpetually full of cardboard and fighting a constant battle to part with some of it.
Is anyone else bothered by hyperspecific products like this? 95% of what it does can also be done by scissors for 5% of the price and 10x the lifespan.
Cutting thick cardboard with scissors is a good way to hurt yourself.
You need some strength and a sharp blade to cut cardboard with scissors, for a child, it can mean going full force. And the more strength you use, the less control you have, increasing the chance of hurting yourself. That's also the reason why dull knives are considered dangerous. Scissors are for paper, not cardboard.
This tool looks much more controllable, which means it is safer, even before considering the intrinsic safety of the mechanism, more precise, and more fun to use.
I like it from the standpoint of kids not being afraid of power tools. Plenty of adults would never do woodworking because the tools seem too scary. Teaching kids that power tools don't need to be scary as long as they're used safely is a worthwhile output on its own IMO.
The best advice I ever got re: power tools from an old shop teacher was that before throwing the switch and powering up a machine, to count to 10 on one's fingers under one's breath while reviewing every aspect of the planned operation, and all the forces involved, reminding oneself that one wants to be able to repeat the count in the same way after the switch is turned off.
That said, I think it's best to maintain a healthy respect for, and even to a reasonable degree to be afraid of the machines and the forces which they can exert.
"Teaching kids that power tools don't need to be scary as long as they're used safely is a worthwhile output on its own IMO."
True but real safety first thinking is not something that a purchasing decision will fix.
I have a scar on one of my fingers that was caused by a broken broom! How bloody naff is that but it bled like buggery and a 1" flap of finger flapped for a while and needed stitches at A&E (for Americans - that's where you pop in and a few hours later pop out, all patched up without a credit card being involved).
I wasn't wearing gloves. I am a first aider, H&S rep for my company (my company - I care about my troops) and so on. I was sweeping my drive with a broom with a hollow metal tube handle and it partially snapped and hinged and caught my finger and partially sliced a lump. Oh and I am the fire officer and even my house has a multi page fire plan.
I own a plethora of torture devices - a table saw, multiple chain saws, chisels and the rest. I have skied for four decades and drive a car/van/lorry.
Safety first thinking doesn't mean that you escape all of life's efforts to kill you but you do get a better chance of avoiding damage.
A power tool that promises safety might be missplaced. However, this one does not missrepresent itself. It does what it does and it does it well.
For me, I will be digging out the hand cranked jigsaw when I show the grand kids how to chop off their fingers: A fret saw. However that thing looks like a great introduction to dealing with power tools.
I feel like you want to teach that they are dangerous and can be used safely when careful. A woodworker I know almost cut their finger clean off despite having years of experience.
A British magician called Paul Daniels managed to slice some fingers on a table saw. He had been making his own tricks gear for decades.
Safety thinking can slip - you only have to cock up once when you are pushing an amorphous mass into a blade spinning at say 3000 rpm and lose concentration.
Table saws, band saws etc and the like are dreadful.
My wife manages to make a simple drill/driver somewhat dangerous to the point that I have to sometimes fake a reason why husband should take over (yes I am very careful - she's generally sharper than the tool in question!)
You don't need power tools for most of woodworking anyway. That's a ridiculous excuse to avoid it. I've built furniture and framed buildings almost entirely with hand tools.
I started with power tools. Moved to hand tools for a year or so when I moved houses and still had my table saw, etc. in storage.
Now that I my power tools are back in the garage — I can't quit the power tools — right back relying on them. I just couldn't plane quite as nice as my joiner (and certainly not in one pass). And sharpening the hand tools...
I earnestly want to do more hand-tool woodworking. I keep thinking that, as I get older, I'll eventually full in on hand tools. But at 61 years old ... not yet.
Consider table saws. SawStop built its brand on not cutting fingers off, which is scary enough. But it turns out that kickback causes a lot more injuries and that's not really addressed well by any tools.
There ought to be a market for MEs to design power tools that are safer for consumers. So where is the obviously-named "KickStop" table saw? Maybe the decline in the middle class makes that market too small to consider such improvements.
The saw stop creator patented and tried to license his tech (not make a saw,) the major manufacturers didn't want to pay the license fees.
I sort of get it, for actual job sites using dimensional lumber you're going to have the saw in bypass the entire time because the wood is wet, making the safety moot so the market is there for hobbyists but not pros.
It is not easy for children to cut cardboard with scissors. I'd say that remains true at least until age 10. Some younger may be able to manage a small amount of cutting but would get tired quickly.
I volunteer with scouts, kids aged 5-8. We ran a cardboard based activity with the makedo stuff. We tried to supplement with scissors, they were not effective.
Cutting cardboard in straight lines with scissors is easy, but cutting convex curves other shapes is really not, especially if you want to avoid bending it and collapsing the corrugation. Personally I use a knife, but obviously that isn't suitable for very young kids (not hugely safe for me either lol, I almost cut the end of my thumb off not too long ago...)
Not at all; you've missed the point. Everyone knows you can cut a box with scissors. The point is that you can't cut a board with scissors. This is a basic woodworking skill, and I think it's great if you can come up with a way to safely get kids accustomed to what those tools can do.
Are there all that many parents who want to teach their kid woodworking, but can't use the classic teaching method of taking them to the workshop and handing them a coping saw under careful supervision?
I mean, I'm sure there's a handful of parents who value woodworking skills but do no woodworking themselves - but are there enough to support a whole product category of $250 cardboard tools?
I actually think this isn’t really an “at home” toy. A couple of these in an elementary classroom or a library or even a community maker space, make a lot of sense, since the building material is basically free.
Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather teach how to use a knife safely? And a cut from a blade is a lesson to be learned, hopefully only once.
Edit: Oh and if anyone's looking for the tool name, it's called a nibbler. This one is just table-mounted, there are power tool and unpowered versions ofc.
The article starts by dismissing scrollsaws as "pretty darn dangerous", but that's a pretty big stretch. They're less dangerous than a sharp kitchen knife. You want to talk to your kids and watch them closely the first couple of times they use it, but you'd be hard-pressed to find any accounts of serious injuries caused by scrollsaws.
This toy doesn't seem bad as a crafts tool that buys you several quiet weekends, but at $250... that's actually more than a miniature desktop scrollsaw (Proxxon 37088).
I don't have direct experience with a scroll saw but I own (well, made) a bandsaw and it's my favorite power tool. There's a lot you can do with it but more importantly, it's incredibly safe: The blade stays in one place and will never jump out at you or throw your workpiece into your abdomen. If you let your mind wander, you might end up with a cut on your finger. But that's about it. It's pretty much impossible to lose your finger to a bandsaw unless you have permanent nerve damage or are doing your woodworking on meth.
Personally I often prefer to introduce new activities just at the point where I'd feel comfortable leaving them unsupervised (once they've learned it).
A major goal of parenting is to guide your children to independence. This is a sort of negotiation between you, reality and the child. While it can be heartbreaking when they come to you with injuries, you can't watch them all the time (and it's not healthy to try).
If you introduce an activity "too early" such that you always have to supervise, it has some advantages for child but can quickly become a drain on you (they want to do that $thing again but you have other stuff to do) and they feel less independent because they always need your help to do it.
What our family looks out for a lot is "cliff edges". This is where an activity or situation has a high / unreasonable risk vs benefit, and the harm happens quickly and is surprising. These require special attention. Once kids know where the "cliff edges" are they can explore more safely.
"The nibblings are collected in a bin below, allowing you to recycle the waste."
In my area, this type of waste is not accepted in the recycling. Just like you can put paper in recycle, but you can't put shredded paper. This would work pretty well in the compost pile though.
Yeah, this is 100% wish-cycling -- and honestly, the total amount of shavings you'd be throwing away after using this device heavily wouldn't even amount to a single small cardboard box.
I took out my comment calling it wish-cycling propaganda as a selling point, and decided to be less cynical. Anytime I see that kind of obvious play on the recycling heart string as a selling point just makes me throw up a little and roll my eyes all at the same time. The marketing department just goes overboard and nobody calls them on it
My five year old played with this quite a bit at Maker Faire last year. He picked it up quite well. I had it in my mind to get him one for his next birthday but forgot until I saw this post. His school has Makedo tools and he likes them. So the combination might be something that he'd use on a semi-regular basis. We have no shortage of "material" being delivered.
But these specific tools are similar in that they can't cut skin so they are completely safe for kids, and can make curved shapes in cardboard relatively easily (more easily than scissors at least).
It’s basically a tabletop router for cardboard. That’s super cool. The free motion in two dimensions is better than what kids usually get with toy saws and drills.
Routers are great tools but very powerful and finicky. This turns a router into a finger-safe jigsaw, which is a great idea.
I suspect you could probably work with pretty heavy leather, since the 3mm cardboard it's designed for is going to be pretty comparable to 5-6oz.The bed size might be too small for typical panel sizes though.
I'm looking at getting a SawStop table saw so I can teach my child woodworking with slightly more peace-of-mind that if something goes wrong, they'll be less likely to lose one or more fingers. Kids get distracted, they forget what rules you've taught them in the past, accidents happen.
This is also a tool I'll consider purchasing to provide my child an introduction to the concepts before graduating to the bigger, louder, stronger wood saws.
This could be "bad, actually" if it gives an incorrect impression that power tools are unequivocally safe, rather than somewhat risky but usually safe when used correctly.
You're right, but one presumably would still teach kids to treat this tool with respect. And given that, it seems safer to me as this won't hurt them when they get careless (as kids are wont to do). That way you get a chance to reinforce the safety lesson before they graduate to the dangerous stuff.
I'm finding that a lot of parenting is teaching my kid that safety is something you have to do, and risks are something you have to look for and understand. For example, brushing your teeth is usually safe, but you shouldn't brush your teeth at a dead sprint down the stairs.
Not sure why you've been downvoted so heavily. That seems like a misuse of the downvote purpose.
But yes, I kind of agree with other commenters here in that maybe teaching absolute respect of a knife/table saw/power tool and its power to maim is a really important lesson that this sidesteps?
Have you tried using scissors to cut corrugated cardboard? Especially trying to cut curves? The difficulty seems self-evident.
For straight lines you need something like a box cutter -- with scissors it will neither be easy nor particularly straight. While for even medium-sized curves or smaller details you really do need something like this.
I'm a pretty OK machinist, but not a professional. My reaction is to think about long / loose hair, long sleeves and loose clothing, and (unlikely for kids) neckties. Those would be of concern for any open blade cutting machine, grinder, etc.
uh? We used to have a jig or scroll saw when we were kids, it could cut thin plywood, but you could put your finger on the blade when it was working and it wouldn't hurt at all.
The scroll saw seems like about the safest power saw that a kid could use. But every one I've ever owned/used could definitely cut human flesh. Maybe someone could come up with one that has a very limited range of motion, so that it works like a cast saw / oscillatory multi-tool, where the teeth movement is so small that it is within the elastic range of your skin.
It had was a combined jig saw, lathe, drill press, and disc sander.
Now, I don’t know much about modern scroll saws, but the “blade” on this thing was more like a thin, round file. Perfectly adequate for something like popsicle stick thick wood. It more ground it’s way through wood than actually cutting it.
I think it would take some pressure to really hurt a finger. I can say there was no real bloodletting on my projects.
The drill bits were pointed, flat pieces of metal. It was all designed for really soft wood.
Yes—startling, but not catastrophic. I first used something like that at age 6. It probably COULD cut flesh if you really tried, but it would take some determination, and just the specter of damage was enough to keep me on good behavior.
I remember it as helping me develop a healthy respect for tools, and also to relate to the material world as something I can manipulate rather than something to be passively consumed. And to manage risks, and confront my fears.
My kids (8, 10, 12) have all used my scrollsaw with supervision without issue. Jigsaw is a bit more sketchy and reminds me of most the injuries I've seen in the shop around handheld router after the cut is complete. My lathe is the kids favorite tool to be honest.
Scroll saws operate at 400-1800 strokes per minute with metal teeth that can absolutely cause serious injury - please don't test this safety assumption with children.
Scroll saws, unlike more common woodworking power tools (table saw, bandsaw, router, joiner, planer), is one of the only tools that touching the blade does not typically cause an injury.
Would make a nice pairing with:
https://www.make.do/
which is sold by Lee Valley: https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/home/toys-and-games/cra... (an excellent company to do business with).
A prototype of this was on Reddit/Imgur a while back:
https://old.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/9en02z/kids_table_saw/
with instructions on making one w/ a parts list at:
https://imgur.com/a/kids-table-saw-2cg0HJB
I'm excited to try some of these with my kid. Paired with the Microbit and bag of various motors, LEDs and sensors, she can really start expanding her projects and imagination. I love it.
The very real downside is that your kids become attached to their creations. So you end up with a house perpetually full of cardboard and fighting a constant battle to part with some of it.
You need some strength and a sharp blade to cut cardboard with scissors, for a child, it can mean going full force. And the more strength you use, the less control you have, increasing the chance of hurting yourself. That's also the reason why dull knives are considered dangerous. Scissors are for paper, not cardboard.
This tool looks much more controllable, which means it is safer, even before considering the intrinsic safety of the mechanism, more precise, and more fun to use.
That said, I think it's best to maintain a healthy respect for, and even to a reasonable degree to be afraid of the machines and the forces which they can exert.
True but real safety first thinking is not something that a purchasing decision will fix.
I have a scar on one of my fingers that was caused by a broken broom! How bloody naff is that but it bled like buggery and a 1" flap of finger flapped for a while and needed stitches at A&E (for Americans - that's where you pop in and a few hours later pop out, all patched up without a credit card being involved).
I wasn't wearing gloves. I am a first aider, H&S rep for my company (my company - I care about my troops) and so on. I was sweeping my drive with a broom with a hollow metal tube handle and it partially snapped and hinged and caught my finger and partially sliced a lump. Oh and I am the fire officer and even my house has a multi page fire plan.
I own a plethora of torture devices - a table saw, multiple chain saws, chisels and the rest. I have skied for four decades and drive a car/van/lorry.
Safety first thinking doesn't mean that you escape all of life's efforts to kill you but you do get a better chance of avoiding damage.
A power tool that promises safety might be missplaced. However, this one does not missrepresent itself. It does what it does and it does it well.
For me, I will be digging out the hand cranked jigsaw when I show the grand kids how to chop off their fingers: A fret saw. However that thing looks like a great introduction to dealing with power tools.
Safety thinking can slip - you only have to cock up once when you are pushing an amorphous mass into a blade spinning at say 3000 rpm and lose concentration.
Table saws, band saws etc and the like are dreadful.
My wife manages to make a simple drill/driver somewhat dangerous to the point that I have to sometimes fake a reason why husband should take over (yes I am very careful - she's generally sharper than the tool in question!)
Now that I my power tools are back in the garage — I can't quit the power tools — right back relying on them. I just couldn't plane quite as nice as my joiner (and certainly not in one pass). And sharpening the hand tools...
I earnestly want to do more hand-tool woodworking. I keep thinking that, as I get older, I'll eventually full in on hand tools. But at 61 years old ... not yet.
They are too scary.
Consider table saws. SawStop built its brand on not cutting fingers off, which is scary enough. But it turns out that kickback causes a lot more injuries and that's not really addressed well by any tools.
https://www.sawstop.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulvP8Vv9SrE
There ought to be a market for MEs to design power tools that are safer for consumers. So where is the obviously-named "KickStop" table saw? Maybe the decline in the middle class makes that market too small to consider such improvements.
I sort of get it, for actual job sites using dimensional lumber you're going to have the saw in bypass the entire time because the wood is wet, making the safety moot so the market is there for hobbyists but not pros.
I volunteer with scouts, kids aged 5-8. We ran a cardboard based activity with the makedo stuff. We tried to supplement with scissors, they were not effective.
I mean, I'm sure there's a handful of parents who value woodworking skills but do no woodworking themselves - but are there enough to support a whole product category of $250 cardboard tools?
Edit: Oh and if anyone's looking for the tool name, it's called a nibbler. This one is just table-mounted, there are power tool and unpowered versions ofc.
This toy doesn't seem bad as a crafts tool that buys you several quiet weekends, but at $250... that's actually more than a miniature desktop scrollsaw (Proxxon 37088).
Which is less dangerous than a dull kitchen knife.
https://yakushiknives.com/blogs/yakushi-blog-all-thing-knive...
How about every time?
Personally I often prefer to introduce new activities just at the point where I'd feel comfortable leaving them unsupervised (once they've learned it).
A major goal of parenting is to guide your children to independence. This is a sort of negotiation between you, reality and the child. While it can be heartbreaking when they come to you with injuries, you can't watch them all the time (and it's not healthy to try).
If you introduce an activity "too early" such that you always have to supervise, it has some advantages for child but can quickly become a drain on you (they want to do that $thing again but you have other stuff to do) and they feel less independent because they always need your help to do it.
What our family looks out for a lot is "cliff edges". This is where an activity or situation has a high / unreasonable risk vs benefit, and the harm happens quickly and is surprising. These require special attention. Once kids know where the "cliff edges" are they can explore more safely.
In my area, this type of waste is not accepted in the recycling. Just like you can put paper in recycle, but you can't put shredded paper. This would work pretty well in the compost pile though.
A warning, it’s a bit loud, definitely invest in kid’s hearing protection to wear when using it.
Routers are great tools but very powerful and finicky. This turns a router into a finger-safe jigsaw, which is a great idea.
By the way, could this concept be scaled up to cut wood?
How much is your child's finger worth?
I'm looking at getting a SawStop table saw so I can teach my child woodworking with slightly more peace-of-mind that if something goes wrong, they'll be less likely to lose one or more fingers. Kids get distracted, they forget what rules you've taught them in the past, accidents happen.
This is also a tool I'll consider purchasing to provide my child an introduction to the concepts before graduating to the bigger, louder, stronger wood saws.
https://www.rockler.com/power-tools/routers/router-tables/ro...
But yes, I kind of agree with other commenters here in that maybe teaching absolute respect of a knife/table saw/power tool and its power to maim is a really important lesson that this sidesteps?
For straight lines you need something like a box cutter -- with scissors it will neither be easy nor particularly straight. While for even medium-sized curves or smaller details you really do need something like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx1AiQdMQro
There are 4 tools and one is a finger-safe jigsaw.
It had was a combined jig saw, lathe, drill press, and disc sander.
Now, I don’t know much about modern scroll saws, but the “blade” on this thing was more like a thin, round file. Perfectly adequate for something like popsicle stick thick wood. It more ground it’s way through wood than actually cutting it.
I think it would take some pressure to really hurt a finger. I can say there was no real bloodletting on my projects.
The drill bits were pointed, flat pieces of metal. It was all designed for really soft wood.
I remember it as helping me develop a healthy respect for tools, and also to relate to the material world as something I can manipulate rather than something to be passively consumed. And to manage risks, and confront my fears.