How to draw construction equipment for kids | Hacker News Reader

How to draw construction equipment for kids

alyssarosenberg.substack.com

147 pointsholotrope79 comments

Testament to children's interest in construction equipment is the commercial success of the British theme park chain Diggerland[0]. I'm not affiliated with it, and I've never been, I just think it's an hilarious concept.

[0] https://www.diggerland.com/

I didn't realize Diggerland wasn't of US origin. https://diggerlandusa.com/

If you've never actually used an excavator, front-end loader, or any other large equipment, you'll really never know how satisfying it can be. They are powerful equipment that can move a lot of dirt in a short amount of time, but only if you're good at it. It takes skillz to do things fast and smooth in a way that's not going to tear up the equipment or injure someone. Crane operators are impressive too. Watching crews keep tonnes of load under control flying through the air and placing it down softly (while sometimes not in line of sight of the operator) is impressive to watch. Why more people are not fascinated/impressed with it is beyond me. I think people assume it's all automated and a cushy job and do not realize how much manual control is required. Kind of like those "I could build it in a weekend" comments discrediting the amount of work someone else did.

Renting a skid steer for a long weekend and getting kinda good at it was deeply satisfying. Also that experience of digging a hole for hours, and then using a scoop to dig the same hole in seconds, and it feeling like you’re digging through jello.

It definitely takes skill to do operate excavator/front-end loader / backhoe etc with any amount of efficiency, but if you don't care how slow you are you can do pretty much any residential task anybody else can do almost right off the bat and it is definitely a blast.

I dug the footings for my house on my first day ever on a backhoe, the next day I removed a few trees and built a road, then I rented an excavator and did all my underground electric in one weekend and underground water main in another. All with no experience with any large machinery nor any electrical or plumbing experience, so the weekend comments can definitely be incredibly valid.

I've seen crane ops lower the hook onto someone's head (wearing a hard hat of course) so gently they barely felt it. Construction crews do goofy things when they're slow and bored. You're not doing that kind of thing after a weekend of playing around. Watching a team signaling an operator that has no line of sight with nothing but hand signals is impressive for both people. But like anything in life when you see someone really good at their job to the point it looks easy can give people the wrong impression. In your weekend, you probably had favorable conditions. Try doing that when it's the day after pissing down rain, or in the build up when the winds are 30mph. Similar when people watch PGA players chip onto the green and roll the ball within inches of the hole thinking it looks so easy when they do it, but you're not making that shot with a weekend of golfing.

I'm not downplaying how good those people are at their jobs. Only pointing out it looked hard to me until I did it, then when I realized how easy it was so long as I took my time, I started renting construction equipment all the time. I have no idea if the conditions were 'perfect' or not -- I was building a house in a remote desert location with conditions ranging from dry and balmy to monsoons.

After a few weekends I definitely don't think I'd ever consider hiring someone for any ground equipment too simple to do yourself if you have the time. Cranes might be a different story (I've moved multi million dollar equipment after a few hours on warehouse overhead cranes, as did practically everyone else in the company, but not the freestanding ones), but not sure because I used rafters instead of trusses so I could just carry all the roof stuff up in single sticks as renting cranes without an operator doesn't seem to be possible here.

Takeaway here is homeowner can probably do everything as long as they use rafters instead of trusses, to compensate for potential issues with the crane.

When I built houses we used an all-terrin forklift to lift the trusses. Probably too late, but if you do it again. Building without a forklift is too hard. We did use a crane for one job - there was no room for a forklift. It took 3 people to keep an experienced crane operator busy. They move fast.

cement is one job I would be careful of. You can do it yourself but there cannot be breaks or mistaves as cement is curing and losing strength all the time.

There are a lot of breaks and mistakes in my concrete foundation. And I poured about 300 bags of quikrete, mixed one by one, eyeballed with water in a portable electric mixer -- would probably give a civil engineer a heart attack. Fortunately there is no frost heave and rarely freezes, so im mostly relying on just having enough compressive strength which has about a 100x safety factor on my wood frame.

The breaks are tied together with rebar, the mistakes on top were mortared level when starting my run of blocks for the foundation. Got pretty much perfectly level by last run of blocks.

Ghetto? Maybe, but a civil engineer friend said he did cold joints same as I, and the house has held up so far....

Being from a construction family that did commercial high rises, I learned more about concrete testing than I cared to know. The plans will call for a specific type of concrete mix with a specified amount of rebar. Those plans will be based on how much weight the floor is meant to support, and has specific ratings. When they make the pour for the actual building, they will also pour multiple test slabs of the same thickness and rebar. The test slabs will be put under pressure to test their fail point. One slab is tested 24 hours after pour, the next 48 hours, and however many they do based on the plans. The longer it cures, the stronger it gets. They cannot put weight on it and move to the next floor until it has cured to the correct minimum set. My dad would walk away in shame at what you just described, and I can hear him muttering about it in my head.

There were no building plans lol, but bear in mind, it's a 1 story light frame wood structure with an average gravity/vertical load of less than 10 psi on the poured concrete part of the foundation, so nowhere near the demand of a skyscraper.

I am basically pushing my concrete to 1% of theoretical limitations, never freeze cycling it, and cold joining it exactly how my civil engineer friend did in rigorous commercial project (when asked about this he laughed, large commercial projects usually need breaks because it's too big to do one continous pour, i simply applied same technique) . Let the unpaid contractors mutter from outside my DIY walls... if they stop standing it's more likely a wildfire than the hand mixed concrete.

Cracks are a fact of concrete unless your sections (cold joints) are tiny. Engineering ensures they don't matter because they are in controlled places.

Right. Anyone with a block house or foundation has cold joints everywhere, sometimes tied together with rebar, but sometimes not. IRC allows straight up plain masonry (no rebar) for houses in most regions of the US, which gives you hundreds of cold joints in running bond.

IRC will even allow you to use masonry as a footing, although you rarely see it.

You don't hire someone to do the easy 95% of the job. You hire someone because when you find something crazy in the hard 5%, they have the experience and skill to pull it off while making it look easy.

I'm not downplaying how much someone of average competence can pull off, but when the chips are down experience counts for a lot.

I say this having replaced 140' of rotted logs in our log home this summer. Some full length. We got it done, but there was some sketchy use of car jacks, bottle jacks and a comealong to finish the job. I am 100% certain a pro would've gotten the job done with far less stress and far safer setups.

You hire someone because their capital investments make it so that their labor can do something well cheaper and easier and faster than you can at all. This is the math behind concrete plants, tire alignment shops, and a whole host of other things.

If you've ever wanted to try this, I highly recommend "Dig This" in Las Vegas. They'll teach you the basics and then put you in a an excavator or bulldozer, with an open course full of big heavy things to move around. It's great fun.

https://digthisvegas.com/

The best part about that site is the page on helicopter landing. Delightfully niche.

https://www.diggerland.com/helicopter-landing/

That's hilarious. I can only imagine landing there in a helicopter and it being used as a free additional show for all the kids there.

The UK has it dialed in on this stuff - check out Tractor Ted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIo-RUdF6QU&t=10s

I'm at Diggerland right now, watching my 9 year old drive a 8.5T JCB on his own lol. This place is so much fun, I'm glad to have it nearby!

This resonates with my child self. I always hated kids books when I was a kid. From an early age I wanted details, schematics if possible. Same way I disliked when TV-shows had "relatable children" in them. No, go away Wesley Crusher, show me how to be an adult instead! I already knew how to be a child.

i always hated when my toys were made to look "kid like".

if you give me a toy tool box, there better be a toy hammer that looks like a real hammer that adults use. it better not be multicolored with a big smiley face on them. i'm pretending to be a big strong adult doing a cool job. do you really think i want to show up to the pretend worksite looking like some sort of baby?!

i'm pretty sure all my friends also wanted the "real" thing, so i have to assume that the cute whimsical angle is just to help sell it to adults.

It's because if some Karen sees your kid with a real looking hammer anywhere near actual work, (s)he's gonna rat your ass out to CPS faster than you can snap your fingers.

Similarly for toy guns. The weird look ain't for the kids, it's so some passerby doesn't see the "gun" and call the cops (no matter there is no regulation in most states from making a real gun to look like a toy gun so it's a totally bogus presumption).

> no matter there is no regulation in most states from making a real gun to look like a toy gun so it's a totally bogus presumption

It's a federal law.

> each toy, look-alike, or imitation firearm shall have as an integral part, permanently affixed, a blaze orange plug inserted in the barrel of such toy, look-alike, or imitation firearm

https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:15%20section:...

The law says that toys have to look like this, but there's often no restriction against painting an orange tip onto an actual firearm.

I grew up in a construction family. I didn't have this problem. I was given a real hammer and real nails and scrap wood to nail together. It was a shite hammer but real. It was probably only a light 8oz hammer, but I was at the real worksite with my pretend project. I'm sure some OSHA rules were broken, but it was weekends only and most of the crew was off, but it was real enough to kid me then.

But yeah, if someone gave me a red and blue smiley face toy tool, I'd be like WTF is this? Then again, my dad would have said the same thing without the cutesy internet acronyms.

Lol, right on! I grew up on a farm in an area where the economy centers around Ag. There used to be an annual fundraiser dinner in a nearby town (population 309) with various games for kids. One of the more popular games was to see who could hammer a nail into a board first. Good times.

I hear Shite Hammer are playing Bloodstock this year

Scrap wood to nail together? Luxury. Try, "take the nails out of these boards and straighten them, so we can reuse both"

oh, i had my share of that project too. way back then, i found busy work fun. i think it is the true source of my absolute frustration with busy work now. thanks doc, i think we just made a break through!

Depending on things, manufacturing your own cut nails in your backyard from free scrap metal may be more efficient and significantly easier than pulling nails. It doesn't help much if you want to reuse the lumber, though.

My dad bought exactly one pound of roofing nails when replacing an entire asphalt shingle roof thanks to child labor.

Did he at least buy new shingles?

They were unused and in the package and they were new to him. They weren't new to the world. And he didn't buy them he bartered for them.

Growing up in Los Alamos, we didn't have a toy shop. There was one when I was very young, but it had closed by the time I was old enough to remember it.

We did have an incredible hardware store, however. Pocket hammers, mini-maglites (in any color you like), little brass screwdrivers that could come apart into 10-15 different (tiny) tools, garden sprinklers, and more, were the bread and butter of birthday parties and any other gifting event.

Sure, your parents could drive you to Española for Wal Mart, or to Santa Fe for a Toys Я Us or Target, so we weren't completely missing out on things like super soakers or lego. But nothing could really beat Metzgers Hardware.

Daycare and similar also typically had a workbench somewhere with a hammer, some nails, boards, and other bits and bobs for kids to play with. Sure, sometimes you'd bop your finger, but you learned not to do that

For many tools, the real McCoys are cheaper than the kid versions. So, buy the kid some real tools, and file away sharpness and cushion mass as required ?

I was the same. Had loads of books with cross sections of battleships and tanks and castles. Real photos of ancient arms ans armour. Lots of stats. The only kids book I had was Full Moon Soup and that was a cross section of a Hotel so that checks out. There was something about thia stuff that perked my brain up and made me want to indulge for hours.

> ... going into detail about why cement mixers need to keep rotating so the cement doesn’t harden prematurely

Not to be the well ahkshually guy, but they rotate to keep the cement homogenized. It's a suspension of heavier and lighter materials of varying grain size. If you stop rotating it in transit you dont risk premature hardening so much, it's more that the concrete unmixes.

Even with a spinning container you need to pour it out asap. Can't keep it around for hours and hours.

Can vouch. Used to work in construction and cement hardening is a chemical process much more than it is a mechanical/moisture evaporation process. That shit will solidify on you no matter what you do unless you get it settled where it needs to be as soon as possible. I've also seen concrete harden just fine inside a form while under water, thoroughly exposed (but without dilution) to the sea water leaking throughout the plywood form.

Great blog post, totally agree with it... except, "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go" condescending? If you think Richard Scarry is trying to keep kids engaged with "the false novelty of a carrot car" (!!!) you do NOT understand the appeal of that book to kids, despite the claim to the contrary.

If I had more time I'd make myself a bananamobile. Sure it would only be useful for driving in the city parade, but I WANT one. (anyone want to fund my mid-life crisis? You get to see a bananamobile out of the deal)

I guarantee you if you build that bananamobile you will find plenty of uses for it! Don't hold back!

I have 3000 years worth of projecs in the queue. I'm not holding back.

You would not be the first:

https://bigbananacar.com/

That probably isn't the first either... Cool car, but I'm envisioning something that is more like the books show (and thus even more impractical as anything other than a parade vehicle)

Maybe you can buy a used wiener mobile and unlock the banana skin for it.

A yellow vinyl wrap plus fabricating a couple of cones for the ends of the wiener to morph it into a banana sounds a heck of a lot cheaper than fabricating a fiberglass banana shell from scratch, I think you’re onto something here! I’ll start the GoFundMe and work on procuring a lightly used wiener mobile, GP will be cruising in a banana mobile by next summer :)

Class A motorhome, trash the motorhome, relocate driver station, build a bannana or a weiner or broccoli or whatever body to go on top.

This is basically how they built the wienermobiles except they were starting with stripped chassis not a "ran when parked, free if you haul" tier winnebago.

Speaking of wienermobiles, I think it's a travesty they never made Heinz ketchup bottles to tow behind them.

Get a weibermobile and paint it yellow? They're literally street legal race cars and probably not too dissimilar in shape to what a bananamobile would be.

> They're literally street legal race cars

They ran them at the Indy 500 this year... probably set a record for longest lap time under green.

Kids, shit. I'm 42 and any time I run across a copy, I re-read it just for the sheer pleasure of seeing what all's happening on every page!

There's a special edition that includes the creation process in the back along with some copies of the intermediate stories. Quite a bit of story telling a well.

This song and video, Ice Resurfacing Machine, is popular with a young boy I know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqci9VCugLs

Ugh, it's like they went out of their way to not use the word Zamboni. Like when people say inline skates instead of Rollerblades or facial tissue instead of Kleenex. Yes, I know generic term versus a specific company. blah blah blah. But I feel like the UK has it okay when they say Hoovering instead of vacuuming. Same thing here.

This is to avoid trademark dilution, which in the USA can invalidate a trademark. Aspirin, for instance, used to be a trademark of Bayer, but these days is generic.

I did not regularly hear the term "game console" until the late 90s. I used to think the promotion of this term was done by Nintendo in a trademark-protective maneuver to avoid rival systems being called "Nintendos" by granny, but it seems I was mistaken. Nevertheless, in the 80s we called them systems. Which system do you have, Nintendo or Sega?

Recently in my retrogaming media habit I've heard "console" used occasionally to describe video game consoles in advertisements dating back to the early 80s, but at that time it was also used by Texas Instruments to refer to the TI-99/4A computer. TI was naming all of their home products to give a space-age technical feel to them. They marketed joysticks as "Wired Remote Controllers", and cartridges for the TI-99/4A as "Command Modules" or "Solid State Software". So I don't think "console" referring to a gaming device specifically was a term of art back then.

Oh man, time to fire up my TI-99/4A again.

Aspirin is kind of a special case - while it had become generic in the usual way, the actual loss of trademark status was part of the Treaty of Versailles as a punishment for world war 1. (So while there are various trademark-protection strategies, "don't lose a world war" might be difficult to pull off :-)

Have I got a treat for you:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BD5oBHGmes8

Oh, a Zamboni.

Here's a video someone should make into a music video.[1] Same concept as a Zamboni, but for sand.

[1] https://youtu.be/UKHLG1iOBUA

That's a really cool device, but I'm kind of sad that it needs to exist

For a modern series that does this idea[1] really well, check out the "William Bee's Wonderful World of..." series.

[1] i.e. Non-fiction about machines, featuring drawings for kids with lots of accurate little details.

For a less modern but still kid-crack series, check out the Secret life of ________ series, by Tim Hunkin. They're all on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@timhunkin1/playlists

My youngest is absolutely obsessed with construction trucks. We really love the "Construction Site" series by Sherri Duskey Rinker. Some of the later books in the series go into how roads are built, airports, etc. Really lots of fun for anybody else who has little ones interested in construction. https://www.goodnightconstructionsite.com/

Does anyone have recommendations for non-fiction books with a "how it’s made" or behind-the-scenes angle that also work as bedtime reading? Ideally something narrative-driven and informative, not dependent on pictures, with enough flow to read a chapter or section at night. Looking for that mix of interesting detail and relaxing storytelling.

Bill Bryson maybe? E.g. "A Short History of Nearly Everything". Kids might not understand everything but they'll probably feel Bryson's warmth.

Stuff Matters by Mark Miodownik might fit the bill? It's about the history and modern use of materials like glass, steel, concrete, etc. in everyday objects. Maybe not for very young kids. Wikipedia has a good summary of the content.

While most of it is pretty relaxing it opens with the author getting stabbed on the subway so watch out for that maybe.

May be too technical for kids, but “Ignition! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants” is wonderful.

https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd...

I can't remember exactly, but I think there was some kind of light story element to "The New Way Things Work"

Edit: just noticed the bit about not reliant on pictures, that rules that one out. I recommend it regardless, but maybe not for the exact use-case you're describing

The various Way things Work and similar books have always had a light bit of story, but not really anything thats properly bedtime appropriate, emphasis on the "light." Its generally a bit of flavor text at the start of a section, describing the journey the Mammoth and its companion went on as they move through the books, with things such as the "Digital Domain"

Someone who thinks Jerry Pallotta's "Who would win?" books are a good example of science communication directed at children should not be taken seriously. I'd go into why, but here's an actual zoologist doing a much better (and entertaining) job of it than I could: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgtE7_5uJ2p5Oeied2x4L...

Seth (famously from Berm Beak formerly Seth's Bike Hacks on youtube) had similar thoughts about bicycles, and published a book quite recently. It includes bicycles with correct details and terminology.

https://cognativemtb.com/products/goodnight-bikes-hardcover-...

At around the age of two my son became totally obsessed with construction equipment. We would pull over and let him watch excavators and skid steers work at local job sites. Luckily there are some good youtube channels that cater to this which made it much easier to scratch his itch. He still loves heavy machinery, but at the age of 5 it’s a lot more mellow.

Mine too at that age. I didn't know it is so common. It was his first obsession, later came Playmobil, Lego and now football.

I believe there is a correlation of interest to construction equipment with certain traits and dexterities later.

Those illustrations are really cool. The detail is there but the sense of perspective isn't. I think this was a deliberate design choice on the part of the illustrator, reflecting the way an eight-year-old sees the world, unless they have a Stephen Wiltshire-like brain.

One of the explanations of Picasso's Cubist portraiture with its flat, simultaneous front and side perspective was that he was satirizing how "realistic" painters approached a three-quarter-view portrait, by sort of blending a full front view with a full side view. There's something about the human psyche that causes us to elide a full three-dimensional view of an object from our consciousness unless we deliberately practice looking for it.

This reminds me of the workshop tool scavenger hunt from Scope of Work. Even as an adult I still encounter new machines and tools that I've never heard of... and it's /fascinating/ to learn there are machines and tools to do such specific things!

I enjoy the "what does this thing do" of farm implements.

[Scopeofwork.net]

This book looks fantastic, just ordered a board-book copy for my 2 yo. Weirdly couldn't get anything on Amazon for less than £11 or delivered in less than 2 weeks, but found a new copy on ebay for less than £7 delivered in 3-5 days. Reminder to always try ebay first these days!

20 trucks lined up in our street (not the real name because it is much too far away to check) remains forever in our bookcase.

Much like Mamoko

Obligatory Twinkleton music channel link - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-MLi97JEdflEyp7Gk3PbCg

I heard these songs in Norwegian first and thought the tunes were really nice, and later realized it's produced in Sweden and has English lyrics too. For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J18YqmygFa0 - Twinkle twinkle reimagined as a big digging machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGZyJb5Qc-o&list=RDoGZyJb5Qc... - Exavator song

Increadible Cross Sections.

Dorling Kindersley.

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