Just Tinkering Around

I think what Gever Tulley did with the tinkering school was pretty cool. To actually let young children handle dangerous tools is crazy, but to teach them at a young age how to be responsible and safe with the tools is amazing. The kids learned how to be safe while using the tools to the point of trust and belief of all the other kids as well as the teacher. This will be a valuable lesson later on in life as they get older. This video got me thinking of some of the things I learned through tinkering.

As a kid growing up my Dad would let me help him out with different things, from helping on the farm to building things. I learned how to drive a tractor when I was eight years old, just from riding with him, he even let me help plow a field once. I learned how to drive, and even operate, everything on a Combine just from sitting in it when I got bored and reading the buttons. As a young boy when the grocery store opened up in the early morning, my Dad let me drive the Skid Steer there to get some groceries while he worked. I learned how to drive that by sitting in his lap and tinkering around with things. When I was about ten years old I learned how to drive a pickup truck with a manual transmition from tinkering and this phrase my Dad used, "Well u better figure it out", because the dry cows at the other barn down the road a ways needed to be fed, and it was my new choir because he was to busy in the morning. I learned by tinkering around with it. The best part is, I didn't know how to dim the lights because it was an old truck and the dimmer button was on the floor board by the petals. So when ever a car came, I just turned off the lights, till they passed.

I built many things out of wood, metal, and even brick. Just a few things I built out of wood are: Two gazebos, Three coffee tables, each having a midway shelf and various styles of etched glass tops, Two life size play houses that measure 6'x6'x4', for little children, a porch on the front and a deck on the back of my Dads ex-wifes house, and a T.V. entertainment center, which my Dad is actually using right now. A few things I built and welded out of metal are: Two spiral bird feeder hangers, an archway for my Grandmothers sidewalk that leads up to her house, for the vines to grow on, and some custom exhaust work for friends. For the brick work I built two brick fireplaces for some people in my community.

As I got older I tinkered with more complicated things. I've taken apart small motors on things like, lawn mowers, dirt bikes, four-wheelers, and a snowmobile. I cleaned them, and even got the required parts they needed in order to run again, put them all back together and they run like new. I can't take apart a car motor yet, but i can do a bit of work on them. I've worked on several friends cars to get them running, or just to fix what was wrong with it. I customized my own dual cold air intake on my truck, as well as installed and wired my own sound system, DVD player with a flip-out 7.5" tough screen, which has on XboX hooked up to it, a navigation system that is wired straight to my ignition, so I don't have to plug and unplug it all the time, it comes on and off with my ignition. I have successfully disassembled, cleaned and reassembled multiple laptops, that still work to this day.

So basically to sum it all up, I learned a great deal, and developed many new talents, just by tinkering around with things. I hope everyone who reads this blog finds it interesting, and as well learns something from it.