Facebook targeted me a long time ago as the audience for Arduino courses. They were absolutely right, except that most of the courses were for teens. Then an ad popped up for an Arduino course for adults (16+) at MakeLab Yehud, ten weekly sessions. I signed up.

The first time I arrived there, I walked in and just stood there with my jaw hanging open. What a magical place. So many rooms, so much equipment! Anything I write won’t do it justice.
The biggest wow for me was that there’s absolutely no attitude of “What is this good for?” or “What will you do with it?” The answer “It’s cool” is enough, and honestly, even that isn’t required.
Everyone there is kind and just wants to help. If there’s a specific tool you want to use, you just need to coordinate so someone will be there to help you with it, and that’s it.
There are lots of workshops and courses there, definitely worth following.

After the Arduino course, with a lot of help from my classmates, I connected an Arduino and set up lighting effects for the symbiont project I made. The programming itself was done mainly with the help of AI.

A short time after the course, I came with my younger daughter to the Escape room workshop during the Passover “break” (there was already a “bridge” from Purim to Passover, “thanks” to Iran). I came as an accompanying parent, but in practice, as a fresh course graduate, I functioned as an assistant instructor. We enjoyed it very much (understatement).

Since then, I’ve also been to a short welding intro workshop, focused, practical, and fun. I came with a friend who signed up with me. Among the scrap metal pieces we practiced on, I found a triangle, and then another one… one thing led to another, and when the instructor realized I was missing a triangle, he immediately cut one for me (!) and I left with this ninja star (shuriken).

It was great fun. New Skill Unlocked.
Planning to sign up for the follow-up workshop too, once I settle on what I want to make.

I also signed up with my daughter, as an excuse, for a Toy-hacking workshop, a single session. There’s something very liberating about taking objects apart and putting them back together when there are no wrong answers, and whatever you make is good.

My daughter took apart a light-and-sound mechanism from a long-necked dinosaur (Brachiosaurus), and moved it into another cute dinosaur that had been professionally retrained from blowing bubbles.

She managed very well on her own, since her responsible adult was busy creating her very own abomination, some things just aren’t meant to exist.
Also: Sid, hold my beer. A horrific mashup of a dinosaur, wheels, doll-hands, a small penguin, mechanical spider arms, part of a helmet? and fur.

Honestly, I considered leaving it there, and thought I wouldn’t be allowed to bring it home, and yet… here it is next to me.
My apologies in advance.