It’s quite remarkable how much creativity one can muster when presented an unexpected surplus of free time and boredom. We’ve got stunt actors orchestrating jaw-dropping action sequences without going near each other. We’ve got sports commentators giving play-by-plays of their girlfriends’ hangovers.

And over here we have Matthew Cosman, the man who built, nay, manifested his kids a 48-foot jungle gym that looks like a dinosaur. And this was no accident.

“I really did this and shared it for fun,” Cosman, aka thecauseman, explained in a recent Imgur post that laid out his building process step by step.

“I fabricate for a living because it’s my passion—I make fun things for me because no one will pay me to build these crazy things. I do have a history in aerospace engineering, so that played a big role here.”

From the 24,000 pounds of concrete in its foundation to the 3D glow-in-the-dark rope clamps, this DIY project proved to be quite the undertaking. Building your garden variety jungle gym is tough as it is. We can’t imagine the “is also a brontosaur” caveat makes it any easier.

Here’s how Matthew did it:

Shaped the dinosaur with some structural steel, wood, foam, and chicken wire.

“My bro, he was the largest chunk of help getting this done.”

He then got to the structural reinforcement, sparing now expense on Kevlar. “Lots of carbon integrated into the fiberglass/epoxy construction.”

Paint time!

“I did have to hire a crane to get it into place from my shop.”

Some obligatory handprints.

Metal tube time!

Next, some precautionary rubber chips.

Sick.

The slide. Holy hell that is big.

Beautiful finish.

“Getting close to done”

The aforementioned 3D printed glow-in-the-dark rope clamps.

Bad ass.

Just a quick dad test…

…and voila! Your dinosaur-shaped jungle gym is finished.

The inaugural swing sesh.

Dark mode.

This is far and away one of the most impressive DIY projects we’ve ever seen. We commend Matthew for using his hard work and ingenuity to make his youngsters’ quarantine just a tad more fun and special.

“Thank you for checking out my weird stuff I do for my kids,” he concluded.

The coronavirus has taken something from everyone. Even for those who are in good health, it’s disrupted and changed daily lives in ways we are still unpacking. Even the small indignities can have big effects on kids, such as missing graduation, a prom, a birthday party, or even the last three months with a beloved first-grade teacher. And for plenty of families, a missed vacation is part of the equation.

Obviously not equivalent to having a family member or friend struggling with the virus, but it’s still a bummer to see your kid’s heartbroken at the cancellation of a long-awaited trip to Disneyland. That was what one Utah family was experiencing. So their dad decided if they couldn’t go to Disneyland, they would bring Disneyland to the living room. All he needed was the library of virtual Disney rides on YouTube and a little dad-ingenuity.

In a video shared by their mom, the dad is shown with his five-year-old son on his lap, as they watch a POV video from Splash Mountain. He’s got his kid in an empty diaper box that he’s moving around along with the ride and even adds authentic home-made splash effects throughout.

When you can’t go to Disneyland…thanks for the idea Reddit! from r/Disneyland

This is where we’re at after only a few weeks into life under pseudo house arrest. For now, we can turn our living rooms into theme parks. If this lasts into the fall, we can kick off the NFL season in our basements, ruthlessly bowling over toddlers on your way to a badass touchdown.

Everyone is going to cope with changes in their own way, so if some dads are going to kick that creativity up a notch, more power to them. And maybe we learn we don’t really need Disneyland because the real Disney was in our hearts the entire time.

And that’s the lie we’ll all tell ourselves until this mess is over.

Here at The Dad, we hope you, your families, and communities stay safe and healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic. For the latest information, please utilize online resources from local public health departments, the Centers for Disease Control, and the World Health Organization to remain as informed as possible.

Gone are the days of boring old wooden TV cabinets, or hanging your TV on a bare wall. The custom route seems like the new way to go, and the results are actually pretty awesome! First seen late 2019 by a Nintendo fan who goes by Suprman9 in his aptly named “Nerdvana“, this Nintendo Switch TV frame quickly went viral, and for good reason…

Since then, many others have built their own iterations of the frame, including one of our very own dads over at The Dad Gaming. Todd Peterson wrote in his post “My son loves his Switch. I love my son. This is the result.”

Todd actually took it a step further from any of the versions I saw, including Suprman9’s original, and added shelving inside hinged Joy-Cons for storing games!

We reached out to Todd to find out a bit more about how his project came together. The nuts and bolts of it are basically 2x6s, plywood, and wood circles from a hobby store. “Basically I just measured my switch, meticulously, and used a factor of 6.75 to ‘expand’ everything so the switch screen became a 42″ TV,” he told us.

Well done, Todd! It looks like yet another project I’ll have to convince my wife I need should do for our kid…

There’s a detailed write-up about the process of building one of these badboys here.

Few things can truly bring together a dad and his kids like video games. Playing video games with your daughter can even be healthy for her. And one gamer dad recently went viral for the extra effort he took to make sure his daughter could experience the joys gaming has brought to many.

Rory Steel’s 9-year-old daughter has hereditary spastic paraplegia, which affects her motor function and speech. That makes it pretty hard to manipulate a video game controller. So her dad tracked down some parts to create a custom controller for her Nintendo Switch, so she could play Zelda just like all of her friends.

Steel’s controller has the vintage Nintendo look and can hook up to an adaptive Xbox controller. Featuring dual joysticks and easy to punch buttons, the entire concoction was completed for less than $200.

This weekends project. Make a @Nintendo #switch accessibility controller for my daughter using @Microsoft #adaptiveController and some @eBay parts. pic.twitter.com/YHN38SG9dZ

— Rory Steel (@JerseyITGuy) January 18, 2020

Her reaction is more than worth it:

Finished! Ava gives my homemade #accessibility controller V1.0 the thumbs up. She can play @Nintendo #BreathoftheWild on her #switch like her friends now. All thanks to @Microsoft 🙌 #adaptiveController #XAC @brycej @ArranDyslexia @shanselman pic.twitter.com/dOhGnUFZa0

— Rory Steel (@JerseyITGuy) January 19, 2020

Her joy at being able to play has racked up more than a million views and has earned Rory plenty of admirers in the process, including Microsoft’s inclusive devices lead.

The plan sounds good. You can also bring in 8 buttons with each USB port, I’m assuming those boards will let you plug in buttons. Let me know if you have questions. https://t.co/NK6IrfgOWQ

— Bryce Johnson (@brycej) January 18, 2020

Rory isn’t going to hoard his design, either. He’s continued to improve on it and share the DIY instructions so other parents of disabled kids can help their kids get in the game.

Full walkthrough of V2.0 https://t.co/OkxIoWWtaJ. Teaser trailer here but click, like & subscribe Ava’s channel for the full video & future #disability #accessibility gaming & tech reviews. Thanks to @Microsoft #adaptiveController #XAC @brycej @ArranDyslexia @shanselman @XboxP3 pic.twitter.com/dtio5TI7Sc

— Rory Steel (@JerseyITGuy) February 2, 2020

To get more of your gaming fix, join The Dad Gaming group on Facebook. It’s one of the most robust, and supportive, gaming groups online, so come play with us.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens are great and all but there’s a serious lack of “Smoke-breathing Godzilla-shaped Christmas trees” on Maria’s favorite things list.

Now, before you question my judgment, take a look at Steven Newland’s Christmas creation for yourself. Last year, the New Zealand floatplane pilot (and new dad) strayed a bit from your typical Douglas fir and spruce trees in favor of the less-traditional kaiju variety.

“I got the idea from my 4-year-old nephew who loves dinosaurs,” Steven told Bored Panda. “I thought I could do a dinosaur tree, but why stop there?  If it could also breathe smoke, it would make it amazing!”

This gnarly Treezilla was made using only a handful of easy-to-find items: Ten meters of chicken wire, a weedmat, plastic teeth, paper claws, Christmas lights, and four different fir trees. Of course, the remote-controlled fog machine he installed in the head was the proverbial cherry on top.

Standing nearly six-feet-tall, the plant monster isn’t quite on par with the actual Godzilla, but he easily towers over any bewildered child.

Plus, this one is way more festive with his adorable Santa hat and Christmas light-covered body.

After it spent about a year in storage, Steven decided to auction the beast off on TradeMe for 415 New Zealand dollars (roughly $274 USD) and donated everything above his initial $250 price point to CanTeen – an Australian children’s charity that supports young people with cancer.

This isn’t the first crazy Christmas tree he’s created, though, and it definitely won’t be the last. “This year’s tree is still under wraps (excuse the pun). I can tell you that it involves 5 meters of chain, a beer crate, and I had to buy a ceiling fan…

“Also, remember all of the trees I’ve made in the past—I didn’t have children,” continues Newland. “Now that I do, I can go over the top, and I have a prop!”

Past non-traditional trees have included:

A pixilated Pac-Man Tree

And a topsy-turvy Portal Tree

“My favorite project was the PacMan tree,” Newland recounted. “Mainly because of the logistics of building it and working through the maze of all the lights. I can’t remember how many, but it was in the hundreds.”

Do you have a Christmas tree design that can compete with Steven’s?

A major part of being a parent is making sure your kids appreciate the things you loved growing up. Few things hurt more than your kid yawning during an iconic moment in Star Wars or asking to play Minecraft when you’re teaching them how to use the warp tubes in Super Mario Bros.

Fortunately, Back to the Future superfan James Napier has never had a problem getting his kids to share in his excitement for his favorite movie franchise, in no small part due to his DeLorean, which has been immaculately restored to resemble Doc’s time machine from the 1985 classic.

“I take it out on weekends and I drop my kids off at school or football sometimes. They like it and their friends find it quite amusing!” says Napier. “You see other people’s jaws drop when we drive past. The family adores it—although my wife Emma probably doesn’t want to know how much it has cost me in total to restore!

“We drive it everywhere we go—you’ve got to make the most of it.”

Folks in the area can’t seem to get enough of the stainless steel coupe, especially since there’s reportedly only one other like it in the U.K. Napier’s youngest daughter, Daisy, says she loves when people honk their horn as they drive past.

“It’s really cool. Dad is probably a bit crazy to build something like that!” the 8-year-old reports.

It took time, money, and a lot of elbow grease to get the vehicle to the pristine condition it’s in today. When Napier bought it for £55,000, someone had already tried to convert it into the iconic time machine but with really shoddy workmanship.

“It was quite run down. It needed a lot of work,” says Napier. “Somebody had tried to make it into a Back to the Future car—but it was really quite bad! The car was an absolute mess. I was completely nuts.

“I thought maybe I could salvage some of it, but in the end, I needed to get rid of everything and start from scratch,” he added. “I probably spent around 1,200 hours working on the car and it was quite expensive to do. It was a seven days a week job.

“It might have took a while, but it’s definitely worth it.”

He says the project cost approximately £80,000 from start to finish.

Now, Napier drives the art piece in charity events around the U.K. and is always happy to indulge people who want a photo op. He even added all the bells and whistles to give it the same flair as the DeLorean from the films.

“In the film, you see white plumes of smoke and that’s done by fire extinguishers in the film,” he continued. “We’ve done something similar—we’ve used CO2 fire extinguishers with a remote control.

“We have a smoke machine inside the car too so when you open the doors smoke comes out so it’s like you’ve traveled in time. A lot of the props inside makes the exact same noises. We’ve got the iconic car doors and lights too.”

It’s been a long road to get Napier’s DeLorean up and running to such exact specifications, but with the machine they have now, they don’t need roads.

Decking your kids out like legitimate Star Wars characters for Halloween is already a primo dad move, but do you know what would really solidify those costumes? How about a functional starship?!

Okay, “starship” might be a bit of a stretch, but a driveable Millennium Falcon replica is ridiculously cool nonetheless.

Cincinnati dad Sean Lehmkuhl has been a vintage Star Wars toy collector for over 20 years, and when his sons decided to dress as Han Solo and Chewbacca for Halloween, he decided to complete the look with the infamous YT-1300 freighter based on his toy from 1977.

“This is the fourth year in a row I have built a mobile costume for them to travel with,” Lehmkuhl said. “My kids love it! I’ve always enjoyed creating things and to have my kids enjoy it with memories they will never forget makes it worth it.”

You can see how he retrofitted a driveable version of Luke’s X-34 landspeeder with the various sections of Han Solo’s signature ship for the completely new look (something that clearly wouldn’t work in reality… you know, if Star Wars was real).

Lehmkuhl says his version of the Falcon took him about a month to complete during his spare time.

No word yet if he’s willing to make another one that can fit the 30-year-old writing this piece.

For some dads, “DIY” is synonymous with a hospital visit. Other dads, however, have the foresight and know-how to create something truly special for their family to enjoy.

One such dad, Reddit user BrooklynEWD, spent a ton of his free time designing and constructing this futuristic spaceship loft bed for his son and, I’m not going to lie… I want one.

This Brooklyn dad shared the entire build on Imgur where he detailed every single step of the project (which also happened to be his first DIY build ever). Starting with the 3D modeling software called SketchUp, Dad created a working model of the bed, having to make sure every little piece would be accounted for and fit correctly.

“This was easily the most labor intensive part of the whole process,” he explained.

Once the designs for the spaceship bed were complete, Dad decided to custom model a chair for his son. Sure, a simple rolling chair might have sufficed but there was a method to all this madness.

“I went to the extra trouble so my son could go to the shop with me and watch the CNC machine cut the chair from a piece of 1/2″ birch ply, then he could fit it together to make the chair himself,” Dad wrote on Imgur. “I want him to see that we can make things ourselves, and that not everything has to come from a store.”

If that sentence doesn’t make your dad senses tingle, nothing will.

Next, it was construction time. Building a simple bed frame out of 2x4s and deck hangers might seem a little excessive, but as this Dad put it: “…it’s a bed for a kid, so safety first… and there’s no way that I’m going to build something that the whole family can’t pile on top of for story time.”

When it came time to sand and prime, Dad began to feel the pressure building.

“The clock was ticking,” he wrote. “My family was out of town for the week so I worked on this every evening for 7 days to complete it.”

In a genius move, Dad decided on leaving a large space under the bed unpainted. It saved him time and it left an opportunity for a future project in which he could include his son.

“It’s important to me that he make the space his own (when he’s ready),” he wrote. “And this seemed like a great way to facilitate that.”

The true highlight though is obviously the badass control center underneath the bed.

“I asked myself what I would want if I were 4 years old, and this control panel was my answer,” Dad wrote.

With an iPad for a screen, LED Christmas lights, and a bevy of knobs and switches with labels from both NASA and Star Wars, it’s any sci-fi nerd’s dream. Of course, it all comes at a price.

“It definitely cost more than I had hoped,” he admitted. “The final price for all materials was somewhere around $800, but the vendors’ labor almost doubled that. It was less than that $4000 ‘Star Wars bed’ from pottery barn kids, so I feel like I won.”

From the awestruck look on his son’s face, there’s little doubt it was a winner.

Interested in a more in-depth overview and more photos from this project? Check out the entire Imgur post here.

After spending thousands of dollars on new flooring for their home, Paul Lanzarotti and his partner Tracy McCreary were pretty pleased with the results. That is until the Italian laminate floor they had picked out began to shrink, due in large part to the underfloor heating system they had installed. The couple was now left with a floor that squeaked with each and every step.

While the two put up with the noisy nuisance for a while, once they welcomed their new daughter Sienna into their home, the once inconvenient little squeaks became a much more serious issue. That’s because each time they’d put Sienna down to sleep, their exit and subsequent movements around the house would inevitably wake her from her slumber.

“It was incredibly infuriating,” Lanzarotti admitted. “We were exhausted and it was a nightmare. Our house wasn’t fun to live in anymore.” The couple spent their alone time in ninja like silence, but it was still no match for the creaking boards that were installed throughout their home. Lanzarotti said flooring experts told him the only fix would be to tear up their pricey purchase and reinstall it completely, a cost anyone would find hard to swallow, let alone a new parent.

Tired and desperately seeking a solution, Lanzarotti got to work. After searching the web for hours, the frustrated father finally came across something that just might work. He learned the noise was being caused by friction between the boards. He began looking for a solution that would lubricate the tight joints and relieve his sleepless nights, eventually landing on a compound commonly found in Teflon pans. After a bit more research, the dad was ready with a solution, contacting a chemical company to manufacture his new spray into a consumer product he called “Stop Creak”.

After getting the first batch and testing it out, Lanzarotti was floored. “I tested it at home and just couldn’t believe the result. I sprayed it in Sienna’s room first and the floor was immediately silenced,” said Lanzarotti, adding that “Eight months later, it is still silent.”

Pleased with his own results, the dad decided to officially market his new invention in the hope that others could benefit from his savvy squeak solution. So Lanzarotti designed some product labels and initially started selling the product on eBay, eventually developing his own e-commerce site to market the product. While sales were slow at first, the patriarchal pioneer is expecting sales to hit $100k by the end of the year. “It started out as a side project just because we really needed a good night’s sleep,” said Lanzarotti. “But now I’m just really happy to be helping other people.”

If you or someone you know had been losing sleep over their floorboards, head-on over to stopcreak.com and grab a can of Paul’s silence solution.

Few things are better as a kid than having a neighbor with a great yard to play in. Everyone loved the one kid on our street that had a perfect, wide-open backyard for football. We all flocked to another neighbor’s house because he allowed us to put real bases in his yard for more authentic gameplay.

But when it comes to backyard sports, one Ohio dad has changed the game.

Jason Kidd thought nothing of it when son first asked him to build the field. We all know almost every demand from a 5-year-old is irrational and impulsive and then quickly forgotten. But the idea grew on Kidd, who is a longtime Cleveland Indians fan and he eventually decided to “go the distance.” He started removing trees, reworking the yard and ended up sinking $30,000 into the project. And that doesn’t include the foul poles and lighting installations that are still in the works. He did it in the name America’s pastime and that fact has helped “ease his pain.”

“Probably not the best financial decision, but that’s okay, it’s baseball,” Kidd told WKYC Channel 3.

The field has cost him about $30,000 to build. https://t.co/oOFJ0BmZQ9

— Fox Sports 620 (@FoxSports620) July 9, 2019

He said his son was thrilled when he saw the field. Phew! Also, knowing 5-year-olds, this should go pretty far in making him the most popular kid in the neighborhood. Because if creating a baseball field on our property has taught us all one thing it’s: “if you build it, they will come.”

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This is what happens when you try to play a song over and over again… it becomes illegal.

It can be extremely reassuring to know celebrities struggle with seemingly simple tasks just like the rest of us common folk. Whether it’s getting a parking ticket or just shopping for groceries, it’s nice to have occasional reminders that famous people are just… well… people.

Never has that been demonstrated quite so relatablly as in a recent video posted by GQ featuring actor and all around decent dude, Ryan Reynolds.

The new father shows that even rich, handsome and seemingly smart actors can still be knocked down a peg or two when it comes to assembling furniture from IKEA. After confidently dumping out the pieces to his brand new Hensvik baby crib, the Deadpool star takes inventory of what we all know will be the next several hours of his life. Don’t worry though, as with every product they sell, IKEA includes a toll-free support line in case you have any issues.

Reynolds made the call. “I think the biggest issue I’m having right now is that the crib didn’t come assembled.” 

He tried elaborating to help the support tech troubleshoot his specific issues. “Besides a slow decent into alcoholism, I’m just really having trouble finding all the screws and the pieces that go with it. I mean there’s gotta be over 100,000 pieces that came with it,” Reynolds confessed to the operator.

“Just wondering if there’s a representative or five that could come by and make this happen for me.”

After inevitably falling short on that request, Reynolds did what any red-blooded, American dad would do in the same situation: he cracked a beer and grabbed the duct tape. 

After carefully securing each corner with the magical, silver gift from god, Reynolds tossed a few couch cushions in the bottom and called it a day. As someone who has put together his fair share of modular furniture, I can honestly say I’ve ended up with much worse.

Although many pieces were left on the floor, chances are IKEA just accidentally put those in the box because this bad boy looks both safe and secure.

So next time you’re having problems securing a couple 101351’s into your side rails, just remember that even famous people feel dumber after a little DIY.

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You could say this Dad has been TRAINing for this moment his whole life.

[https://www.instagram.com/thejoelwillis]