Category: cool tech for kids

June 24, 2014

Kids and 3D printing roundup

A few items across the desk lately:

Printeer, a 3D printer for kids

Currently a kickstarter campaign is underway for the Printeer, a 3D printer with name, looks, and ipad app to appeal to kids. The company sees schools as their primary market and have already worked with California elementary schools.

Google launches Made with Code to make STEM more attractive to girls

Made with Code is aimed at 13+ girls and gives them an easy way to code/create a 3D bracelet that Made with Code then prints and sends them (for free). Girls (or boys, one would think) use Blockly programming language to set the width, diameter, color, and message of the bracelet.

15 year old to start business recycling 3D print filament

Also tied to a potential kickstarter campaign, teenager Grayson Galisky wants to start a business recycling the plastic resin used in 3D printers (via 3Dprint). Research shows that waste plastic is a good source material for 3D print filament (the “ink” of the 3D printer) because it takes less energy than fully recycling the plastic into new products.

Common sense suggests that the “kid wonder” stories we’ve read about youngsters developing apps or online businesses is set to be repeated with kids’ businesses around 3D printing.

First Scottish library gets 3D printer to engage children

Dundee library central library is using their 3D printer to engage children and special needs audiences. The library is currently printing out characters from Carla Diana’s book Leo the Maker Prince, which are used in storytelling sessions.

From left: Susan Gerrard, co-facilitator James Keegans, Donna Sorie, Margaret McKay, group facilitator Nicky Welch and Grahame Lapham with the book and characters created using the 3D printer at Central Library. Photo DC Thomson from The Courier

This library story supports the case we made in previous blog post “5 ways to get little hands on STEM kit without buying it.”

What are your experiences of kids and 3D printing? Let us know in the comments. We have a 3D printing title in the works!

If you find these posts interesting, sign up for our every-other-month newsletter at the bottom of this page.

June 18, 2014

Science in a box for kids

Appleseed Lane produces subscription boxes that contain science projects to do at home

Have you ever read about a project you want to do with kids– but find you don’t have the right materials on hand? Or maybe you have a vague sense that you could be doing more to engage kids in hands-on, home learning in science and technology, but you’re not quite sure where to begin.

These problems are solved by a subscription box service offered by Appleseed Lane, as reported by CoolTechMom.

The two educators who develop the kits make sure the content aligns to national sicence education standards and the projects are completely kid-friendly (recommended for ages 4-8).

If you’ve tried these boxes, give us your feedback in the comments.

June 5, 2014

It’s small, cute, and kid-programmable

It’s Mirobot, a small, wifi robot designed to be assembled and programmed by kids. Ben Pirt got the idea on a visit to the Science Museum in London with his family. There he re-encountered a turtle robot from the 1970s and decided it was time for an update.

here’s Mirobot equipped with a pen for drawing

Pirt recently ran a wildly successful kickstarter campaign, so expect these kits–aimed at ages 8 and above– to be on the market soon.

April 4, 2014

Learning Playgrounds

Unusual playgrounds, or playscapes, show how design can help us create unexpected learning environments in playgrounds. You can’t look at these two places without thinking of the issues that Hanna Rosin brings up in her Atlantic article, “The Overprotected Kid.”

Rosin chronicles how in the 1970s, a few accidents and other media-hyped incidents led to a gradual homogenization of playground and even, to a degree, supervised childhood.

Let’s hope playgrounds like these that emphasize experimentation and alternative thinking will support an arts-influenced experience that draws out elements of science, technology, engineering, and math.

Wikado Foundation playground, the Netherlands
A playground made of recycled wind turbines by Superuse Studios.

kids gain a sense of scale and experience the aerodynamic shape of the blades (both inside and out).

Rainbow Net playground, Hakone Sculpture Park, Japan

This crocheted playground by Japanese artist Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam helps kids see tensile (stetchy) material as structural and illustrates geometry (not to mention color!). Turns out crochet is one of the best ways to model a hyperbolic shape (according to the Girls Collaborative Project, who crochet coral reef models, and Sara Kuhn who crochets amazing hyberbolic planes).

We should also leave so room for the not overprotected kid, as shown in Rosin’s pictures from “The Land” were kids play happily unsupervised in an area containing a wealth of “source material” that kids engineer into play structures and spaces of their own.

For more inspiring playgrounds have a look over on Playscapes blog by Paige Johnson and check out this Arch Daily article on “Forming Playscapes: What Schools Can Learn from Playgrounds.”

If you liked this post, join our list and pass the word!