| Kid Spark kits help students design creative engineering solutions to real-world problems while experimenting with simple machines. 1. The Kid Spark blocks can be combined to demonstrate mechanical principles. |
Teachers looking for new approaches to teaching engineering principles in their classroom face a difficult decision between different types of learning tools. Common recyclable materials are easy to source but it’s often difficult for them to demonstrate any mathematical relationships between simple machines if none of those parts match precisely. On the other hand, precision engineered kits are often too specific to be used to demonstrate a wide variety of design principles. The Kid Spark building kits provide a solution to this by combining reusability, mathematical precision, and ease of use in building blocks that are as appealing for students as they are to teachers. The Kid Spark kits provide a more progressive approach to STEM—from counting blocks up to programming autonomous robots!
Kid Spark blocks are precisely manufactured to match a metric grid with their basic blue blocks measuring 10 cubic centimeters. Following this basic block, all the other blocks included within the Kid Spark libraries can function. Blocks connect using snapping interfaces—one side is a pyramid that will snap into any open face of their block. By combining blocks that have unique properties, children will get to create surprisingly complex mechanical shapes. This kind of cross-curricular use is what the creators of Kid Spark strived for with their curriculum offerings.
While Kid Spark offers many various opportunities for starting a mobile STEM lab, the curriculum focuses on two kits in particular: the ROK Blocks kit and their entry-level Engineering Pathways kit. Using these two kits, teachers are able to take advantage of a full suite of curriculum available online. Each curriculum block focuses on a specific age group and desired skill set they should acquire after working through it. The ROK Blocks curriculum kits are suited for children from Pre-K and up and the Engineering Pathways kit expands upon these foundations with curriculum suited for students in grades 3-8.
The ROK Blocks Mobile STEM Lab contains over 300 blocks for kids to begin building with. On the simpler side are your connector blocks—each different color type has a different size and connection strength. The blocks, while simple, offer kids this easy introduction to learning the metric system, addition, multiplication, and basic geometry.
Getting comfortable with these blocks often compels children to utilize more complex block patterns when designing structures in the classroom. That Kid Spark curriculum guides early elementary students through the design cycle and exposes them to challenges that teach them more about and test their uses of simple machines. More advanced block types include blocks that have spinning centers and blocks that combine to form arches. The blocks are very much reusable and educators can replace any parts that break or kids lose through their website.
The Engineering Pathways Mobile STEM Lab adds power to the Kid Spark experience, introducing children to mechanisms and robotics components. It comes with an even larger variety of parts, which help expand the range of motion for student creations. This kit comes with gears to transfer rotational energy, pulleys to explore gravitational force, and lessons devoted to each. And, another highlight of this pack is the remote-controlled, programmable robotic body that fully integrates with other Kid Spark blocks.
By adding sensors and using Kid Spark’s coding application, ROKduino, your robot core brings the gears and pulleys to life. The alternate usage mode, with a remote controller, helps children turn the Engineering Pathways lab into a storytelling tool. By building vehicles with sensors and driving them around, students can test the limits of this vehicle and add autonomy. Programming makes up the vast majority of the Kid Spark curriculum targeted at older students and it's essential to using the Engineering Pathways Mobile STEM Lab to its full potential.
If you’re not planning on actually teaching robotics as a subject or planning to concentrate on mechanical engineering, you might consider replacing the Engineering Pathways kit with their Young Engineers Mobile STEM Lab. This kit doesn’t include its programmable robot core but has more options for exploring simple machines and motorized solutions.
These mobile STEM labs have everything you need to illuminate engineering and robotics concepts at the elementary and middle school levels, but the real star of the show is the fully tailored curriculum and other online content available for educators. This content focuses on building foundational educational skills for children and enhancing the use of ROKduino. ROKduino works on Windows and macOS computers after downloading the application on their website. It features both block-based and text programming.
The sensor array packaged with the Engineering Pathways kit includes two light sensors, a “bump” sensor, a distance sensor, an angle sensor, and an IR receiver. The curriculum helps students experience each one of the sensors, so that they can start including them in any creations. Cleanup is also easy thanks to those color coded blocks and that modular nature of the included storage crates. Everything will then snap back into place easily when the class is complete.
All in all, the Kid Spark STEM Labs offer a versatile package for instructors who want materials that evolve in complexity as their students mature. There are now four unique kits available on our store. To learn more about Kid Spark and the other STEM tools on our store, check out more of our blog and be sure you follow us on Twitter and Instagram if you have not already!