Understanding 3D printing, its benefits, and its uses are critical pieces of 21st century STEAM learning, which is why, at the Eduporium office, we have begun researching and stocking the best 3D printers on the market today. Take a look at one of the best starter 3D printers in the MOD-t from New Matter.
Finding a simple robot arm that is affordable but still complete enough so that more than one could be used in the classroom might seem tough. After a large number of requests rolled in, Bentz sought funding for a fleet of equipment with which to produce his affordable, 3D-printed robotic arms. Thus, the LittleArm was born.
Here at Eduporium, we have been lucky enough to acquire our very own version of one of the most advanced robots in the world—a little bot called NAO. NAO is about two feet tall and voice activated. We’ve had it around the office for a little while now, and although we’ve seen a little of what NAO is capable of, we were eager to dive in and see some more.
COJI is a small robot designed to teach the ideas of coding to children as young as four years old by using Emoji-based commands. The idea behind this language is that faces and images are easy to understand for young children. The display screen that makes up COJI’s face depicts one emoji and the emoji-based coding language is pretty fun.
Puzzlets is a unique product designed to introduce the youngest students to problem solving and inspire curiosity through technology. The Puzzlets themselves come in a kit that connects to a Bluetooth-enabled device and create the conditions for an unusual kind of play: an interactive video game controlled by a group of physical toys.
Thames and Kosmos makes and distributes over 100 hands-on science kits designed to engage students in high-quliaty STEM learning with real-life experiemnts. For today’s Eduporium Experiment, I looked at one kit in particular: The Robotics Smart Machines set—a 230-piece toolbox designed to teach the basics of engineering and robotics to kids.
The Raspberry Pi is a tool that I’ve become very aware of since I started working here at Eduporium: there’s one in the entryway of our office running a slideshow with company announcements and events. It’s one of the first products we show off to visitors, interviewees, and people joining our team and it is one of our most adaptable products.
Generally, when maker-minded teachers and learners hear ‘Arduino,’ they tend to think of high-level devices you build yourself, write the code for and then program it to execute whatever function it is designed to complete. If you’ve heard of littleBits, however, you know that these electronic building blocks define simplicity.
Thinking about the hottest and most useful skills that today’s students will, more than likely, need to know, the first thing that always comes to my mind is coding. Coding is everywhere in the workforce in 2016. For students in first and second grade now, however, coding will be in even more places than everywhere by the time they’re ready for job hunting.
We’re guessing you’re already familiar with both littleBits and the Makey Makey, but, if you’re not, you can learn a bit about them by exploring our blog and store. Basically, littleBits are electronic building blocks that each have their own specific function and allow kids to build inventions with purpose. Read on to learn more about it.
