We are inspired by people who realize there is a need to convert the conversation around STEM into the more complete STEAM. Similar to the article STEM Needs A New Letter we see the opportunity to lowering the barriers due to affordable and easily accessible tools like electronics, robotics and coding, and rapid prototyping materials and hardware to not only revolutionize Design Technology and Art curriculums, but to do the same for all subject areas including Science, Math, Languages and more.

Below is a talk we gave on examples and the process we follow to introduce these skills to students.

This Friday the 11th our third installment of the Maker Toolset after school club at Tokyo International School will begin. The theme is create Rube Goldberg inventions.

Full disclosure: I didn’t know what a Rube Goldberg contraption was until that viral Ok Go! video, actually the TEDx talk that summarized the process.

I was, however, quite familiar with ピタゴラスイッチ (pitagorasuichi) an NHK kids program that includes many short sections and usually including 2 Rube Goldberg contraptions. Its katakana for Pythagoras’ Switch, the math legend who came up with A2+B2=C2, but I don’t know the history and why it’s called that. It was one of the first tv shows I saw when I moved to Japan. It was love at first sight. I’m pretty sure that ピタゴラスイッチ now means RG machine.

What I am looking forward to is connecting the new digital and the analogue. ピタゴラスイッチ will sometimes include some electrical devices…but I haven’t seen any with programming involved. It seems to me that with some programming you could create some more complex and precise movements…really adding to the visual aspect of the RG contraption.

Looking forward to this installment!

After wrapping up our first session of the Electronic Arcade Club, two things stick out in my mind.

The first was that having the last session before Game Day as an optional extended period. What a great idea. We saw a lot of progress that day combined with a lot of playing around. Playing around is great, and we don’t want to create a strict environment, but in a 1 hour session, it’s easy to lose a lot of time to play testing.

Second thing, was watching the amount of time each team would spend playing their own game and looking for a link to how it fared on Game Day. The winning team, Candy Inc, was giving away chocolate to players, something that really impressed me as they obviously thought about empathizing with their target audience, but definitely a lesson learned and something to mention next time as we want the games to popular for their own sake’s…I mean, who doesn’t love chocolate? The second place team spent a considerable amount of time playing their own game. This either tells us that it was in fact a well designed really fun game, or that all the play testing helped make it better, or both. Win-win.

Congratulations to Candy Inc team who’s game was nominated most popular by the G1 students. This team was also selected for the Best Designed Game award. While the other games where also in high demand during our “Play Test” sessions, this group of girls really found the sweet spot when attracting repeat players.

Thunderstormz team was selected for Best Multiplayer Game, Electronic Dragons team was selected for Best Game Rules, and The Raptors team was selected for Most Creative Game. We were so impressed to see how each team helped the other teams through collaboration on connecting electronics, cutting cardboard, feedback and lots of play testing.

It feels good to see these students drive and focus knowing that they are the next batch of inventors and innovators to decide solutions for all our futures. We look forward to seeing what creativity will spring from these young minds in future sessions.

Our debut of the Robotics and Coding Sessions leveraging the Scratch-like interface of Enchanting with the flexibility of the Lego Mindstorms robots was a great success. We’ve been amazed by what the G4-8 students created and the challenges they’ve set for themselves to overcome.

Well done to our participants, we’re looking forward to many more interesting Maker Toolset sessions with you. Let’s discover the more about of the applications of electronics, robotics, coding and 3D modeling to provide tactile learning and discover together.

Scratch is programming language designed for children at the MIT Media Lab. Check out this video and then visit scratch.mit.edu and get started creating your own interactive stories, games, music, and art.