Creative Life Foundation Outreach
Stormgears has started outreach with the Creative Life Foundation in Thailand, and have been coordinating STEAM activities for 6-10 year olds to complete once a month. We have sent them two snap circuits, an Edison robot, as well as two Lego kits. Since September, we have virtually met with a teen lead in Thailand, John, and given him various STEAM activities to complete with a group of kids there. These range from team building activities like stacking cups with string and the blanket challenge, to more creative activities like the robotic hand activity and learning with the Edison robot.
In January, we sent a box of materials over to Thailand for certain activities, this included Artbot, Bristlebot, and lemon battery materials.
First, we started off with the Robotic Hand Activity, where kids could develop a basic understanding of how our hands work by making a model. Another activity we coordinated was making gears out of cardboard. This lesson gave the kids an opportunity to learn about simple gear trains. Using the Edison, they were also able to experiment with a real robot and see what they are capable of doing with the Edison mat.
Our Team has also been supplying these kids with various team building challenges. The cup-stacking challenge may be difficult, but a lot of fun. The challenge was to stack cups in a pyramid, however, they could only do it using string and a rubber band. An additional activity was Teach A Robot. In this lesson, one volunteer had to pretend to be a robot, and follow the instructions given from the kids–this showed them how specific code needs to be in order for a robot to understand it.
Overall, Stormgears has enjoyed this opportunity to spread STEAM internationally, and we look forward to what the future brings with these bright kids!