STEM at Home: sparking engineering curiosity

Howard Canning, Professional Development Advisor at IMechE, has been enjoying the Institution's STEM at Home activities during the lockdown. We caught up with Howard's daughter to find out how his grandson has been finding the activities and the benefits for kickstarting an interest in STEM subjects in your children.

My six-year old son and I have thoroughly enjoyed doing some of the STEM at Home activities from IMechE. We have used the projects to form part of his home learning during the recent months. He has really enjoyed finding out about how things move and putting this knowledge into practice.

We have explored and experimented with the Ball Track, CD Racer, Cork Launcher, Catapult and Flying Dragon. The last project was such a success and this week we are planning to make the Lunar Rover to celebrate the NASA launch.

The activities were straightforward from beginning to end. I was able to order all of the components for the toolkit easily - with direct links from the IMechE website to an online shop. Many of the activities use things that we already have at home. The instructions are easy to follow and the additional (differentiated) information encourages wider discussion about the activities.

The videos are great, they are very clear and it is a big help being able to see each stage of the project in practice. In addition, having a visual reference for the instructions made it very easy for my son to understand and allowed him to take charge of the projects!

I really loved the fact that throughout the activities you are encouraged to make small changes to your projects to achieve the desired effect. This makes the STEM Toolkit very different from many children’s activities where you are expected to follow instructions to the letter and make an exact replica. Here the children are encouraged to think about the way their creation works and investigate the difference changes might make.

Through exploring these activities, my son is developing an understanding of how he can use scientific knowledge to adjust and manipulate a project. This new skill is allowing him to experiment with the outcome of a design and consider how it can be changed to create a desired effect.

I am so grateful that IMechE have made these activities available and have continued to add more activities throughout lock down. I am a primary school teacher and I will be recommending the STEM Toolkit to my colleagues.

Thank you IMechE: nothing moves without mechanical engineers, even if they are only six years old.