Today I have a different sort of STEM learning. I picked up this kit oh..a couple years back on Amazon cause it looked interesting and thought the lad might be interested in it at some point. I got it at a great price too! 
Anyways, it’s made by TinkeringLabs.com… I call it “the gear box” but the official title is Tinkering Labs Electric Motors Catalyst STEM Kit.
It’s a series of challenges plus the gears, wood pieces, motor, and sundry pieces to make it all fit together. The inventor is not told HOW to do the challenge, just given the challenge to do.
My lad has been having a lot of fun with this kit. So far he’s made two of the challenges (each time making them as hard as possible). I let him fiddle away on his own unless he asks for help, and then I ask him questions without giving him any definitive answers. It’s great watching him figure out the challenges.
The box comes with a handy little book that if you wanted to you can look through for ideas on how to do builds, my son prefers not to look at this book though. He wants very much to make his own design. He currently is ONLY using what is supplied in the kit, but when I looked through builds on the TinkeringLabs site I noted children often completed challenges using other items. I think I will have him look at the site so he knows it’s okay to do so. The point is to be innovative and meet the challenge yes?
So far my lad has made two of the builds. He dislikes having to take them all apart when he is done, but he’s building and creating and learning how different combinations of gears and motors work together. Finessing the details is all it takes sometimes to make it work.
I don’t know if this kit will come on sale like it was when I picked it up a couple of years ago, but it’s worth keeping your eye on. 🙂 If you do pick it up, have fun with it. Watch your young engineers innovate!
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