When parents find out that their child has a strong interest and aptitude for STEM-based knowledge and activities, it can be an exciting time. Perhaps that parents begin to imagine their child gaining more knowledge and competence at STEM fields such as robotics, and eventually being recognised as a visionary or a genius.
With this excitement in mind, parents will likely encourage their child to pursue their interests and indulge their aptitude. Though this encouragement is a good thing, it must be done with care; too much supervision can lead to feelings of pressure and a loss of interest, while too little supervision might slow down the child’s learning progress. As parents and educators, how can we find the perfect balance?
This article will explore 4 tips to make lego robotics fun and educational. With this balance of enjoyment and learning, your kids will be more likely to stay the course in their exploration of STEM studies, and ultimately reach their full potential.
Even if a child has previously shown an aptitude towards STEM topics such as coding and robotics, simply giving them the tools to create their own inventions and leaving it at that can be a hit-or-miss approach. While some children may be able to proceed from this point due to sheer initiative or a highly creative spirit, others might benefit from having a stated goal in mind for their robotics projects.
This goal need not be something complicated, abstract, or revolutionary. It can be as simple as “I want to make something that helps people” or even “I want to make something that will be fun for me to play with”. In these case studies of cool inventions by children using robotics programming, inventions include devices that help visually impaired people, increase the utility of existing things such as camera phones, or even serve as rudimentary prosthetic limbs.
Encouraging kids to have a simple goal in mind when starting their robotics projects will not only provide them with a basis for how to start, but also paves the way for them to start thinking about how robotics can be used to make life better and more enjoyable for everyone.
While you might have high hopes for your child – a perfectly natural approach for the parents of a budding genius – it’s important to start their journey into STEM in a gradual and measured manner. It’s important to avoid a situation in which your child feels too much pressure to perform or to create big, complex projects without a foundation to start with. In a worst-case scenario, this undue pressure might even cause your child to abandon their robotics and coding projects, or even quit this interest altogether.
To avoid this scenario, it’s best to give kids the tools they need for the projects, while also providing guidance and opportunities to earn small wins that help boost their confidence and excitement to continue with their passion.
Having kids participate in structured robotics classes can help them start their STEM journey in a small way, while also aiming for larger goals in the future. These courses are designed to teach age-appropriate coding and robotics subjects as well as foster 21st century skills such as critical thinking and collaboration, all in a gradual and guided manner.
One way by which parents and educators can gently challenge their young STEM geniuses is to play around with adding or removing restrictions. For example, kids can be encouraged to try and create or program inventions using only specific tools or programs.
To illustrate, one fifteen-year-old was able to create a robotic rig that can control the panning and tilting movements of a Lumia 928 Windows phone, using only a Lego Mindstorms Nxt kit.
We can take a similar approach by gently challenging gifted children to come up with something using only particular building materials, methods, or programming languages. These mild restrictions can help them develop creativity in problem-solving and working around limitations.
On the other side of things, if we’d like to give our kids a break and let them have some fun, or fully unleash their creative powers, we can also give them free reign to all available resources, tools, and materials. With every possible resource at their fingertips, who knows what wonders they could come up with?
Our final tip, which summarises all the previous ones, is to create a balance between structure and play as we guide our kids through their STEM learning journey.
Throughout the entire process of encouraging them to develop their coding and robotics talents, we need to be careful not to push them too hard, nor slacken the guidance we give them. And of course, we should never discourage them from enjoying what they do and feeling the simple fun of working on their projects.
As we noted earlier, one of the best ways to achieve this is to enrol kids in a robotics course that strikes the perfect balance between a structured and guided learning environment, and a space for kids to freely play, explore, and develop their natural talents.
STEM Genius is a group of passionate educators whose mission in life is to bring STEM education to kids, and help them grow and develop into their maximum potential. With our courses, kids will have access to an immersive learning experience and environment that teaches them STEM skills, as well as improve their computational thinking, their base knowledge of science and technology, and their presentation skills.
Kids can start with our special one-day introductory class for coding and robotics, which offers lessons on the basics and fundamentals of programming. As early as this first day, kids can start to learn how to create simple animations using Scratch programming.
Still not sure about enrolling your child in a STEM Genius course? Find out why your kids would enjoy a robotics class. You can also learn more about the benefits of coding classes, or more reasons to take your kids for STEM classes in general.
Enrol your child in STEM courses now, and watch them grow in skill and education, until they’re ready to take on the world!
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