Full STEAM ahead!

It’s late. I’ll not apologise for that title.

After rediscovering the missing Raspberry Pi SD cards (lets put their reappearance down to pixies) I was back on track to start the STEAM club in my High School today. My colleague had already successfully started his club with younger students a few weeks before and the Kano kits, Lego Mindstorms and drones were going down a storm.

Our space is a reclaimed dormitory in the top floor of the school. It currently has five desks, four Kano kits and lots of my imported Raspberry Pi goodies. The students spent today setting up their Kanos and exploring the gamified Kano OS. I did wonder if the High School students would consider the system a bit young for them, but I had no reason to worry, they loved it and spent a long time extending the python Snake Game and then coding different objects in Minecraft.

In the coming weeks we will begin to use TinkerCad to learn about 3D modelling and design with the intention of creating prototypes on the wonderful Ultimaker 2 3D printer and (if possible) importing some of their models into Minecraft. We are also going to visit the new Makerspace at Museo Scienza to gain inspiration for customising our own workspace. I’d like to explore WeMake too…

We would love to link with other school Makerspaces or STEAM / STEM clubs around the world. Please post your details in the comments and we’ll be in touch!