KidsLab - a podcast for parents and educators passionate about STEAM education

Today on the show, we’re talking to Borja Latorre, co-creator of “The Ifs” - and educational toy which is similar to If This Then That for the physical world and of course it’s for kids. Our interviewee, Borja, is a software developer with over 15 years experience in research & development for scientific applications. He holds a B.Sc. in Physics and a M.Sc. and Ph.D in Computer Science. Borja truly believes that technology has the potential to make the world a better place. In 2013, ...

Since 2019, Viktoria is the Lead for the Munich location of the HABA Digitalwerkstaetten. She originally studied Economics at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich and she is also a trained Ergo Therapist. The HABA digital workshop spaces offer after-school activities for kids and they are spread across Germany. By now there are 10 locations in Germany and Viktoria is leading the Munich one. The workshops and classes are targeted towards kids between 6 to 12 years old and the ...

In this episode I am talking to Lenore Edman from Evil Mad Scientist Labs about their extremely cool but also very educational project kits such as the egg-bot, which is a drawing robot for eggs!Lenore is the Co-Founder of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories and currently lives in Sunnyvale, California - if you don’t know that’s the “heart of the silicon valley” according to the city brochure of Sunnyvale - but seriously, it could not be more central in the valley.Established in 2006, Evil Mad Sc...

In this episode, we’re talking to Brandon Satrom about his book Ellie Saves the Day - it’s a story about electricity and circuits for the next generation of maker girls and boys! Brandon's day job is all about IoT, so a big chunk of this episode we discuss what IoT is all about and how teachers and kids can understand its' concepts. A tinkerer at heart, Brandon's love for electronics extends back to the Nintendo Entertainment System he would take apart and reassemble when simply blowing ...

In this recording, Rikke Paaskesen from KUBO robotics explains how they are switching to virtual meetings and what activities parents and teachers can do at home with their kids or students. There is a full episode with Rikke about KUBO Robotics available here. Background:At the beginning of last week (March 16th to be exact), it became obvious to me here in Munich, Germany, that the Corona Virus will severely impact our lives. While I was working from home already for more than a week, ...

We're talking to Jonathan Austin, CTO of the micro:bit foundation about coding the BBC micro:bit via the text-based python programming language. When it comes to programming the micro:bit, the Python Editor allows you to use the Python programming language - which is text-based and non-visual in comparison to the MakeCode editor. To be exact, you can use MicroPython on the micro:bit. MicroPython is a lean and efficient implementation of the Python 3 programming language that includes a s...

In this episode, we’re talking to Solomon Menashi, the CEO and Co-Founder of BlocksCAD. BlocksCAD is a cloud-based 3D modeling tool that encourages users to learn math, computational thinking and coding concepts through visualization and designing models to be 3D printed.BlocksCAD is a cloud based 3d modelling tool, which means kids and teachers can simply use their web browser and a block-based visual coding language to create 3d shapes. By dragging blocks such as cubes & spheres into th...

This recording is done directly by the SpinWearbles team, including Bridget Hegarty, Stefan Krastanov and Samantha Pagan. They describe how their university work moved online into virtual labs and workshops and also how it affects their current Kickstarter project The SpinWheel. They'll host a free online event on April 4th for parents & teachers to learn more about STEAM activities for their students. A future episode with Bridget from SpinWearables is already scheduled - be sure to...

This recording is done directly by Pen Holland from York, UK. Besides describing the current situation in the UK, she explains how they virtualized their research workshops due to the Corona virus and what our kids can learn from these times: be resilient, Be Kind!The full episode with Pen Holland and Sarah Wyse about Pieter the Seed Eater is here! Background:At the beginning of last week (March 16th to be exact), it became obvious to me here in Munich, Germany, that the Corona Virus will sev...

Today on the show, we’re talking to Sergei Urban, the creator of the TheDadLab. It’s mission is simple: teaching science through play!Sergei is a stay-at-home father who started TheDadLab as a way to inspire fun activities others can do from home while educating their children and spending more quality time with them. Sergei also published a book with these activities and experiments, which includes 50 science projects. It already got translated to 7 languages and even more languag...