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

We’re talking to Anna Iarotska, the CEO and co-founder of Robo Wunderkind, an award-winning edtech company that provides innovative early education solutions which are currently in use in over 200 schools worldwide.The company Robo Wunderkind is based in Vienna, Austria, and they currently sell a couple of robotic kits. These kits include a selection of kid-friendly, easy to connect blocks. The Blocks can easily be connected, they just snap together!Besides having a really compelling ed...

In this episode, we’re talking to Dr. John Shovic from SwitchDoc Labs. John is the Chief Technical Officer and co-founder of SwitchDoc Labs and he his team has created the SkyWeather Station, which is a do-it-yourself cloud connected Weather Station and an excellent project if you and your kids or students want to learn about the Weather and the sensors used to measure it. https://kidslab.dev/2019/12/09/skyweather-the-raspberry-pi-weather-station-with-dr-john-shovic/

In this episode, we’re talking to Jens Moenig. He is the co-founder and Lead Programmer of Snap! - a free, visual and educational programming language. Snap! is based on the blocks-based concepts of Scratch, but includes some extensions that make it suitable for a serious introduction to computer science. For example, it has been used to teach "The Beauty and Joy of Computing" - an introductory course in computer science at the University of California in Berkeley. To get started, just visit ...

We’re talking to Ross Atkin, the creator of both the Crafty Robots and the Smartibot. The smartibot is a cardboard robot that can be controlled via your smartphone. You can even use your smartphone as a brain of the robot and make it chase people, animals and vehicles using artificial intelligence. One very cool feature that you don’t often find in other robots: the parts of the Smartibot can be re-used to build proper robots out of almost anything. Episode Image with Ross: Copyright Andy Dun...

We’re talking to Martin Moos, Head of Sales and Customer Service at Sculpto. Sculpto is a Denmark-based 3d printing company that Kickstarted the Sculpto+ 3D printer in 2017. The Sculpto+ is a polar 3D printer, which means it has a rotating base element which is quite uncommon among 3d printers - but it works really perfectly and the printer therefore does not take up a lot of space. The printer also comes completely pre-assembled and you’re up and printing pretty much after you connected it t...

On this show, we’re talking to Asaph Kim, Chief Design Officer and co-founder at 3.14 - a robotics edutech startup from South Korea which created the Kamibot educational robot. Their startup did already create and produce the Kamibot v1, a robot that can be dressed with paper crafts for kids to learn programming. And at the time of releasing this podcast episode the next version of Kamibot, the Kamibot PI is live on Kickstarter and it will have some exciting new features.https://kidslab.dev/2...

In this very first episode, we talk to Dr. AnnMarie Thomas, the founder and director of the Playful Learning Lab at the University of St. Thomas. Squishy Circuits is about making dough that can be conductive or insulating. It’s like playdough, but the dough either conducts electricity or not. Using these two types of dough and a couple of food colors, you can create very “squishy” experiments for younger children - add a few batteries, leds, buzzers or motors and you are ready for a workshop ...

ShownotesThis is Episode 0 - the trailer - and I just quickly want to tell you what this will be about.STEAM - that’s Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Mathematics - all the good stuff! In each episode, I’ll introduce an educational board, toy or game and I will speak to a key person such as one of the creators or founders. And from time to time, we will also chat with experienced STEAM educators who share their lessons learnt with us.