One year into the pandemic and over 800 million school students worldwide still face significant disruptions to their education, reveals a recently released UNESCO data. This disturbance has also left most of them struggling to learn STEM subjects, even as they find it enthralling and increasingly pertinent to their lives, suggests new research emphasized at the annual American Educational Research Association conference held in April 2021.
There’s no dearth of online learning resources as we continue education during these uncertain times. But finding the right tools and resources pose a challenge for parents.
The narrative of Arnold Thomas is a case in point.
“My 10-year-old granddaughter had just started showing interest in physics and electronics when they were forced to go online last year. As her parents were juggling work from home and homeschooling her, they couldn’t really pay much heed to her interest. This left her grappling.
When I was visiting them last month, I could see her knack for wiring things. I am an electronics enthusiast and as a child I was fascinated with Radio Shack 160 in One Electronics Project Kit. I wanted to get something similar for her so that she could enjoy working on the projects and at the same time learn hands on.
With a little research, I narrowed down on Mand Labs KIT-1, a DIY electronics kit, designed to teach children the basics of electronics — fiddle with circuits, wires, transistors, capacitors etc. I ordered one for her and I am very impressed with the kit because it is very similar to the Radio Shack kit that I used as a child.
Now she’s fully hooked on to the kit and has already made some interesting projects. She’s also surprised her parents by making an automatic night lamp for them. So glad that I got KIT-1 for her.”
Like Arnold, there are many grandparents/ parents and educators who have bought KIT-1 either to learn or teach their children/grandchildren. Let’s hear from them why they chose KIT-1 and how they are using the kit.
– All Graphics Credit: Sidra Choudhry
So, what are you building? How are you using your time during this global pandemic when we are all forced to stay indoors? Whether building cool projects with Mand Labs KIT-1 or getting creative with your own innovation, at Mand Labs it is our consistent effort to help the creative soul in you be a true do-it-yourself (DIY) maker.
For those of you who have completed working on the 5 projects of the standard edition here are some projects you can try out with KIT-1 Premium Edition. The projects here are more advanced and these DIY experiments will help you to keep your home secure; make use of your old batteries and help you create a circuit to make your own temperature sensor. As in the previous blog, we have simplified the building process for you through our step-by-steps. So, are you ready to learn and flaunt your creativity skills among your peers?
Have you ever wondered how an alarm goes off when there’s an intruder in a shop or a bank? Well, our IR security alarm project, which is based on IR sensor, will help you to understand how a simple circuit can detect any movement and trigger an alarm; thus helping us in securing our homes, banks and workplaces.
How many of you discard your old batteries thinking it is of no use? With our joule thief project you will think twice before throwing them away. Yes, the joule thief circuit will help you bring back your ‘dead’ batteries to life by boosting its energy to light up an LED. Did you know that when a battery is considered ‘dead’ it’s just that its voltage is not high enough to be used in the device directly?
When you see a 3D printer do you ever think about how the temperature is maintained in the printer? For those of you who are still wondering, thermistors are used in the hot ends of 3D printers. They monitor the heat produced and allow the printer’s control circuits to keep a constant temperature for melting the plastic filament. This project will help you to create a circuit that will let you to gauge as and when the temperature crosses the threshold limit.
Now that you know how to build your IR security alarm or your temperature sensor, why don’t you share your innovations with us? It’s simple, you can email us your projects at support@mandlabs.com. The best projects will not only be published here on our blogs but will also receive a surprise from us.
We at Mand Labs want you to make the best use of your stay-at-home time. Whether building cool projects with Mand Labs KIT-1 or getting creative with your own innovation, we want your time to be enriched with some learning coupled with fun activities. It is our consistent effort to help the creative soul in you be a true do-it-yourself (DIY) maker.
We have compiled a list of 5 cool projects from the KIT-1’s project library for you to work on and enhance your home. All you need is a little time and effort, as the projects are simple and can be picked up by anyone with some basic interest in electrical and electronics. We have simplified the building process for you through our step-by-steps. So, go ahead and get your hands messy!
Have you ever given it a thought as to how the street lamps work? How the lights are turned on in the evening and how they get automatically turned off in the morning? Or for instance, did you wonder how the garden lights work? Our automatic night lamp project will not only help you to understand how the circuits work, but also help you to build your own night lamp that you can use at home when you have a power cut.
Did you ever want to play detective and catch a burglar or a thief red handed? Here’s your chance to play with circuits and create your own alarm at home. The circuit can be assembled beneath the doormat, so that the moment anyone steps on the doormat, the switch gets pressed, making the buzzer go off. So, go on and enjoy the time at home while your buzzer takes care of your home security.
When you wait at the traffic signal did you ever wonder how the red, green and yellow lights blink? Well, you can learn about it today. The alternate blinking of LEDs project can show you how relay is used as a switch. The relay, which is an electromagnetic switch, is a perfect example of how we can use electromagnetic force to control any switch.
Did you know that your body can become a part of the circuit and current can be passed through it? If you are worried that it might give you an electric shock, our touch-activated switch project will show you that you don’t have to worry about anything. Just go ahead and try it out for yourself and flaunt your creativity skill among your peers.
Were you ever fascinated by the lights on highways or in the tunnels and mines? If you were wondering on how they work, our project on LED blinker will make you understand the process and at the same time help you create an LED flasher circuit in less than an hour. Built on a logic based on the Esaki Effect, named after its inventor Leo Esaki, the project demonstrates one of the applications of the Esaki effect. Leo was awarded the Nobel prize in physics in 1973 for his discovery.
Now that you have learnt to build some really cool projects, why don’t you try out the premium projects from KIT-1? We also look forward to your innovations. Please keep them coming. It’s simple, you can email us your projects at support@mandlabs.com. The best projects will not only be published here on our blogs but will also receive a surprise from us.
Did you know that according to the National Math And Science Initiative (NMSI), 69% of school graduates are not prepared to take up college level science and math? This clearly substantiates the fact that students do not get the required exposure, support and guidance from their parents and teachers during the formative years. So, how can we make our STEM classrooms more engaging and fun?
Research reveals that learners can retain only 5 percent of whatever is presented to them through lecture and 30 percent through demonstration. However, if you include hands-on learning in your process of teaching, the retention rate is as high as 75 percent.
Considering these factors, Mand Labs Teach Electronics Program focuses on APPB Learning (activity-based, problem-based, project-based learning). This program plays a crucial role in helping educators/teachers to effectively teach hands-on projects in the field of physics, electrical and electronics.
The content-rich and curriculum-driven program endeavours to make STEM classrooms more engaging and fun for students with an exciting mix of real-world projects and activities further fuelled with quizzes, contests, and more.
Let’s walk you through:
Built and tested on the strong fundamental of do-it-yourself approach, the larger goal of our program is to make children realize that technology is not technical and no matter how complex any technology seems; it can always be broken down into smaller components, logic and fundamental laws of physics.
Our complete curriculum will guide you on how to demonstrate abstract concepts of physics and teach electronics in a fun-interactive way using real-world hands-on projects.
For instance, the best way to learn “transistor as an amplifier” is to actually build it and then use math and equations to test out its working. Another example to demonstrate EMI (electro-magnetic induction) is to create a small generator using a DC motor and likewise.
You will also be able to demonstrate Kirchhoff’s voltage law, Kirchhoff’s current law, Ohm’s law, The Esaki Effect, Electromagnetic Induction, Time Constant Circuits with ease. There are ample examples in our books and PDF guides that will help you to learn how each discrete component works be it transistors, LEDs, capacitors, or relays and more and how do we connect them through logic to build something more meaningful.
This experiential learning process will imbibe critical thinking and computation acumen in children. Our intention is to help students realize that each component can be treated as a building block to build logic.
By teaching children how to apply concepts of physics and use math in real-life projects, you will not only make your classroom challenging and exciting, but also help your students to be collaborative and imbibe a sense of teamwork in them.
Norwegian psychologist, May-Britt Moser, had aptly said:
“It is so important for children to bloom and to be driven by their curiosity.”
To captivate children’s attention and make them curious, but most of all to get them interested in science and math in their formative years, it is important for the teacher to create an environment for them where they are actively involved in their own learning and where he/she is able to engage them and spark their curiosity.
Mand Labs Teach Electronics Program focuses on creating limitless options for children to be curious, to investigate and to go in depth using interactive do-it-yourself activities and projects.
The program that comprises project-based learning curriculum, including, books, videos, step-by-step project building guides (PDF), classroom lectures (PDF) and workshop presentations (PDF) will help you to engage your students in hands-on experiments that embark curiosity by encouraging students to ask questions combined with the joy of building circuits from scratch; it is a journey of multiple learning levels.
For instance, imagine each kid rotating the DC motor to flash an LED and then try to figure out why the motion produces electricity, at what voltage does the LED glow, and exploring the principle of EMI (electromagnetic induction). This simple yet fun experiment will create excitement while making them inquisitive and curious. To quote May-Britt Moser again,
“All children are born with stars in their eyes, and they are curious. It is important for teachers to be careful not to kill this curiosity…”
So, by engaging them with exciting do-it-yourself hands-on activities and letting them explore further on their own, you are already laying a strong foundation for them to be actively involved in their own learning.
Your job is incomplete if you do not gauge how your students have fared. The need for evaluation is crucial but how you evaluate them is even more crucial. If your evaluation process is not interesting to the students, you may hinder their learning.
Mand Labs Teach Electronics Program is built to make your evaluation process simple and fun with maximum participation from students. It is complete with quizzes and assessment questions that are all based on practical experience of students. Hosting quizzes in your classroom will not only spark interest among your students, but will also test the level of their comprehension.
To make your classroom even more engaging, our program will guide you on how to organise contests. This will ensure a competitive environment in your classroom. For instance, you can test the “fastest circuit maker” in your class and reward the winner. Or you can have an “Open Book Project Challenge”, wherein you let students use the books to create something that they have no idea about; or even better- who builds the “logic gates” first?
But for those of you who want to take this contest to an intra-school level and help in creating something new, help is at hand. Yes, when you organise your Annual Science & Technology Exhibition and hold a challenging circuit building contest like the H-Bridge, IR security alarm, logic gates etc. Mand Labs will sponsor the prizes and also guide you.
Mand Labs Teach Electronics Program that is complete with rich curriculum for 25 hands-on hours, comprising hardware kits for students and educators, 60 projects, quizzes, classroom workbooks, and dedicated technical support is not just any of your run-of-the-mill program.
The program has been built after years of working closely with educators and students from across the globe. Developed after continuous research, testing and improvisation, the program will take you through a rigorous building process and analytics to make your classroom more relatable and interesting to students.
What’s more? The transparent pricing matches no other. And our dedicated back-end technical support, comprising experienced engineers will be always there to guide you to run your annual program or whenever you need to troubleshoot.
Several schools that have been the early adopters of Mand Labs Teach Electronics Program have been able to make their classrooms dynamic, engaging, hands-on, competitive, collaborative, exciting, inquisitive and not to mention challenging.
So, let us know your thoughts? We are always looking for good ideas. Join our community and you never know, you might end up inspiring a bunch of students to create and build something bigger than themselves just like Miss Riley did in the biopic, October Sky.
To know more about the Teach Electronics Program, you can mail us at support@mandlabs.com.
How apt was Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group, when he said:
“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.”
And that’s exactly what Myra Jones, a hands-on mother and an R&D engineer at a leading MNC in Houston, had to say about learning from mistakes.
Myra is no stranger to building circuits and fiddling with electronics kits. As a kid she loved her Radio Shack 100 experiments kit and she wants to inculcate the same kind of interest in her children.
While she focuses on hands-on learning for them, she is at the same time dissatisfied with the ready-made educational fancy kits that are flooding the markets today. She is unhappy with the fact that these modules do not require any real effort, thus restricting the hands-on learning that her children require.
“There is minimal learning when you just have to snap the components right. I can’t even teach my children the basics with these kits because they don’t allow any opportunity of making mistakes. How will they learn if they are not given the opportunity to make errors?” complained Myra.
The reason why Myra is keen on hands-on learning is because she wants her children to pursue engineering just like her. “I have my reservations about those kits because I get no value for money. My kids are not learning anything new,” she said.
Until then she had not laid her hands on Mand Labs KIT-1. When we finally gave her to experiment with KIT-1, she had a volley of questions for us: “Will my children get to learn hands-on and will they be able to do all the projects on their own? What will they learn out of this? And what is the future?”
As the brother-sister duo unboxed KIT-1, it was sheer delight to see them toil it out. They were juggling between components, connections, stripping off shorter jumper wires, but once they got their first project right, their faces lit up as they beeped their buzzer together.
Of course, it was no cakewalk for them, but they were beaming at the end of it all. “This is exactly what I was looking for to teach my children. They made a few errors by not doing the right connections on the breadboard. So, they used the video given in the kit to understand how a breadboard works. It really helped. And their persistence paid.”
“I can recall the exact moment in my head. My daughter literally started jumping when she completed her first circuit and made her first light. She said, mommy, I made my own christmas light! I was proud,” Myra gushed.
And KIT-1 gives children the perfect opportunity to learn by doing, as American billionaire, Alex Spanos, puts it:
“The best way to learn is by doing… and getting your hands dirty.”
But our question here is how many of us are like Myra who don’t allow the fear of failure to paralyze us? Did you know that Thomas Alva Edison had failed over 10,000 times while working on the light bulb? It was only through his mistakes that he finally succeeded.
When we try to build circuits, we often mess up, burn a few components, do short circuits; do wrong connections; forget about the polarities (positive and negative terminals) of components etc. That is the time when exceptional learning opportunities arise and one’s patience gets tested.
In the world of instant gratification, Mand Labs KIT-1 teaches kids the virtues of perseverance, hard work and not to give up. To help users troubleshoot, the kit comes with detailed and visual step-by-step building instructions and tips. What’s more? It’s replete with dedicated technical support wherein users can send pictures of their projects and get advice from engineers.
Research shows children should be given room to make mistakes and they need to be trusted. “Existing educational toys use prefabricated parts that connect only the right way and have fixed outcomes with limited learning. However, Mand Labs KIT-1 is designed to be more open, modular and learning focussed. Learners will be able to not only build projects but also understand the underlying theory and concepts through testing, observation and math,” says Gurpawan Mand, founder of Mand Labs.
“Doing raw electronics gives children the opportunity to understand the technology around them, and not get scared of it. Children should get the drive to become makers of technology not consumers of it. Most products we use are black-boxed and sealed. And we as consumers do not have access to their inner logic and components. So, we are unable to explore how they work and what they are made up of. With KIT-1, our mission is to decode technology and make it less technical,” elaborates Mr. Mand.
While her children were tinkering, Myra realized that KIT-1 is more than just a tool with limitless possibilities. It allows children to tinker, gain real-world perspective and learn through experience.
Post-experimenting with KIT-1, Myra listed down a few pointers that the other kits in the market couldn’t have taught her children:
“Mistakes, obviously, show us what needs improving. Without mistakes, how would we know what we had to work on?” American author, Peter McWilliams.
We often think we can avoid errors but they are an inevitable part of any scientific or entrepreneurial pursuit. Our errors actually allow us to become better and empower us to develop a much deeper level of understanding about our work. Errors teach us to be more resilient. American basketball player, John Wooden couldn’t have said better:
“If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes.”
Speaking about her children’s experience with KIT-1, Myra said: “When they started fiddling with the components, it all seemed easy. Only when they actually started working on the projects they realized they required a lot of focus and patience. It almost took them 15 minutes to get used to stripping the wires using the cutter. There was a technique to it.”
“They learned through experience and tried their best to not give up and it worked. The step-by-step instructions are a real deal. They were detailed and easy to follow. This do-it-yourself (DIY) kit has everything in one place. I don’t need to look for components separately in the market. Yes, it is all-in-one- as advertised,” she added.
Myra’s experience substantiates Mand Labs’ design philosophy – “let kids mess up”. We couldn’t agree more with novelist James Joyce:
“A man’s mistakes are his portals of discovery.”
When we received Patricia’s mail asking us whether we could help her teenage son learn electronics in the easiest way possible, we didn’t expect a blog to stem from this query. What followed her query, were N number of similar questions in our inbox that came from parents, homeschool moms, educators and learners.
The email queries showed us what the grim reality was. Despite the ample resources available online, people are still grappling with finding the right content. It is really cumbersome to browse through 100s of pages on Google. It’s all scattered, random and non-curated. Inconsistent content can leave anyone confused and intimidated.
People are robbed of the option of finding everything in one place as they have to order electronic components or parts from multiple channels. Gone are the days when we had the Radio Shack and we could rely on it for all our components and spares. Today we need to source them from multiple channels and pay huge shipping costs; compare the products as well as the pricing before we finally buy them, thus losing our precious time and energy in the process.
This is also the story of how the seeds of Mand Labs were sown. A few years ago, our founder, Gurpawan Mand, had ordered a fingerprint sensor from a popular website. When the shipment arrived, it had no documentation or manual to start with. The sensor that arrived was not working. After trying to figure out on his own, he contacted the customer support. That too failed him, as there was absolutely no response from the team. Frustrated with the service and also the product, he made up his mind to come up with a product that would have all the content, components and tools in one place, besides being supported with top-of-the-class technical support.
So, this blog is dedicated to Patricia and all the other moms and learners who took the time to mail us and find out how Mand Labs KIT-1 helped them in learning electronics in the most simplest and easiest of ways. This is also for all those who are looking out to glean information and tap the wisdom from the resources. Let’s walk you through:
There are ample resources online, but looking for what you exactly want can not only be tedious but also time consuming. Let’s be honest, we all love the luxury of having everything in one place rather than having to arrange for things bit by bit. Keeping that in mind, at Mand Labs, we came up with KIT-1, where you will not need to look outside the box, literally!
The ergonomically-designed workstation, which fetched Mand Labs the i-Design Award, 2015, comes bundled with all requisite hardware and electronic components required to build an array of 60+ projects. To be precise, it comes with 165 components and tools, a portable breadboard carry case that ensures you can carry your creations along with the compact box, enabling you to work in your own time and convenience. How perfect is that?
So, this do-it-yourself (DIY) kit for electrical science and electronics is not only your “go-to kit” when it comes to learning electronics in the easiest way possible, but also allows children to tinker with real-world electronic components and tools to build real-world projects from the comfort of anywhere you choose, without even bothering about the spares, components and resources.
A book is a device to ignite the imagination ― Alan Bennett
Books are probably the best resources that can help you in understanding and learning electronics from scratch. And our book, Electronic Series KIT-1, which is divided into two parts, is just perfect for you if you want to build circuits and learn electronics at the same time.
The book is an attempt to break the conventional paradigm and make electronics fun to learn, simple to understand and easy to relate to. It also endeavors to debunk the concept that technology is technical and electronics is difficult to learn. It is an amalgamation of both theoretical and practical learning.
With the content mapped to the standard physics curriculum, the book’s purpose is to help students develop a structured approach and help them in their problem solving skills, and shape their thought processes to look at things from a different perspective.
To help the reader understand better the book has schematics, which are explained and implemented step-by-step . It also has observations and reasoning behind the projects, including several activities like taking the multimeter and checking its readings or modifying the projects. The reasoning and inference of each project keep the lessons alive without letting you get bored. It also has Q-boxes and Do You Knows that contain a plethora of questions and interesting facts.
Book 1 covers the basic concepts of electricity, electrical and electronics in 10 chapters. It gives the reader an in-depth and comprehensive working knowledge of charge, voltage, current, resistors, Ohm’s law, variable resistors, including potentiometer, preset and LDR, series and parallel combinations, LEDs, buzzers, switches and capacitors. It also enables readers to build and analyze projects step-by-step.
Book 2 covers more advanced concepts of electronics in 8 different chapters. Each chapter gives the reader an in-depth and comprehensive working knowledge of topics covering relays, diodes, semiconductors, logic gates, zener diodes, DC motors, transistors, and signals.
Electronic Series KIT-1 gives an extensive knowledge for those who want to explore the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ and want a clearer and deeper understanding of the fundamentals of electricity and dive deep into the world of electronics.
If you are a beginner, watching YouTube tutorials and trying to extract as much information and knowledge as you can, it can be pretty exhausting. But what if you get all the resources you want from one place? At Mand Labs, we understand this need and that is why we have created all the additional resources that will come in handy when you are experimenting with all your projects. Well, we all love perks, don’t we?
To help you get started and further strengthen your skills repertoire, we have compiled all our content in a USB flash drive loaded with digital curriculum, including your lessons in high definition videos and step-by-step PDF guides that will empower you to self-learn at your own pace. The content in the USB flash drive, will help you to get started quickly and reduce your download time without depending on the internet connectivity.
Nothing can give you a better clarity and understanding than the interactive videos, replete with lectures, demonstrations and live assembly of projects. The videos help understand the concepts in a fun and interactive way by using animations, project modifications and discussing questions and concepts. It also helps the person reason behind the principle and test it.
But if you are someone who wants to get on to building projects instantly without much ado, you have our troubleshooting instructions or as we call it the step-by-step visual PDFs handy. The guide that is complete with circuit diagrams will help you assemble any circuit on the breadboard using the instructions in less than 30 minutes.
Even if you are a novice in electronics and have never tried your hand in building circuits, you can build your projects with our simple and easy-to-follow instructions. Did you know that our instructions have been tested on 15,000 users in live hands-on workshops?
And after all these resources, if you need any help, our dedicated technical support is just an email away. You can send pictures of your projects and get advice from our engineers.
Up until now if you have been ordering spares online or rushing to get your dose of tutorials from the YouTube videos, just remember that KIT-1 can basically help you save your time, effort and money. Whether you are a parent looking for a kit for your child to help him/her learn electronics from scratch; an educator about to start a robotics class in your school; or a homeschooler looking to teach physics and electronics, then KIT-1 is the right choice for you.
And if you want to add a cool functionality to your projects, KIT-1 is upgradeable to advanced modules that covers integrated circuits, sensors and programming. So, go on and open up a whole new world of imagination and building for you!
All of us are born makers. Whether we are writing poetry or fiction or making our own gadgets, we need creativity and imagination.
As Albert Einstein put it:
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.
But sometimes in order to give wings to our imagination and soar high, we need a little guidance. At Mand Labs we believe, it’s just a matter of finding the right way to start. After all, the world is but a canvas to the imagination.
We live in a world where we are constantly surrounded by electronic gadgets and gizmos. Our lives are so infused with electronics that we will benefit more if we learn at least the basics of electronics. We don’t need to be an electrical engineer or have prior knowledge to understand how to read schematics, build circuits, solder or program. We just need to have a childlike curiosity and a great imaginative mind to look at things in a creative perspective.
Through Mand Labs KIT-1, we intend to make your journey of learning and building electronics simple, fun and easy to relate to. The R&D team at Mand Labs had spent an extensive time of over 40 months in researching, detailing and building user-friendly instructions that will guide you step by step whenever you get stuck. The comprehensive and simplified guide will let you have fun while you work your way through an extensive array of 50+ projects.
Moreover, our books, visual steps, video lectures and tech support will help you understand the concepts and build a strong theoretical base. So, whether you are an enthusiast or a beginner, if you are 14 years and above and ready to delve deep, KIT-1 is ready to help you explore new avenues. You just need to be ready to experiment, observe, learn and repeat
Yes, we got you covered. KIT-1 caters to your academic needs, as its course topics cover 20 percent of IGCSE Cambridge Curriculum and 30 percent of AP Physics C, including electricity and magnetism. So those of you planning to take up engineering or a major in physics, will get to learn the basic concepts hands-on covering basic electrical theory, current and electricity, electrostatics, capacitors and semiconductors. What’s more? You will also self-learn and retain more, as you work on application-oriented projects.
KIT-1 courseware covers the following topics in detail:
Charge, Battery, Voltage, Current, Resistance, LED, Multimeter, Resistors, Ohm’s law, Series and Parallel Combination, Variable Resistors: Potentiometer, Preset and LDR, Switches, Capacitors, Relay, Semiconductors, Diode and Its Types, Digital Logic Gates: NOT, OR, AND, NOT, NAND, Zener Diode, DC Motor, Transistors, IR Sensor, Thermistor, Inductors.
Included with KIT-1, are two reference books that will help you in in-depth analysis of working circuits, including reasoning, path of currents and the maths behind. The theories in the books will help you build your confidence and prepare you for challenging problems. Also, playing and working with raw electrical and electronic components will make you feel more connected to how technology works. Who knows, you might outperform your peers in academics!
All the great inventors and makers of the world were great tinkerers once, who loved to spend time experimenting and using their ideas to innovate things in the confines of their home. Let’s take the example of Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, who loved to tinker and fiddle with electrical devices from a very young age and turned his parents’ garage into his own lab. You can never stop a tinkerer or a maker from fiddling with gadgets or hacking his/her way to something creative.
If you are a DIY maker and want to delve deep into things and love to innovate, you can start building things on your own with KIT-1. It is is designed in such a way that it can double up as your personal lab, where you can unleash your creativity, give shape to your thoughts and ideas, explore new concepts and implement them. After all, it’s your time, your space, your muse and your storyboard.
Whether you want to build your own automatic night lamp for your bedroom or decorate your house with the LED lights for Christmas, our rich content will help you get there.
A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas — Mathematician G. H. Hardy
Sometimes you might be having a great idea, but it might not work out as great as you thought. So, building your own prototypes and testing them will help you to better your ideas and improve your project significantly. If you have an idea and a great imagination, nothing can stop you from being a maker. But there’s no fun in learning if you don’t burn a few components or mess things up. All makers and inventors were passionately curious to explore their creativity and come up with their geniuses.
For instance, Graham Bell’s first prototype of his telephone was a thin sheet of metal, known as diaphragm, held in front of an electromagnet. When he spoke, his voice struck the diaphragm and electricity was generated in the coils of the electromagnet. The electric currents were then transmitted to a receiver in another room. It was only after various trials and improvisation that Bell got his final product.
So, if you were ever interested in designing and prototyping circuits, KIT-1 will let you take a step forward and help you work with real-world electronic components and tools, develop an understanding of how each part works, learn the technique to treat parts as building blocks and use different blocks to build an array of projects. You will also learn to deduce the laws of physics that govern the quantities and then draw your own conclusions. So, that’s how you will develop an important skill which will help in bringing your ideas to life. Moreover, you will do-it-yourself.
 
We all know that critical thinking is essential to be able to solve any problem in life whether big or small, besides helping you to take decisions. When you start building or tinkering with your ideas, you will start questioning your own assumptions rather than taking them at face value. You will identify, analyze and try to solve problems systematically rather than by intuition.
KIT-1 will help you in developing a structured thought process to solve problems by taking you through rigorous building process and analytics. You will soon be developing a habit of delving deep into the matter and looking for answers as to how things are made and what processes go into making them.
Using the kit will make you look at problems from a different perspective. However, don’t expect that your first solution will work instantly all the time. Sometimes, it might fail spectacularly. At that moment, just step back and explore other ways to get to the solution. Eventually, you will discover new and interesting facts and might explore something dazzling!
Image licensed from Shutterstock Images.
How true was Joe Namath, an American footballer and actor, when he said:
“When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And when you have fun, you can do amazing things.”
When your confidence level is built, you become a different person, totally. You will not only be self-reliant, but you will also be able to break stereotypes as you will be able to use your mind and hands resourcefully. The concept of “Mind and Hand” is traced to the idea of science and education that shaped MIT and defined its mission.
Attitude is infectious. It cannot be taught, but it can definitely be caught. Using KIT-1 will empower you to think independently and creatively like a maker, and hence enable you to figure things out on your own. Your “can do” attitude will do wonders as you gain confidence and get more resourceful as a professional. You will be the go-to-person for solving abstract problems with difficult solutions. You will learn the art of frugality and incorporate your habit of DIY in your work ethics. Above all, you will be a better, responsible, dependable and efficient person.
For instance, Benjamin Franklin made a name for himself at an early age of 11. He created paddles for his hands to enable him to swim faster. Today, swimmers take advantage of his creation, called flippers. Likewise, you will build the confidence to make things on your own, nurture your innate entrepreneurial talent and build a successful career.
KIT-1 is a power-packed box as you can build projects, gain skills, understand technology and have fun. It not only caters to your academics, enhances your creativity, teaches you to solve your own problems, helps you with prototyping skills but also boosts your confidence level.
But remember, learning never stops. So, if you think you are through with all your projects in KIT-1, you can expect more. Yes, KIT-1 is modular, reusable and upgradeable to advanced modules that cover integrated circuits, sensors and programming. When you upgrade, you will develop a holistic and comprehensive knowledge of the subject.
Our entire curriculum is divided into multiple learning levels, meaning more components, more projects and greater fun. KIT-1 is designed in such a way that you don’t need to be a genius or a scientist or an expert in electronics to use it. So, go ahead and experience the magic of technology and let your imagination run wild, who knows your insights might lead to a great invention!
Through the years, we’ve had users who have come up with super-creative projects like homemade Christmas lights that generate a series of random patterns, multi-touch surface, electronic casino games, automatic safe alarm among others.
And now it’s your turn to dazzle the world with your creative ideas.
So, what are you waiting for?
Whether you want to nurture your child’s innate science talent or help tap on your future scientist’s potential at an early age, Mand Labs kit will keep your child engaged and curious and also enhance his or her hands-on learning skills.
Image licensed from Shutterstock Images.
Did you know that people with STEM degrees or certifications are not only occupying prime positions in the economy today, but are also out-earning professionals with PhDs in other fields?
If the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce’s report is anything to go by, then STEM major professionals earn approximately $500,000 more in their lifetime than professionals with non-STEM majors.
But if we are to raise our children as STEM leaders and professionals of tomorrow, we need to examine how are we nurturing and preparing them for these roles in future.
Are we raising creative and critical thinkers; or as educator John W. Gardner puts it:
“Are we giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants?”
One of the most inspiring playgrounds for children today has been created by the Maker Movement, where children get to explore and rely heavily on their innovation and creativity. This movement has also seen the burgeoning of social innovation, where creativity and STEM work in tandem, and has been instrumental in changing billions of lives.
And it is undoubtedly you — a parent extraordinaire — who can support your budding robotics engineer or future coder or scientist by involving them with hands-on, do-it-yourself (DIY) activities and nurture their science talent. This is also the perfect way to bond with your child and learn together.
Image licensed from Shutterstock Images.
Does your nine-year-old constantly ask you innumerable questions about gadgets, how things work in real life and so on? Does he keep tinkering with his electronic toys and often rips them apart? Well, you need to remember what Albert Einstein had said:
Play is the highest form of research. So, encourage your little one to tinker more and tap on his science talent. Make him/her understand how to work with tools and components; how to use math and logic to build things; how to give shape to an idea.
In case this is something that you haven’t dabbled before and you are wondering how to go about it, don’t worry, KIT-1 can take care of all your needs. You and your child can get the taste of your first project by glowing an LED or beeping a buzzer.
The kit, which comes with an array of 50+ projects along with step-by-step building instructions, lets you play with real-world electronic components; understand how each part works through a mix of hands-on experiments and projects; and yes, lets you experience the joy of technology, design and innovation.
The kit is a great way for you and your child to start your DIY experiments and kickstart your budding engineer’s hands-on learning. As author Dr Seuss puts it:
“Children want… to be challenged, to be entertained, and delighted.”
Image licensed from Shutterstock Images.
Who doesn’t aspire to see his/her child have a rewarding STEM career? Yes, parents all across are waking up to the fact that STEM is everywhere today and STEM fields across domains are fueling innovation and creating new businesses, products, and services.
In fact, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics has projected that by 2022 over 3 million STEM jobs will be filled across all levels starting from R&D to teaching, design to practitioner, management functions to technologist.
This serves as one of the pointers as to why it is the right time to introduce STEM to your child. But as Anatole France, a French poet, journalist and novelist had said:
“Nine tenths of education is encouragement.”
So, to support your child in STEM, you have to tap your future scientist’s potential at an early age and nurture and identify his/her core strengths and interests. To begin with, find new and interactive ways to engage your kid and make learning fun and interesting, possibly with DIY projects.
Think DIY and think Mand Labs! Let your child be a maker and experiment with circuits for science and technology projects or for his/her academic assessments, science fairs, exhibitions and robotics hobby.
If your child is a robotics or DIY enthusiast, he/she will be able to build a strong foundation in electronics with KIT-1. The kit will also help your child assemble circuits on the breadboard involving multiple active and passive electronic components; work on important circuits like H-Bridge (motor-driving circuit) and PWM (pulse width modulation) and even let him invent his own first project with his imagination and creativity, as writer Mark VanDoren puts it:
“The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.”
Image licensed from Shutterstock Images.
A Nielsen study reveals that over 70 percent of kids under 12 years use tablets today. They spend around five to six hours in a day staring at screens, either playing games or watching YouTube videos, movies or on social media.
Another survey by the Common Sense Media found that nearly 40 percent of children between two and four years were often seen with a tablet or a mobile in their hands. This is more so because parents use tablets or mobiles as a way of pacifying their kids and keeping them engaged. Research shows that one in three toddlers use gadgets even before they can speak.
Excessive screen-time is no doubt hitting parents hard as their children’s activity has given way to aggression, depression, obesity, poor social skills and academic under-achievement. How true were experts when they warned that 80 percent of the children would lead a sedentary lifestyle due to the iPads, in fact, even before they were launched in 2010!
There have been innumerable instances when parents had to look for ways to detox their iPad addict children. Take the case of Guy Adams, a journalist, when he realized that his toddler was addicted to the iPad he wrote:
“The sense of shame and sadness which came over me when I realized that my infant son was an addict will stay with me forever.”
Similar evidence of iPad addiction is mounting by the day as frazzled parents look for ways to unplug their iPad-addicted children.
Catherine Steiner-Adair, a clinical psychologist, advises parents not to turn to tech to pacify children. “Children learn from play, especially pre and primary schoolchildren. Be sure your kids spend more time playing and learning hands-on engagement in the real world,” she adds.
This is where the Mand Labs’ kit comes in handy, as your child will get to explore something new and interesting. The experiments will keep your child engaged and curious and also enhance his/her hands-on learning skills.
A meta-analysis research of 15 years on the advantages of hands-on learning, including 57 studies of 13,000 students in 1,000 classrooms, reveals that students in activity-based programs performed up to 20 percent higher than groups using traditional or textbook approaches.
The research also found that hands-on learning corresponds to a child’s natural curiosity and problem-solving skills. Mand Labs kit lead your child forward in hands-on, DIY learning, as your child gets his/her hands dirty with experiments like controlling lights or the temperature sensor or the LED flasher. The projects will teach your child how to apply simple laws of physics and understand how they work.
According to Robert A. Bjork’s 20 year old concept, ‘desirable difficulty’:
“Obstacles that frustrate us help us learn”.
So, don’t let your child give up even if in the first instance he/she is not able to snap the circuits right.
Image licensed from Shutterstock Images.
Nothing can beat the quality time that you spend with your children. But if you are a working parent juggling between deadlines and household chores, your little one might feel neglected. So, how do you manage to make way for a great bonding time? They say, families that play together, stay together.
Creating those magic moments is more important than anything else. Reading together with your child can be a great activity to keep your child engaged. But building things together can keep the spark alive.
“If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn,” says Ignacio Estrada, director, grants administration at Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.”
Mand Labs’ kit can give you the best experience to set the ball rolling. Imagine the glimmer of joy on your child’s face when you build your first automatic night lamp together. Also, imagine how thrilled you will be when your child surprises you with his own version of the burglar alarm. The things you and your child can build and bond together with the Mand Labs’ kit are endless. For an experience, have a look at the teaser below:
Teaching your child the basics of electronics can never be easy. But if you do it the right way, you will discover how fast your child picks up and enjoys every bit of it.
“Let your boys test their wings. They may not be eagles, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t soar free” – Author C.J Milbrandt.
Image licensed from Shutterstock Images.
You must be showering your little one with gifts every now and then. But when was the last time you had gifted your kid a gift of inspiration? A gift that will make an impact and benefit your child lifelong; a gift that will let him/her explore curricular concepts with imagination, creativity and confidence?
As Albert Einstein had said:
“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.”
To be able to inspire your child in science that will gradually transition into an exciting and fulfilling STEM career, you need to inculcate the importance and merits of STEM at an early age. When you enable your kid to explore and experiment without the fear of failing, you boost his/her confidence.
Gifting your kid with Mand Labs KIT-1 will definitely amp up his/her confidence level. When hands-on learning electronics gets fun and interactive, your child will enjoy the experience and ask for more. This kit lets you learn in the most simplest and comprehensive way possible.
Several studies and research have proved that the long-term benefits of hands-on learning are immense. For instance, a four-year study on the benefits of hands-on learning conducted in an elementary school in California, found that the longer students participated in hands-on learning, the higher were their scores in science, writing, reading, and mathematics.
So, take a step forward today and gift your child the greatest gift of inspiration this Thanksgiving or Christmas. Partner with your child to decorate the Christmas tree with glittering, multi-colored LEDs and home-made circuits and make this festive season fun-filled with lots of lights, learning and inspiration.
Let your little scientist tap his/her inner STEM creativeness and embark on a journey to be a genius. Who knows your future genius might soon surprise you with an innovation of his own, as Albert Einstein had said:
“Education is not the learning of facts, it’s rather the training of the mind to think.”
© 2024 Mand Labs. All Rights Reserved.
