This past Saturday, November 19th, over 300 kids and their families came to the Fluxspace Experience Center in Norristown for a chance to participate in Kids Hack Day. Visitors to Fluxspace were welcomed with opportunities to come together and build recycled cardboard creations, explore simple electronic circuits, code robots, and more.
Kids Hack Day is an international event, held each year in honor of World Children’s Day. This year, Fluxspace became the first USA location for Kids Hack Day. Families in Norristown were joined virtually by children and their families in Travnik, Mumbai, and Stockholm. Participants were able to connect with inventive, creative minds around the world and see what other children were creating.
“I loved seeing so many young inventors engaged in many different STEM activities,” said Ryne Anthony, Fluxspace Director of Innovation. “Seeing students have a good time, smile, and laugh – all while working together and experiencing future technologies.”
Many unique innovative ed tech products were featured at Kids Hack Day. Children and parents played games on the Campfire Clear Touch software and used Strawbees to build towers and other structures. InvenTABLE, a super safe power tool which allows children to easily cut cardboard, helped students build model planes and dinosaurs. Participants were also able to use their creative problem solving skills through Makedo, a cardboard construction kit. In the Makerspace, children learned about 3D printing and explored rapid manufacturing by laser cutting customized holiday ornaments. At the robotics station, families coded Matatalabs and Edison Robots to follow mazes and complete challenges.
The main room in Fluxspace was filled with children and families creating and tinkering. A team of volunteers and Fluxspace interns led activities ranging from light up LED holiday cards to dancing bristle bots. Families worked together to build cardboard automatas and used cardboard, tin foil, or playdough to make Makey Makey switches to play Flappy Bird. Nate Kraihanzel, Fluxspace Operations said that the creativity in the room was inspiring. “The best part about Kids Hack Day was seeing the amount of creativity that every single kid brought with them, getting to learn about their ideas, and seeing each person's unique ideas.”
The event attracted Fluxspace regulars and newcomers to the Experience Center. Local girl and boy scout troops attended Kids Hack Day and worked towards their STEM badges. Teachers and school admin attended with their children, in order to learn more about what Fluxspace has to offer. The event “showed a lot of parents what the future of education could be.” said Kraihanzel. “Parents that came got to see how excited their students were about getting into STEM. At Fluxspace, we preach the future of education, and it was cool to see it in action: kids being exposed to so many different activities in science, technology, engineering, and math fields.”
The Fluxspace team wants to send a big thank you to Kids Hack Day in Stockholm for inviting them to participate in this event! Being the first USA location of this event was incredibly exciting, and the team hopes that the Fluxspace community continues to grow and explore the future of STEM together.
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