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Far beyond following instructions.
Our STEM Crates and challenges teach kids real-life problem solving.
Real engineering challenges in every Crate, written at age-appropriate levels for every stage of learning.
Because our ADHD can't tolerate making boring stuff, and we refuse to grow up. You're welcome, kids.
Kids don’t actually hate learning.
Almost as soon as they come into the world, that's all they want to do. As toddlers, they want to help with the dishes, use real tools, take things apart, and ask a million questions because they are desperate to understand how everything works.
So what changes?
Somewhere between curiosity and calculus, the “why” disappears, and learning becomes abstract instead of tactile.
But it’s hard to care about equations when you’ve never built anything that needs one.
By middle and high school, these once-curious kids no longer ask, "How does this work?” anymore.
Instead they ask, “When am I ever going to use this?”
That question means that learning has stopped feeling useful.
Students aren’t disengaged just because it's too boring, or even too hard. At this stage, learning turns into memorizing concepts for a test instead of solving interesting problems. Curiosity gets replaced with compliance. Discovery gets replaced with worksheets.
At Creator’s Craft Crates, we reconnect learning to purpose.
We combine real engineering challenges with practical application of science through our STEM Crates, Physics For Makers curriculum, and our free, virtual Creators Craft Challenges.
Our Physics For Makers curriculum was written by a working mechanical engineer who has spent his career designing and building real-world systems, and knows that in the real world, you learn principles because a problem demands them.
We start with something kids actually want to build — a car launcher, a bridge, a track, a real engineering challenge — and then teach the physics and engineering principles that make it work.
Instead of memorizing concepts for a test, students discover concepts because they need them.
That’s how real engineers learn.
And it’s how kids rediscover that they actually love learning.
(Pictured Below: Two of our students who are beta-testing the Physics For Makers: Grades 9-12 course. Our students are the ABSOLUTE BEST!)
We use a hybrid Project-Based Learning model:
Step 1: Give students a meaningful build challenge.
Step 2: Teach the science and math that makes them better builders.
When learning is tied to real physical experience, it sticks.
One 10-year-old in our bridge competition grasped moment of inertia — a college-level engineering concept — not because he was being graded, but because he wanted his bridge to be stronger.
That’s the difference.
Take a look at some of the learning material that comes with the Bottle Blaster Crate.
The Spencer Family having fun with the Bottle Blaster Crate!
Just a tiny bit of what you can find in the Physics For Makers: Grades 9-12 curriculum.
You can learn about my teaching philosophies by watching this episode of the OpenEd Podcast when I was a guest.
