2015 has been the year where the nations’ digital skills gap has been put under the spot light. With women in technology calling for parents to encourage girls into STEM from an early age, and the recent changes in the National Curriculum regarding coding, getting your children interested in STEM has never been so important.
With that in mind, CBR lists 5 fun STEM gifts guaranteed to get children excited about STEM this Christmas.
1. Snap Circuits
Snap Circuits contains over 30 colour-coded, real circuit components that snap together to create working electronic circuits and devices. Targeted at children aged 8 years and over, this kit gives a fun, hands-on introduction to electronics.
Snap Circuits offers 101 do-it-yourself projects that aims to teach your child how electronic work. Snap Circuits retails at £29.98.
2. Hot Wires Electronics Kit
Another snap electronics toy, but this kit allows children to build anything from a flying disc to a burglar alarm. The kit contains full colour step by step instructions for children aged 8 years and over.
This kit will put kids on the fast-track to becoming an electronics pro, with the kit allowing them to build their own burglar alarm or lie detector. The John Adams Hot Wires Electronics Kit retails for £73.99.
3. Build Your Own Robot Arm
Teaching the basics of robotics, Build Your Own Robot Arm gives kids a chance to build their own remote controlled robot arm with a self-assembly kit. Although simple to construct, building the robot arm is a great way to learn more about basic robot technology and control systems.
The five-way directional control allows the robot arm to grab, lift, position, lower and release items smoothly and efficiently. Build Your Own Robot Arm retails for £39.99.
4. LittleBits Cloud Starter
This product includes everything needed to get kids creating internet-connected devices. LittleBits are small, simple, intuitive blocks that make working with electronics a matter of snapping small magnets together with no experience required.
The LittleBits cloudBit Starter Kit enables kids to create home-made solutions to everyday challenges. For example, by connecting with any web service or hardware on IFTTT you can connect your cloudBit to Twitter so that each time you get a retweet the LED lights module lights up.
5. Bits & Bytes
This is a card game which teaches children the fundamentals of computer coding. Targeting children between the ages of 4 and 7, the goal of Bits and Bytes is for each player to guide their character (program) to their home planet, Ram, by issuing instructions.
At the same time they have to avoid Walls, Bugs and the dreaded CPU. Retailing at £14.95, Bits & Bytes teaches and creates computer concepts, like algorithms and the sequencing of instructions
