Hands-On STEM Resources -- Engineering

Continuing with my series about teaching STEM subjects without a curriculum, here are some hands-on ideas to introduce your kids to concepts in engineering. As always, keep in mind that these activities and supplies can be used to touch on a variety of subjects.

I think of engineering as a catch-all for activities that use science, technology and math in practical ways. It involves taking known facts and techniques — along with developing new ones — to solve real-life problems.

Here are some suggestions for activities kids can do inside, outside, and all around. They all give kids hands-on experience with materials and construction techniques.

Let them explore, then have them write down, draw diagrams, or take photos and videos of what they made and talk about what they discovered!

All my books of STEAM activities, from Paper Inventions to Edible Inventions, include projects that teach kids about engineering using everyday stuff.

My book Paper Inventions includes a chapter on building structures with paper!

Outdoor Engineering

Kids don’t need any special equipment to play around with engineering outdoors. They can:

dig holes
build structures from branches and scrap wood
pile up rocks to dam a creek (existing or created with a hose)
arrange bricks to make walls, archways, and bridges.

If raw materials are lacking, you can make a fun life-size outdoor building set from PVC pipes and connectors from the plumbing store.

Just cut them up into roughly different sizes, from about 1 to 3 feet long, and add a few different kinds of straight, curved, and branching connectors.

Indoor Engineering

Rolled up paper is a great building material. Use newspaper or strips of packing paper to roll struts for a club-house-sized geodecsic dome (instructions in Paper Inventions).

Or use smaller struts or sturdy paper straws to make table-top sized structures. Hot glue is a quick and easy way to attach them.

Materials like toothpicks and bamboo skewers can also be used to build structures. They can be attached by poking them into gumdrops or globs of clay.

You can also buy straw-building kits like Strawbees, or make your own using bent paperclips or pipe cleaners. Let kids experiment to figure out their own!

You can also make entire machines out of paper, corks, and bent paperclips! Rob Ives is the master of this craft. You can find his designs in books (some with punch-out pages to build with) or buy them as individual PDFs.

And pinball machines are wonders of engineering. The PinBox 3000 cardboard pinball machine kit lets you design your own playboard using ordinary crafts materials.

Anywhere Engineering

Rube Goldberg machines and marble runs can be as big or small as you like. Indoors, they can fit on a counter or sprawl around the room or around the house. Outside, they can make their way through the backyard and incorporate swings and other sports equipment.

They’re great for teaching not only building techniques, but also physics and math as you calculate how to make parts swing or drop accurately and get the right balance of weights.

My book Musical Inventions includes a musical marble run inspired by the hand-cranked Wintergatan marble machine that used Lego, wood, and steel marbles to play real instruments.

But there are million variations on this theme. The group OK Go has a whole educational website called OK Go Sandbox devoted to their Rube Goldberg music videos, with activities kids can do themselves!

Engineering Books

Here are just a few titles that my family has enjoyed. They include how-to books as well as books about feats of engineering that can inspire your kids to start building on their own!