Engineering and Coding for Kids!
Stem Education and Maker BlogFree Courses from MakeCrate
Hand Washing Timers
Stay safe and clean during the pandemic with these different ways to time your hand-washing.
Build an LED Message Machine
Learn to write messages that scroll with an LED matrix
Build a Morse Code Reader
Learn to send and interpret Morse Code
Visualize Resistance in Action
Watch how various levels of resistance change behavior in your circuit.
Build a Color Changer
Watch how colors mix by coding a red-green-blue LED.
Serial and Parallel Circuits
Learn the differences between serial and parallel circuits.
Build an Optical Theremin
Build a musical instrument that uses light to control sound.
Drag and Drop Coding
Learn to use a drag-and-drop coding editor.
Latest Blog Posts
Recycling Logic Puzzle
Test your problem solving ability with this recycling logic puzzler!Four recycling trucks arrive in different days, and in different times, to collect recycling materials.What is the color of the truck that collects batteries? Use the chart and clues below to help you...
5 Great STEM Activities for Outdoors
5 Great STEM Activities for OutdoorsSpring is here! The beautiful weather calls us outside, and creates the perfect opportunity to bring learning outdoors. Check out these ideas to encourage STEM learning while taking advantage of the great outdoors!...
Profiles in STEM: Rachel Carson
Perhaps the finest nature writer of the Twentieth Century, Rachel Carson (1907-1964) is remembered today as the woman who challenged the notion that humans could obtain mastery over nature by chemicals, bombs and space travel than for her studies of ocean life. Her...
Robots Every Day!
MakeCrate’s Robox, an educational robot subscription, is designed to teach kids how to build and program robots- great skills to have as robots become more and more prevalent in our everyday lives. Let’s take a look at some of the amazing ways that robots...
Profiles in STEM: Helen Greiner
The team at MakeCrate loves automation and we are ready adopters of just about any tool to increase efficiency and eliminate chores. So today we are celebrating Helen Greiner, co-founder of iRobot, and one of the designers of the iRobot Roomba -a self-driving vacuum...
STEM Lesson Plans: Coding and Engineering
STEM Lesson Plans: Coding and EngineeringBring engineering and coding to your classroom with our free downloadable lesson plans!STEM skills like coding, engineering, and robotics are important for all kids as they prepare for the future. Our educator written lesson...
A Parent’s Guide to Getting Your Child Excited about Coding and Engineering
Download our free STEM, coding, and engineering parent's guide! Bring STEM skills to your child with our free parent's guide to coding and engineering! [et_bloom_locked optin_id="optin_3"]MakeCrate Parent's Guide [/et_bloom_locked] Why do you need our parent's guide...
Robot Logic!
Test your problem solving ability with this robot logic puzzler! You are locked in a room with only two doors. Each door is guarded by a robot. One door leads to your escape, while the other leads to certain death. In order to choose your door, you are allowed to ask...
Profiles in STEM: Katherine Johnson
This week, we're celebrating the life and work of one of the most important women in modern science. Before she helped send the first astronauts to the moon, won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and became the subject of an award-winning film, Katherine Johnson was...
5 Ways to Celebrate Pi Day
Pi Day is Thursday, March 14! Check out our History of Pi article, and celebrate the day with these great activities: Make a Pi bracelet! Buy small beads in 10 colors, and some string. Let each color represent the digits from 0 to 9. String your beads in the order of...
A Brief History of Pi
While there's a "food holiday" for just about everything you love to eat, it turns out there are actually two separate days every year when people come together to celebrate pie: National Pie Day on January 23 and Pi Day on March 14. As you can imagine, it's easy to...
Get Kids Coding for Free
Learning to code teaches kids valuable skills. Kids who learn to code will be prepared with the tools they need for the jobs of the future, while they hone their creative thinking skills and learn persistence, systematic reasoning, and collaboration. While most...
Free coding and engineering course
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Why Kids Should Learn to Code
Most Americans love their laptops, tablets, and smart phones, but according to a recent study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) few Americans know much about how their favorite technologies work. When it comes to using...
What is a microcontroller?
All of our MakeCrate electronics subscription kits use an Arduino microcontroller as well as a variety of digital and analog sensors and displays to create nightlights, calculators, room alarms, and more. Because the microcontroller is a fundamental part of every...
Circuit Basics: Electricity Flow
Transcript: Let's take a look at the steps required to build a circuit that allows electricity to flow correctly. In each of the projects that we build at MakeCrate, we start by connecting a wire to the 5V connection on our Arduino to our breadboard, and then...
Voltage, Current, and Resistance: Ohm’s Law
Voltage, current, and resistance are three important and related concepts that help any circuit behave properly. Get a basic introduction into their relationship in this short video.
While loops
A common coding structure is the while loop. This is used when you need an action or event to occur for the entire time a condition is met or another action is occurring, but not at other times. To understand this in more depth, watch this video and learn about while...
If-Then Statements
If you are writing some code and need an event to occur only when some other event has occurred or a specific condition has been met, an if-then statement might come in handy. Explore how these work in the Arduino IDE:
For Loops
There are a few programming structures that are common across languages. For-loops are one of those. For loops are commonly used when an action needs to be performed a specific number of times. Take a look at this video to begin to learn to build a working for-loop...
How does an ultrasonic sensor work?
Learn the science and math behind an ultrasonic sensor. Transcript: An ultrasonic sensor can be used to calculate how far away an object is. These sensors can be used to determine things like how far your car is from a wall, or whether or not your water bottle is in...
How does a photoresistor work?
Learn about the properties of semiconductors that allow photoresistors to work. Transcript: Let’s take a look at how a photoresistor works. A resistor is an electronic component that reduces the amount of current flowing through a circuit. A variable resistor is one...
How does a buzzer work?
Curious what is happening inside a buzzer? Check out this video. Transcript: Buzzers can be both fun and useful in electric circuits.We’ll use them a lot in MakeCrate projects, so let’s take a look at what is going on inside a buzzer to produce sound. The buzzer...
How does a breadboard work?
How does a breadboard work? The breadboard is a key part of every MakeCrate project. Let’s take a look at why we use them, why they are called breadboards, and how they work. Why use a breadboard? The type of breadboards we use are called solderless breadboards....