Okay- GUYS. So for like children and small people. If you were a child what would you want in a box to showcase steam. What would be a good idea? Like with art and science like? What’s a good way to incorporate those into boxes to give to elementary students?
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Put one of these in a box then ship with the instructions “Just add water”, and it’ll showcase steam pretty well.
Nah, more seriously - It’s a good question. There’s a lot of ways to go with it…
I’d do the following first:
- Pick a target audience - students change a lot between 1st grade and 5th grade
- Pick a target audience size - are we talking one classroom? 100 classrooms?
- Pick a price point - I’m assuming whoever is prepping this box will be cost-constrained - combined with total size that will drive constraints on what you can or can’t put into a box
- Pick a theme or focus. STEAM is big, I doubt it’s possible to slam it all into one box.
- Pick the amount of work you want to do. Are you thinking you have people who will be doing design/fabrication/assembly? or do you just need to buy stuff and get it drop shipped?
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I have seen teams make activity book. for younger kids. Think connect the dots, a maze, perhaps a simple perimeter background with open area to “design your own robot” space. I have not been part of a team that has done this, but I have seen kids with these at events, and it seemed to go over pretty well.
If you want to get kids excited about STEM, you may have to think outside of the box and realize that sometimes it’s not about what you put into the box, but rather, what you put around the box 
For a more serious answer, I would recommend looking at how Exploding Bacon designed their STEM kits as one example.
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See also:
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We’ve designed a bunch of different activities that we have out for kids at outreach events. The key is simple things that don’t require a lot of materials or complexity to complete. Our most popular/best ones are origami, morse code bracelets, slime, small balloon cars made out of plastic water bottles. For a box, you could do something similar to those, something without many steps/many parts (could change complexity based on age), and I would definitely include as part of the instruction sheet the stem concept behind it. I second checking out KiwiCo, though those kits are usually one project per box iirc.
I know some people make robotics themed coloring books! That would cover the art side pretty well with a hint of robotics. Then more science wise, I would say that having paper airplane designs or a paper airplane launcher (rubber bands, paper clip, and paper) is always fun and can have the science explained behind it.
During ye olde COVID Times, we did some videos of kid friendly STEAM activities which might inspire you:
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I’m currently working on a custom GPT to make STEAM lesson plans for Arduino and similar Microcontrollers. Stuff like interweaving a small short story with a lesson about circuits and code.
It’s still a W.I.P. and I don’t have the code part here but you can get the jist for one basic lesson. It doesn’t look like very much, but with a group of K-8 this could take between 30 minutes to a full hour depending on their hand eye coordination, group size and typing skills when it comes to the code portion as well. A basic lesson with RGB leds and a button could take 6-8th graders 45 minutes if they are terrible at code or you don’t explain the wiring explicitly. (I did this for 5 years so I feel like I can guage this pretty well).
As a single student at home following the steps and pictures it might take a little longer or a little less based on the individual. Even highschoolers as a group take awhile when you have to go check each one off or wait for the whole group to complete a step.
I let ChatGPT/ Dall-E make artwork, the story portion and let it try to make the code, or leave kid friendly comments when I write the code. I make the wiring diagrams in Fritzing and assemble the booklets in Canva. It’s a pretty good system and I can whip out a lot of fun little lessons that way.
Benny’s Button Adventure_20231211_193508_0000.pdf (2.5 MB)
If you didn’t use an Arduino Uno but used a Nano these kits are like $15 or less and really let you do a lot if you mix and match the MCU and just prebag the wires and circuit components.
As a side note: I am in favor of using AI tools to make fun STEAM items given someone with enough technical knowledge is proofing it and you thoroughly test and debug any code it generates. This can make what seems like a mountain of work for a small team really much simpler and one or two students and a mentor could write 3 lessons in a single meeting
I expected to click your link and see something like this but with a shovel.
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