You don’t need to spend long in a primary school classroom to know that kids are creative, have great imaginations and make fantastic problem solvers. It's something that should be celebrated, cultivated and is a vital part of any STEM career.
As adults, we are often inclined to focus on the barriers to new ideas; why something can’t be done, or the classic line “if it was possible someone would have done it already”. Primary school children tend not to think like this. Their ideas aren’t restricted by perceived barriers in the same way as adults’ ideas and this often allows them to be hugely inventive.
We started Kids Invent Stuff to get more primary school kids interested in engineering and to show that engineering relates to every aspect of society (not just cars and washing machines!).
Every month we set a different themed Invention Challenge and invite kids to send us their ideas for inventions. Alongside that, we provide a practical activity sheet.
Each month we choose an invention to bring to life. From Custard firing superhero suits, Flaming pianos and Slime Cannons we’re consistently blown away by the inventive brilliance of the ideas we are sent. Picking one specific invention to build and test is often really hard to do, but we have a stupid amount of fun doing it. This video gives you a taste of what we do.
Through the Kids Invent Stuff YouTube channel, we aim to demonstrate that engineering relates to every aspect of society and that it can be inherently creative and people focused, with problem-solving at its core.
We aim to show the fun, exciting and inspiring nature of engineering and technology by giving young people the opportunity to come up with their own invention ideas, with some of the best ideas built and tested on camera. Through this format, we also aim to highlight the links between STEM subjects, design and creative practice.
Submitting invention ideas is easy – they can be sent in as either drawings or videos of children explaining their idea. These can be uploaded to the Kids Invent Stuff website.