Tinker Crate Review & Coupon – #TinkerDrawBot

Tinker Crate is a subscription box that inspires kids to explore and learn about science, engineering, and technology—and have fun doing it. Every month, you’ll get a new crate to help kids develop a tinkering mindset and creative problem solving skills. It is STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) focused and designed to help kids build their problem solving skills and to gain the confidence and curiosity to tackle problems where there’s no one right answer. Use code MS30 to save 30% on your first box!  (or Kiwi Crate  and the KiwiCo family subscriptions Koala Crate and Doodle Crate).

This was everything that arrived in our March 2015 Tinker Crate – the supplies, a fold-out instruction sheet, and the Tinker Zine.

For March, Tinkerers would be working on robot art and creating a drawbot!

I found the instructions clear and easy to follow.

So did my daughter. She showed up with the drawbot fully assembled!

She used washi tape to stick the motor and the battery pack to the robot because she couldn’t unstick the back of the tape – it was insanely sticky!

Can I tell you how proud I am of this wiring job? I AM THE PROUDEST MOM EVER!

The instructions give extra tinkering ideas and challenges, plus a way to get help if your project isn’t working yet.   Fortunately even if you (the parent or other caregiver) aren’t tinkery, Tinker Crate provides video instructions as well as one on one email support should the need arise.

This one was super easy to tinker with – you moved the pack & motor around to shift the center of gravity, as well as shaped the clay that’s stuck on the end of the motor.

The Tinker Zine has (fun) educational information plus extra experiments. The magazine explains the concept of the proejct using accessible and easy to understand diagrams.

The magazine teaches basic physical science, interweaving concepts like momentum into applied science like generative art. I have been kicked out of my desk chair multiple times in order for the children to experience momentum.

This is an extra activity and it has been requested that I get some toys. It would have been cool for Tinker Crate to include a toy for the project. I don’t know why we don’t have any around!

I loved these conceptual questions (e.g., can a robot be an artist) that really make kids think.  [If you want some resources on that, try starting here]

#drawbot #tinkercrate #subscriptionbox

A video posted by Brandy/Hello Subscription (@gotbrandy) on Apr 12, 2015 at 12:47pm PDT

I’m including a video that I posted to Instagram (find another here, and here).

I believe that we have a white erase board with a frame and some skinny expo markers, so we are trying that out next! I should note that my daughter is well below the suggested age for this subscription, which is 9-14, but she loves creating and inventing (and tinkering!) and it turns out that it’s really perfect for her. She reads the magazine cover to cover, does the activity, and then engages in all the experiments. My daughter discovered that this robot art needed a bit of human intervention and experimentation – the lines in the paper stopped the bot from going, so that’s why she moves it around. We’re going to tape some roll paper together to give the bot a great big canvas to work with next!

Use code MS30 to save 30% on your first box!  (or Kiwi Crate  and the KiwiCo family subscriptions Koala Crate and Doodle Crate).  You can use this code on all the other KiwiCo family subscriptions too – Kiwi Crate, Koala Crate, and Doodle Crate!

Visit Tinker Crate to subscribe or find out more! You can see more subscriptions for kids and monthly subscriptions for teens and tweens in the directory. Also, check out this post on subscriptions for teen boys!