Curriculum · A
From launching projectiles to a working robot hand. Curriculum A takes students ages 8–14 through six units of real engineering — physics, circuits, sensing, robotics — in 90-minute weekly sessions, ending with an animatronics finale and a family showcase night.
Weekly build journals — a sketch or photo, measurements, and one sentence answering the week's big question — graded on honesty and completeness. Failed trials count; made-up data doesn't. Each unit ends with a demo day, and Week 30 is a family showcase.
Parts are sourced separately from our bills of materials — roughly $8–$183 per kit. Equipping one build station for all 30 weeks runs approximately $1,000–$2,800, with core electronics (boards, servos, sensors, tools) reused across the year.
The 30 weeks
| Week | Build | What students do |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ballista Physics Lab | Launch soft projectiles at different angles; chart angle vs. distance to find the farthest throw. |
| 2 | Bridge Load Lab | Build a birch truss bridge and load it to failure on purpose; sketch where the force went. |
| 3 | Gear Ratio Lab | Build a gear train and feel how gears trade speed for strength. |
| 4 | Bernoulli Wind Lab | Venturi and airfoil demos with a fan; draw how air pushes a wing up. |
| 5 | Cam-Follower Engine | Swappable cams — round, heart, and a "bad example" square — turn rotation into patterned motion. |
| Week | Build | What students do |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | Electromagnet Lab | Wind a nail electromagnet; chart coil turns vs. paperclips lifted. |
| 7 | Piano Circuit Machine | Build an 8-key piezo piano and perform a real melody. |
| 8 | Binary Logic Gates Board | A switch-and-LED board that lights up AND, OR, and NOT truth tables. |
| 9 | Capacitive Touch Synth | Touch pads that play tones without pressing — the same idea as a phone screen. |
| 10 | Diffraction Spectroscope | A CD-grating spectroscope; draw the spectra of three different light sources. |
| Week | Build | What students do |
|---|---|---|
| 11 | IR Tripwire Doorbell | An invisible-light beam-break alarm, from short-range to a full doorway version. |
| 12 | Ultrasonic Rangefinder Lab | An echo-timing distance sensor, bat-style; measure five mystery distances. |
| 13 | Solar Tracker | A gimbal that pans and tilts toward the brightest light. |
| 14 | Weather Station | Log real weather data for a full week; present one discovery from the data. |
| 15 | Desk Load-Cell Scale | Build and calibrate a digital scale, then weigh mystery objects. |
| Week | Build | What students do |
|---|---|---|
| 16 | Stepper Clock Escapement | A stepper-motor clock; check it against a real clock after an hour. |
| 17 | POV LED Spinner | Spinning LEDs paint pictures in the air via persistence of vision. |
| 18 | Tilt Maze Labyrinth | A dual-servo tilt maze; class tournament for the fastest clean run. |
| 19 | Pneumatic Soft Gripper | A syringe-powered soft gripper; the egg-lifting challenge. |
| 20 | Strain-Gauge Beam Lab | Hang weights on a beam, chart bend vs. load, and predict the next one before hanging it. |
| Week | Build | What students do |
|---|---|---|
| 21 | Light-Following Robot | A Braitenberg vehicle — sensors wired straight to motors; try "seeker" and "scaredy-cat" wirings. |
| 22 | Birch Differential Rover | A twin-motor rover; drive a square course with no steering wheel. |
| 23 | Line-Following Rover | An IR line follower; tune it, then race day on the class track. |
| 24 | Color-Sort Chute | A color-sensor sorting machine; sort 20 mixed items and count the mistakes. |
| 25 | 3-DOF Plywood Arm | A three-servo robot arm; pick-and-place relay into a target zone. |
| Week | Build | What students do |
|---|---|---|
| 26 | Gyro Leveling Platform | A self-leveling tray — the feedback loop that keeps drones steady. |
| 27 | Servo Expression Face | Brow, eye, and jaw servos programmed into three expressions; expression charades. |
| 28 | Animatronic Mascot Head | Design an original mascot head and choreograph a 10-second "alive" sequence. |
| 29 | Remix Workshop | Student's choice: extend, combine, or rebuild any previous kit. |
| 30 | Finale: Animatronic Hand + Showcase | Five-tendon animatronic hand (two sessions); family showcase night — students keep the hand. |
Included materials
The 30-week engineering journal: a big question, words to know, a mission, data tables, a sketch box, and reflection prompts — every week. Plus a measurement toolkit, parent materials checklist, and certificate of completion.
Week-by-week execution plans: timed agendas, launch scripts, facilitation notes, stop-and-checks, discussion prompts, common failures and rescues, differentiation, and standing safety notes for every session.
Curriculum A · Licensing
Licensing is per classroom or cohort and includes the curriculum guide, student workbook, and teacher's guide. Contact us for a quote.
