STEAM Popup Lab

Since the boundaries of school subjects are rather artificial and hardly mirror the diversity of knowledge needed t understand important matters in depth, STEAM Popup Lab aims to blur those borders and highlight the importance of collaboration between the sciences. STEAM Popup Lab offers the possibility to create your own path by moving within a net of educational experiences, where you can choose which direction to take. It is a virtual journey to understand the meaning of patterns all around us. Patterns are everywhere, from fractals in nature to blood vessels in the human body, through the oscillating signals produced by the sensors of a phone. You can control robots, fold origami patterns, measure the signal of a playground swing, be part of a live chemistry lab session, and more.

Explore virtual mazes created with GeoGebra and solve them in your home or garden. Walk through them and investigate the virtual obstacles which lay on your path. To solve more, however, you will need to solve a puzzle. This puzzle will involve experiments, logical thinking, and phantasy. Your possibilities for solving them will include math, physics, chemistry, informatics, engineering, and more. Learn how to use the augmented reality feature of GeoGebra and how you can turn simple to complex math into mazes.

Grab a piece of paper and start folding origami patterns! Learn about the axioms of folding origami and the mathematics behind it. Where do the axioms overlay with geometric construction rules? Videos and simulations will help you to fold more complex origami and understand the background.

Let’s create 3D tessellation cookie cutters online using math. They are playable until your hunger for math starts and the hunger for sweets stops! Puzzle cubes which can be created using a GeoGebra applet get turned into cookie cutters. Then they can be cut out of paper to play with the tessellation or cut the pieces out of dough! We invite everyone to join this constructivist cookie cutter creation approach!

Watch real-time lab experiments and experience how a lightning bolt can be forever captured in a piece of wood. What is so special about this shape? How do human vessel systems compare to the general shape of trees and what do all these natural patterns have in common?

Meet the smallest programmable robot in the world!

Track shapes with a virtual robot and understand the basics of coding by using block-based languages. Learn about Color-coding, Color-sensors and corresponding algorithms.

Use your own smartphone to discover the physics of motion with the built-in sensors. The acceleration, pressure, noise and light sensors of smartphones can be used together with free of charge software (phyphox) to discover the physics of a children’s swing, the forces on a carousel or measure the speed while riding a scooter.

Mixing chemicals in the correct ratio results in beautiful oscillating reactions and pattern formations. Experience how dynamic patterns grow and learn about their chemical properties. Explore simulations, conduct experiments from home and solve puzzles. Are you ready to tell a scientist what to mix in a chemical laboratory? Join a live laboratory session to find out!

The Experience Workshop STEAM Network (www.experienceworkshop.org) is curating an online exhibition of mathematical art, created by children from all over the world. The goal is to explore new sources of education and to engage children, teachers and parents. Recently, Nelson Mandela University’s Govan Mbeki Mathematics Development Centre launched a South African educational program based on the concept.