Brian Kaufmann
The STEAM Team
Role - Strategic Product Manager
Duration - 7 months (ongoing)
The STEAM Team offers educational activity kits that provide kids with the skills they need to tackle unknown problems with confidence and creativity. The STEAM Team gives kids the platform needed to learn how to think critically and creatively, inspiring innovative ideas in everyone.
To date, our team has accomplished:
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Tufts 100k Competition 3rd Place, Social Impact Track
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University of Arkansas Heartland Pitch Competition Finalist
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4 iterations of our prototypes tested in homes, schools, bookstores, and afterschool programs
Background
Most problems we encounter in life don’t come with step-by-step solution guides, all the materials you need to solve them, or every tool you might need. For example, problems such as addressing the pandemic, tackling climate change, or depolarizing the country undeniably don’t come with instruction booklets. Yet, these are some of the most important problems facing our world. I, along with three of my classmates, wanted to investigate how the skills needed to tackle complex, open-ended problems, i.e. critical thinking, creative problem-solving, and emotional intelligence, were being fostered in today's education system. We uncovered two major problems:
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Schools today feel pressure to prepare students to perform well on standardized exams. Therefore, schools aren’t emphasizing the crucial problem-solving skills and creative mindsets that prepare kids to tackle problems with unknown solutions.
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Many parents have started to turn to educational products to supplement and complement their kids’ education. Yet, many of these kits and products provide step-by-step instructions with every activity, denying children the opportunity to develop the skills needed to solve open-ended, complex problems.
This learning gap is even more pronounced with children in underserved communities that may not have access to the supplementary kits and activities that families with greater means can access.
Challenge
How might we provide a fun and engaging way for all kids to practice critical thinking, creative problem solving, and emotional intelligence?
Design Process
Discovery & Problem Definition
We initially sought to learn as much as we could about the current education landscape as it exists in the school setting and in the home setting. Through a detailed literature review, we uncovered the most crucial skills needed to solve complex open-ended problems and the best practices for learning these skills, being learning through open-ended questions and trial and error, rather than step-by-step instructions.
Once we understood how kids learn these skills, we wanted to see what parents and educators were doing to teach them, and we wanted to hear their own views on important skills. I took the lead on this research and conducted over 50 empathy interviews with parents, kids, and educators throughout the United States. I also created 2 different surveys to share with parents and compiled all the notes from interviews and surveys, identifying common needs and key insights.
Key Insights
We used a variety of tools to help identify major pain points of both parents and teachers including empathy maps, personas, gap analyses, and storytelling.
Gap Analysis
Eventually, we determined that for the purpose of our first solutions, we would focus on either at-home or in-school, not both. To help us narrow down where we could make the biggest impact, I led my team through a systems mapping exercise, where we created a detailed systems map of the education system as exists today (the map shown below is a simplified version). After analyzing the problem from both a zoomed-in perspective (empathy interviews) and a zoomed-out perspective (systems analysis), it was clear that to integrate a solution into schools, where the curriculum is becoming more and more rigid, was going to be too difficult. So, we decided to focus on at-home solutions.
Systems Map
Once we recognized where our solution would take form and the needs of our customers, we created the following design goals:
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Enable kids to practice critical thinking, creative problem-solving, and emotional intelligence at home
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Provide a fun and engaging way for kids to learn
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Allow parents the option to partake if they chose to
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Be accessible to kids in underserved communities
Solution
Our team conducted many brainstorming sessions using techniques such as rapid ideation, flow charts, mind-mapping, and reversing the problem (my personal favorite). Somewhere along the way, I wrote down, "using recycled material to build forts." In the spirit of brainstorming and building on each others' ideas, that one sticky note turned into our first prototype which was a STEAM activity and a kid-friendly motor that encouraged the use of at-home recycled material and other products to create a car.
Prototype Evolution
After testing with kids and families, gathering feedback from parents, kids, and teachers, and iterating, we ended up with a solution that takes the form of an educational activity kit with three primary components.
Final Solution
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Children's Story
A children's story where the STEAM Team characters engage with STEAM concepts and encounter different problems. There are open-ended activities integrated throughout that allow kids to see the STEAM concepts for themselves and build creative solutions to the character's problems.
2
Advice for Adults
An Advice for Adults pamphlet that provides parents with general advice for how to positively contribute to their kids' solutions if they'd like. It also provides questions and fun facts that adults can read at different parts of the book if they're reading with the kids.
3
Materials
Some materials that allow kids to see the STEAM concepts in action. Since the solutions that kids make have to integrate the concepts, as well, we ensure that the materials can be used for kids to test their solutions.
"Have Fun Send One"
Since one of our design goals was to be accessible to kids in underserved communities, we structured our pricing and business model to satisfy that goal. So, for every kit bought, we could ensure that a kit would be sent to a family in an underserved community, satisfying that crucial design goal.
Brand Value Ladder
Website Mockups
Results
The STEAM Team placed 3rd in the Tufts 100k Competition within the Social Impact track. We are also a finalist of the Heartland Pitch Competition of the University of Arkansas. We have gained a lot of attention from local elementary schools and Boys and Girls clubs and will be organizing activities to do with kids in the coming months. We've tested our activities with over 30 kids in homes, schools, after-school programs, and bookstores, and have received some incredibly positive and constructive feedback.
Kids' Creations to Our Activities
I've spearheaded creating the financial pro formas and strategic marketing plan for this project, as well as being the point person for most of our connections. We've built connections all around the greater Boston area from teachers and educators to the creative team at the Boston Children's Museum. We will be continuing to test and iterate our activity kits in the coming months, with the hope of having a minimum viable product by May.