STEAM Challenge: A Lunar Lesson in Letting Go

There's nothing like some lunar action to get us all fired up here at Creators Academy, and I hoped my kids would feel the same about the ESA Moon Camp Challenge. This is an annual, non-competitive challenge aimed at students under 19 to design a habitat for astronauts using various techniques, from traditional arts and crafts to cutting-edge 3D design tools. However, little did I know that this journey would take an unexpected turn, teaching me a valuable lesson in letting creativity take its course!

Plan A - Transforming my kids into space experts

In school this year, my KS1 kids have been learning about Tim Peake, Mae Jemison and Neil Armstrong in history lessons as well as exploring astronomy in their science class. My plan was clear - use the challenge to upskill my Key Stage 1 kids into space experts!

Anticipating a hands-on arts and crafts project with toilet rolls and googly eyes, I was surprised when my kids were drawn to TinkerCAD, a free 3D design tool that we encountered through the challenge website. My kids took one look at the colourful drag-and-drop 3D shapes, and building a moon camp with toilet rolls was so yesterday. We were going all-out high tech on this!

As I attempted to bring them back to the educational aspects of astronomy, gravity, and lunar landscapes, my efforts were met with a steely determination to get their sticky fingers on TinkerCAD as soon as possible.

Me: How about we talk about what it's like on the Moon and what our astronaut would need to live there? What do you know about gravity on the Moon, and do you remember the video of Neil Armstrong bunny hopping on the surface?

Child: Yeah – there's less gravity on the moon so you can jump over craters – can we use TinkerCAD now?

Me: How about we sketch our ideas on paper before we start our design?

Child: Paper’s downstairs – can we do it on TinkerCAD? Pleeeeeeeeeaaase?

Plan B - Letting my kids direct their own learning

With no predetermined plan, I reluctantly entered the world of TinkerCAD. The kids, not interested in tutorials or examples, seized control.

I don’t know what I expected next - but ‘things happened’. Bit by bit, our kids built their own idiosyncratic version of a ‘Moon Camp’. There was an outdoor cinema, several ‘tents’, each one for a different astronaut activity like reading books and playing card games. There was a canteen for astronauts to eat lunch. A park with trees and plants to ‘put oxygen into the air’. A giant moon frog – I don’t know why a giant moon frog – but a giant moon frog!

I was wildly impressed with the unfettered creativity, but my adult brain was tearing itself apart knowing that the brief was a MOON CAMP. My confusion must have been evident when I said for the umpteenth time ‘It’s wonderful, but isn’t it going to be a bit tricky for the astronauts to live there?

‘I’ll put a Moon dome over it then’ said the child with an exasperated sigh. ‘To keep you happy’ was left unsaid. That was the end of that conversation and I had learnt a lesson - the importance of letting go and allowing independent creative exploration.

Conclusion and my learnings

Despite my efforts to control the activity my child had internalised everything they needed to know about the task and set about to design and build a digital moon camp independently.

Independence - that’s an important feeling when you’re 6!

TinkerCAD was surprisingly intuitive for beginners, allowing my children to navigate the tool almost effortlessly. The only assistance required was for fiddly actions like resizing objects while maintaining the original proportions. And to calm my inner control freak, what my kids didn't learn about space was more than made up for by an afternoon of manipulating 3D shapes.

The result was not what I had imagined to be a "moony" habitat, but that’s my lack of imagination. At their age (maybe at any age) the result should be less important than the enthusiasm and the process. While not engineers just yet, they are developing confidence in their creativity that will set them up for when they are ready to combine hard science knowledge with innovation.

We're going to enter our colourful moon camp into the challenge and hope the ESA and TinkerCAD will be proud of us – and we’ll remind the astronauts to watch out for moon frogs on their next trip! 🐸🚀