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Hi STEM Sparkers! Remember last year when we talked about 10 STEM picture books for Women's History Month? Well, there's been a bunch...

Happy Women's History Month STEM Sparkers! We're kicking off the month with an interview from aerospace engineer (aka rocket scientist!)...

Happy St. Patrick's Day STEM Sparkers! We're writing this post a little early so you have plenty of time to prep your own leprechaun...

Happy E-Week STEM Sparkers! Founded by the National Society of Professional Engineers in 1951, EWeek (February 16–22, 2020) is dedicated...

I'm super excited about our next STEM author interview on STEM Spark, as she's a fellow engineer who has not 1, but 2, nonfiction STEM...

Welcome back STEM Sparkers to our holiday STEM product reviews and giveaways! The product we're reviewing this week was recommended to us by a few of our engineering friends, and I have to say, it's a pretty cool STEM product: it's the the Kamigami Robot Lina Ladybug! But before we jump into this review, a little robot humor. What kind of droids live at the North Pole? Snobots! Har, har, har (groan)! Will your kids like it and/or will you hate it? Jack keep asking when w

Alright, it's that time of year again where STEM Spark recommends some STEM books for your Black Friday and other holiday shopping. But not only is STEM Spark recommending these books, we're raffling off a bundle of these books to one lucky STEM Spark reader! First up will be STEM book recommendations for kids, and then make sure to scroll all the way through to the bottom for your chance to win the book giveaway! STEM Books for Kids: STEM books for YA: And finally STEM book

A couple of weeks ago, Jack, Bobby and I went to Disneyland's Oogie Boogie Bash. Unfortunately tickets are sold out, but you can read more here if interested for next year. I recommend going once if you're not that far away as the Halloween themed bash at Disneyland is super fun and of course spooktacular (insert groan)! We had a lot of fun trick or treating, riding the coasters, and costume watching! People get really inventive in their Disney and non-Disney costumes duri

Hello fellow STEM Sparkers! It's back to school time here in Phoenix, so we're loading up on fish. Oh wait, not a school of fish, school that teaches students, K-12. Now that the pun is out of the way, we'll be doing some back to school book reviews of various STEM children books during the whole month of August. Stick us through the end of the month because we plan to raffle of an Amazon gift card so that one lucky STEM Sparker can buy one of these cool STEM books that

Hello STEM Sparkers! Things have been a little hectic at STEM Spark HQ as we prepare for a move, but among all the chaos, we haven't forgotten to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the Moon! NASA is of course celebrating, and you can check out all their cool celebrations here . Jack choose to celebrate the Moon landing by building his own spaceship out of cardboard boxes. Bobby and I were so busy helping him that I forgot to snap photos for how to build

Plastic eggs are soon to be filled with goodies as Easter approaches here in the States, and if you're like me, you wonder what you can do with all the leftover plastic eggs. Last year, Jack and I reused our plastics eggs as a counting game; see our video here . This year we're covering the art and engineering part of STEAM by remaking our plastic eggs into parachutes. Read on for how to do this eggcellent (yep, I went there) STEAM project! You'll Need Plastic Eggs Pipe Cl

STEM Spark loves Women in STEM. STEM Spark loves NASA. STEM Spark loves Lego. So put them all together, and STEM Spark loves the Women of NASA Lego set! We're going to review this product a little different this month. Since it's Women's History Month here in the States, we're going to share a little bit of history about each woman featured in the Women of NASA Lego set! Photo Credit Lego Margaret Hamilton Margaret Hamilton is a computer scientist, systems engineer, and bu

Felicia Green was destined to graduate from New Mexico State University (Las Cruces) with a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering—before she was born, her baby shower was celebrated in the Physics Department of New Mexico State University (NMSU). At the time Felicia’s mother was an administrator for NMSU, where Felicia and her sister created many memories over their mother’s 39 years of service to the university. Once Felicia started attending NMSU for engineering, she would m

Hello! So I've already reviewed magnetic building blocks/magnetic tiles on this post, but I feel like this STEM toy is so popular right now that I want to do another giveaway of the magnetic tiles for the holidays. It will make a great gift under the tree! Here's the overall review summary of this toy: "So in summary, I'd give this STEM product a 4.5 out 5. Very fun and easy to build with and to learn about different shapes, as well as they come with their own carrying ca

Thanksgiving is upon US (United States that is), and that also means Black Friday shopping and gift giving to kids at various holiday events. And if you're looking for a small gift for kids, I'd like suggest a book instead of toy, and in particular, a book that has a STEM component it. We are after all about the STEM, about that STEM, about that STEM over here on STEM Spark, so admittedly I think we all knew I where I was going with this STEM books for the holidays thing.

The winter holidays are right around the corner, so that means we'll be doing a lot of STEM toy and product reviews here at STEM Spark. And a lot of giveaways! So make sure you are following STEM Spark closely for the next month. First review and giveaway for the holidays is Builder Barbie! Here's a reminder of the questions I use for my reviews (although I may be doing shorter answers to these questions so I can do more reviews for the month, so that I can do more giveaway

Engineers come from all walks of life. Some of us started our path in engineering right out of college. Some of us started as engineers after a career break. And some of us started in engineering after serving in the military. With Veteran's Day around the corner in the United States, STEM Spark wants to take a moment to honor our colleagues who started their engineering careers after serving in the military. Thank you for your service, and thank you for taking the time t

I had a scary dream, but with a happy ending, the other night. My family and I were flying somewhere overseas (the destination I forget, but it's not relevant to the story). We're on a 747, so it's commercial flight with 300 something passengers. All of sudden, we have to make a crash landing on the sea. Luckily, our pilots manage to land use on the ocean with minimal damage. Passengers have bumps and scraps, but no major injures. And no deaths (woo subconscious for makin

My character Annie Aardvark is named after fellow mathematician Annie Easley. In addition to being a mathematician, Annie Easley is also a computer programmer and rocket scientist. Annie Easley has worked at NASA, where she worked on one of the first-ever computer programs to enable space navigation. This computer program was used on the Centaur project, which is still considered one of NASA’s most important research projects. She also performed important research on power

Hello STEM Spark readers! I’m excited for today’s post, as it’s STEM Spark’s first guest post! I have invited my friend and colleague H.A. Burns to pen the first guest post—Burns and I know each other through the Society of Women Engineers. Besides both being engineers, we’re both authors. While I write children’s picture books, Burns writes science fiction books. And her sci-fi books are pretty cool, imagining a future with cyborgs designed with the aid of viruses and bacter