Brick Playbook: Parent Edition

Dear reader, inventor, and inspiring leader,

Whether you are a parent, an aunt or uncle, or a friend of the young makers and inventors who will work with our Bricks Project Book, I want to share our excitement and our cautions as we release this material to you.

Our goal is to spark curiosity in this next generation of learners. We attempt to do this through prompts, provocations, and challenges that inspire the young individual to want to know more, to search for what’s out there, and to create new questions that will propel their interest and inventions.

We are supplying you with all the information we can in support of your effort to inspire your next generation of inventors and creators. Please, be cautious when you share the “how-to” portion of this book with them! Don’t direct the process, support it. Even if you know what the child is about to do will fail. It isn’t because we are trying to be difficult or mysterious or even proprietary, it is because we firmly believe that the value comes in the struggle to create. Failure is new information and the child will learn more from the experience than from our warning.

If you buy a child an expensive robotics kit they will learn to build a robot by following the instructions and will build what the creator of that kit designed. That will help develop “follow-the-instructions” employees for the future. There will be less need for that since the robots we are making will take on those jobs. However, if you supply random material and a few old motors and ask the child or children to build a robot, you will inspire them to become problem solvers. You will prompt critical and creative thinking. In doing this, you help build a muscle that will serve the child for the rest of their life.

Let’s nurture a generation of children who can experiment and be comfortable with the failures that will be inherent in the creative process. Let’s build a sense of “yes I can” solve that problem, build that contraption, and make my world better through trial and error. We want them to know that failure is the reality for all great inventors throughout history. Thankfully, those inventors knew that success was on the other side of well-considered failures. Patents come from this process. Let’s encourage our children to see themselves as inventors and patent holders.

Thank you for taking this journey with us. And, please do share with us pictures and stories of your experience in this adventure!

Onward,

Dr. Leah Hanes
CEO
Two Bit Circus Foundation