NEWTON-AR received with flying colors at Edwards Elementary
At Parametric studio, we are devoted to providing young students with opportunities to have hands-on learning experiences with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Recently, second-grade students at Edwards Elementary got a chance to experience Parametric Studio’s newest software, Newton. NEWTON combines Engineering, Making, Computer Science, STEM learning, and Augmented Reality. And it does this through game-based Rube-Goldberg-style challenges. NEWTON helps teachers engage students in problem-solving while encouraging collaboration and creativity.
“We were trying to find ways to make the STEM and computer science more approachable for children,” said Chris Whitmer, our founder and owner.
Schools can’t always devote 60 minutes every day to hands-on STEM activities, so we looked to offer short programs for students to learn key concepts using augmented reality. Augmented reality (AR) allowed students to learn those concepts over a two-week period. Newton utilizes AR via an iPad app to walk students through hands-on experiments and projects.
“Students are sponges for information and way more adaptable than we often give them credit for.”
“We built a prototype for a Rube Goldberg Design tool,” Whitmer said. “Students can program pieces of the contraption. They can design them to be special. They can arrange them and then they can test them out. Students are sponges for information and way more adaptable than we often give them credit for.”
Our software allows the students to work collaboratively and see what their classmates are doing. It also does a great job of teaching early computer science concepts, because it teaches sequencing and simple ideas about logic, loops, and algorithms. It immediately connects them to the thing they have programmed. Providing a hands-on example helps build an understanding of what they are trying to accomplish.
“Our test at Edwards went really, really well.”
“It’s kind of like this mixture of a design sandbox game and a tabletop game,” Whitmer said. “Our test at Edwards went really, really well.”
We started off as an engineering company, working with NASA, and created design software.
After a while, we started looking for new software applications and landed on working with students.
“Because of the Next Gen Science Standards, students really need this sort of stuff in elementary, middle school, and high school levels,” Whitmer said. “We started with these really sophisticated tools we built for NASA, and transformed them into things that can be used by second, third, fourth, and fifth graders.”
Newton works with the same devices, iPads, and Chromebooks, which kids in the classroom are already using. It presents complicated scientific concepts in a way second graders can understand.
“You try to make every design problem like a sandbox game. It incorporates their ideas to create the design, and builds on the math and science concepts they’re learning through the missions,” Whitmer said.
Our idea is to take ideas they’re learning in the classroom and bring them to life in a real-world setting.
“In the end, they can make a contraption and test it themselves either with our kit or by using new technologies like 3D printing or laser cutting,” Whitmer said. Students can even use plain-old cardboard or balsa wood.
Newton will revolutionize the classroom for students in elementary schools by teaching complicated lessons through an easy and inviting interphase, immersion, and tones of interaction. Students, teachers, and parents can navigate an app puzzle about forces without knowing Newton’s First Law or how to write a physics equation.
“When they’re ready for these ideas you let them have access to more and more of the tools,” Whitmer said. “We give them qualitative ways to test out their ideas.”
Our goal has always been to bring STEM concepts and learning to the classroom in a fun and engaging way.
“We’ve always wanted to give back,” Whitmer said. “We have a passion for the subject matter.”
Inspiring and empowering students in STEM subjects at a young age is crucial to encourage future generations to enter the STEM field.
Whitmer’s passion for science began when he was young. His dad was a high school science teacher. His elementary school would let out earlier than the high school, so Whitmer would go to visit his father in his classroom.
“I’ve always felt that it's super important that our software includes as many hands-on components as possible,” Whitmer said. “That’s where Newton is really unique.”
“We’d come in there and we’d sit and see all the models and all of the experiments set up,” Whitmer said. “He’d just let us play with that stuff. It was awesome.”
He’d grow sugar crystals, check out the fish tank and look under the microscope.
“That is probably where my passion for science and technology came from,” Whitmer said.
Those experiences helped shape the ideas that we at Parametric Studio hope to bring to schools all around Iowa and the country. We are looking to work with at least 20 to 30 schools or after-school programs over the next month.
