Innovation Hub for Children
The GIANT Room is an Innovation Hub for children to discover interests, ideate challenges they care to solve, get messy and bring their ideas into reality. It is an innovation hub because it is all about children creating something new. It is a hub because we believe the process of generating new things is social and is best done with a community. The GIANT room resembles the cool and playful culture of a startup paired with roots in the learning sciences. The goal is for GIANT kids to be ready to face the fast paced ever changing future of work and ultimately create the world they want to live in.
The GIANT Approach has 4 modules: each inspiring a certain action with an outcome
Blank Canvas
Action: Imaginative Play
Outcome: Creative Confidence
In Blank Canvas, we invite children to dream something big together and build it out of their imagination. It could be a fantastical city, life underwater, or a giant interactive book. Children have access to arts and crafts, electronic, and modeling materials to build what they dream.
Ups & Rounds Lab
Action: Experiment & Design
Outcome: Problem Solving, Design Thinking, and various skills such as coding, electronics, modeling, and animation based on participating workshops
In Ups & Rounds lab, children take on a challenge of their choice, like building something that keeps the city safe, sustainable, or happy - and go through the whole design cycle to solve it - analyzing the problem, generating ideas, learning new skills like coding, electronics, and modeling, and building prototypes.
Campfire
Action: Give & Take Feedback
Outcome: Collaboration Skills
In the Campfire, children learn how to give and receive feedback without feeling defensive. Here, they have access to a big collection of toys and gadgets to play with, get design inspirations from, and critic based on their play experience. Children can also take their own prototypes to the Campfire to get feedback from the community and improve their inventions.
Spotlight
Action: Share & Tell Stories
Outcome: Communication skills
Spotlight gives children a stage to share their stories and persuade others to follow their leads. We work with each child to find the best stage to share their work with the world, whether it’s by giving a talk, publishing a book, recording podcasts, patenting their design, or participating in a competition.
