Makeblock

For millennials who have not grown up with technology, school would mean only textbooks and teachers. But for the Centennials or Gen Z, one cannot simply imagine schools without technology. Afterall, they have grown up with technology and are expected to take technology to the next level in future. Take the example of 7th and 8th Graders of McKinley Elementary School in North Bergen, New Jersey. Keeping the students engaged in learning new technology and having fun at the same time, wasn’t an easy task for their technology teacher Miss Maria Morgana. Single-handedly Miss Maria had to make sure that each student was paying equal attention while learning coding or understanding technology, sitting behind screens. But she knew that having computers or basic technology does not always benefit students to have access to a proper STEAM program.

Something had to change about the basic computers and coding skills of students, and appeal to be inspiringand intuitive. For Miss Maria, being equipped with technology would not mean having laptops and latest smartphones. She was sanguine of adopting a new learning environment that would push technology classes from drab to fab. On its search to find the right products for technology learning, McKinley Elementary School had to get a partner that fits their mould. And, Makeblock came along, to match exactly what a STEAM program would need.

Makeblock, founded in 2013, is a global STEAM education solution provider. The company offers comprehensive hardware, software, content solutions, and top-notch robotics competitions, all with the purpose of attaining deep integration of technology and education. The target for Makeblock is the STEAM education and entertainment markets for schools, educational institutions, and families.

This is deeply resonated in Makeblock’s mission to provide products of quality and value so that people can turn their ideas into reality and take education to the next level. The core idea behind Makeblock is to provide impetus to what STEAM Education stands for—an innovative educational approach with growing popularity and acceptance worldwide. Featuring multiple disciplines, including science, technology, engineering, art, and math; the program encourages students to explore and solve real-life problems. By participating in projects or case studies, students learn teamwork skills, think logically, be creative, and garner other abilities.

Based upon the belief that vastness of knowledge is more vital than the depth of knowledge for students of STEAM, Makeblock combines technology and education to build a STEAM platform. Taking the help of software and hardware both, Makeblock guarantees that students learn more from practical usage of technical devices and thinking training. For the software part, the company has developed a series of programming suites for STEAM education. mBlock 5 is a powerful platform that supports block-based and text-based programming. The comprehensive robotics experience for beginners gets easier with Makeblock App that has an all-in-1 controller for Makeblock robots. Also, Neuron App is a flow-based programming software with AI and IoT support, encouraging creations using Makeblock Neuron blocks. The easy-to-use software makes coding interactive and fun for students. Along with cutting-edge software, Makeblock offers a selection of hardware products, that include the Maker Platform for any DIY creation, the mBot series robot kits are for education, a modular and programmable flying robot Airblock, programmable electronic building block platform Makeblock Neuron, and the edutainment robot Codey Rocky—all designed to make learning an interesting experience for students. Makeblock users get a supply of highquality content for independent learning, educational use, and entertainment. The company has made things even more exciting with their MakeX which is a robotics competition platform that promotes multidisciplinary learning within the fields of science and technology.

With such overarching offerings, Makeblock strides along the perfect integration of technology and education. The mission and vision to turn excellent ideas into real physical objects that contribute to better learning and development, is what Makeblock continues to achieve.