Free People support STEM education
for youth with STEM Lab project
The project aimed to organise a practice laboratory for youth in Poland with high-quality basic electronics education, such as circuit design and the logic of electronic devices.
Period
July 6, 2025 — August 29, 2025 (STEM Lab)
October 25, 2025 — January 24, 2026 (STEM Lab 2.0)
Place
Lublin
Focus Area
Education (Scientific Initiatives)
Type
Series of practical workshops
What was the project designed for?
When analyzing the most popular majors among students in Poland, we identified a few key trends: a significant demand for technology and engineering fields, reflecting global trends in digitalization and technological development; high job prospects in fields such as IT, engineering, and technical sciences; and the leading positions of those jobs in the recent transition to Industry 4.0.
Therefore, we decided to stimulate interest in STEM among teens (10-14 years old) in order to help them with their future career prospects and in general to learn to see technology not as something mysterious or intimidating, but as a tool they can master and use to make real change.
Our main goals were:
- increase interest in science among young people;
- teach the youth the basic principles of electronics and circuitry by assembling real electronic circuits (light, sound, movement);
- develop teamwork and other soft skills as participants learn to solve problems and improve projects together;
- develop the logic and analytical thinking necessary for building functional circuits;
- teach youth to work with instructions and diagrams, understand symbols and connection principles.
How did it go?
STEM Lab
The workshops were held every two weeks. Topics of the lessons varied from Logic and Current to Energy and Sensors. The format of offline master classes combined playful approach with scientific knowledge using Boffin 300 education construction set: youth built diagrams, tested their work, made changes, and, most importantly, got the chance to understand how everything works.
All the participants got their certificates for completing the program: STEM – Junior for completing 7 lessons, STEM – Middle for completing 10 lessons, and STEM – Senior for completing all 16 lessons.
STEM Lab 2.0
This time, the workshops were held not only for youth, but for adults as well. The topics were more difficult and varied: from Transistors to Microcontrollers. This shaped engineering thinking, developed technical imagination, and helped with the understanding of advanced electronic devices.