If you have kept up with my blog you know how much we love getting STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) projects for our children. Doing fun projects that includes these principles helps our kids learn how to problem solve, fosters their creativity, encourages innovation and prepares them for careers in this technology-based society.

Right now our oldest daughter has really been intrigued with these STEM based projects so here we are sharing another one. What you see in the picture above is a spinning clothes rack for her Barbie doll’s clothing. We picked up a Barbie STEM kit that teaches girls all about engineering.

This is a genius idea to integrate science with what girls love to play with. This is both a storybook and an instruction book. Inside you learn about some problems Barbie faces and how she and her scientists friend Nikki (which you will meet later in this post) solves them with engineering solutions. You can engineer 7 different projects which include a jewelry holder, washing machine, hammock, rotating shoe rack, greenhouse, designer plattform and this clothing rack. Some of the building pieces include sprockets, rods, axels, gears and pins. It also comes with colorful plastic sheets to help decorate the creations as well as a test tube...

You can also conduct experiments to learn why and how your designs work. For example the experiment that follows building this rack teaches that a small gear will increase the turning force but a larger gear may make something turn faster.

Children will also learn about optical illusions, capillary action and photosynthesis as they create origami, chromatography and leaf print dresses for their Barbie.

The Process of making the Rack

As a homeschooling mom I enjoy times like these where I can sit back and watch my husband help the kids build cool things while I take pictures lol. He looks forward to having this quality time assisting them with all of this technical fun! The kit recommends the appropriate ages are 4-8. Our daughter is eight and she definitely needed her fathers’ assistance throughout. Some of the pieces were tough to connect and the instruction manual got confusing for all of us at some point but we figured it out together.

Thankfully we had Nikki there helping us along the way as well. This is Barbies’ good friend and she is a big reason why Barbie’s projects are so successful.

The bottom part of the rack complete.

The center of the rack complete.

Getting the gears together and testing them out.

Assembling the top.

Decorations and finishing touches.

The end result...

It’s a cool little gadget that our daughter now has to hang her Barbie clothes. In order to make any of the other projects she would have to take this one down to use the pieces . I think that’s one of the headaches to this kit because it can really be time consuming and frustrating making a project and then taking it all down to make another one. However, we will assist her in doing so whenever she is ready to try another project. Overall she loves the kit and her new Barbie Nikki :)