On 12 October 2016, we officially open the Smart Kids Lab at the Cinekid Festival. From the lab, we also present the first online platform to let children build their own sensors. In this way children, at home or school, can learn in a playful way to measure their surroundings. The online platform offers Dutch children a number of tests, varying from homemade tools to measure particulated matter or the clarity of water. They can upload their results to the website and compare the results with those of other kids throughout the country.
The platform (which is in Dutch) can be found at: smartkidslab.nl
Several elementary schools in Amsterdam are preparing all the meters in a pilot and are measuring the area around their school.
During the Cinekid Festival in Amsterdam a special interactive installation will be open to the public that contains all the measurement tools. This giant machine, created by Cinekid and designed by Waag, enables children to make measurements themselves at the Medialab of the festival. They can run tests to measure e.g. sound (by screaming), methane gas (by farting) or dust in the lab.
The Smart Kids Lab is a project supported by the European Commission, the Making Sense project, Cinekid, Stichting Educatie en Cultuur (SEC) and RIVM.
