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Rigamajig Project Plans

We've developed these 20 research-based Project Plans to help educators bring hands-on STEAM learning and open-ended play to classrooms, museums, libraries, maker spaces, and community organizations: any place where kids explore, create, discover, and play.

Get Started: Introduction by Cas Holman

Select Projects by Difficulty Level

Choose the level that best matches your students' abilities. Each level includes age-appropriate projects with varying complexity.

Explore Rigamajig

This lesson plan introduces collaboration, abstract thinking, and problem solving.
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Preparative Actions

This plan introduces Rigamajig, through exploration, naming, and play through trial and error.
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Explore and Create

This lesson plan is an introduction to the Rigamajig materials and how they work.
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Explore and Build

This lesson plan is an introduction to the Rigamajig materials and how they work. Get familiar with all of the Rigamajig pieces, learn how to attach pieces, and build a structure.
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Free Play Fun!

This lesson plan introduces free play with collaboration, imagination, and risk taking.
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Pulleys

This plan introduces skills of collaboration, and problem solving through working with pulleys.
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Inclined Planes and Ramps

This plan introduces skills of collaboration, and problem solving through working with inclined planes.
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Wheels and Axles

This plan introduces skills of collaboration, and problem solving through working with wheels and axles.
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Setting Up a Solid Foundation – 1 of 4

Part of a series to explore in a sequential manner (1 of 4). Students will work with Levers, Arms and Fulcrum Points - to take the concept of play into the field of science.
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Balance and Equal Gears – 2 of 4

Part of a series to explore Levers, Arms and Fulcrum Points in a sequential manner (2 of 4).
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Imbalance and Unequal Gears – 3 of 4

Part of a series to explore Levers, Arms and Fulcrum Points in a sequential manner (3 of 4).
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Ratios and Calculating Mechanical Advantage – 4 of 4

Part of a series to explore Levers, Arms and Fulcrum Points in a sequential manner (4 of 4).
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Sirens, Bells, and Great Big Yells!

Children will collaborate to make something that produces noise useful in communicating from one side of a room to another.
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Up and Down!

This lesson plan we will prompt children to focus play on a general goal: “Construct something that will move in a certain way.”
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Speak Friend and Enter!

This lesson plan introduces a particular human problem: how to build a structure that will protect the safety of indoors from external forces while allowing friendly animals to enter.
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My Invention DOES!

The lesson asks children to discuss and decide on an “invention” they can make to DO something for them or someone else.
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Turtle Shells, Bat Wings, and Other Protective Things

This lesson plan is designed to stimulate creative thinking and problem solving, plus collaboration within the group.
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A Tidal Wave is Coming!

This lesson plan introduces a specific and urgent human problem: how to build a structure that will protect people from the ravages of a tidal wave or flood.
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Driving Teddy—Across, Over, Up, and Down!

This lesson plan presents a complex problem with multiple goals and constraints. Children will need to think and plan, and then build a vehicle that does 3 different things.
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Future Building

This lesson plan will draw on children’s imagination about what life might be like in the future and what kinds of human-made devices children might need.
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About Project Plans

Thank you to our amazing partners and collaborators who helped us develop our project plans!

  • Zachary S. Gold, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Education at Concordia University, Montreal
  • James G Elicker, Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Purdue University
  • The CarMax Foundation, KaBOOM!, and Purdue University
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Rigamajig Jr. Spinning Tops Kit

We designed our Spinning Tops Kit for experimenting with inertia, symmetry, and motion! Build different combinations of shapes and colors, then spin your tops to make cool optical illusions, patterns, and sounds. The weirder the top, the bigger the surprise when it’s set in motion!

Shop SPINNING TOPS
Rigamajig Spinning Tops
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