{"id":332,"date":"2018-10-30T20:02:56","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T20:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/engineering\/?p=332"},"modified":"2018-10-30T20:03:37","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T20:03:37","slug":"early-years-engineering-with-cbeebies-stars-bitz-bob","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/engineering\/early-years-engineering-with-cbeebies-stars-bitz-bob\/","title":{"rendered":"Early Years Engineering with CBeebies stars Bitz & Bob!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow’s Engineers Week 2018<\/a> is taking place\u00a05th<\/sup>-9th<\/sup> November and Early Years children can do it too \u2013 so in preparation we\u2019ve been talking to some of the team behind Bitz & Bob<\/a>, the CBeebies<\/a> show with an amazing female engineer as its lead character.<\/p>\n

Bitz is an 8 year old inventor and engineer who can fix and make anything. She and her little brother Bob solve fun engineering problems and earn rewards along the way. Bitz & Bob aims to inspire the next generation of engineers by making Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) accessible to anyone, encouraging diversity in STEM and raising aspirations for girls \u2013 an ethos that we love.<\/p>\n

Bitz & Bob have put together some resources<\/a> that they’d love you to use to encourage Early Years engineering activities during Tomorrow\u2019s Engineers Week 2018.<\/p>\n

Follow the link to download three amazing craft videos and an activity sheet which children will love!<\/p>\n

This is what the Bitz & Bob team told us about their new resources:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Practicing Resilience <\/strong><\/p>\n

Bitz & Bob shows children that STEAM exists in everything that we do. When Bitz and the gang need to solve a problem they don\u2019t always get it right first time. They may struggle, get frustrated or even fail at times but they have the confidence to apply imaginative thinking to iterate new solutions. Our aim is for pre-school age girls and boys to engage with STEAM and get creative early on so that they become familiar with these skills.<\/p>\n

You Can Do It Too!<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve created a series of do at home experiments that show children some basic principles of engineering while having loads of fun. Using only simple materials that are found in nurseries or home, with the help of an adult, children can invent a way to save the day just like Bitz!<\/p>\n

Video 1: Static Butterflies<\/strong><\/p>\n

Make a butterfly magically flap its wings using static electricity. The balloon passes over negatively charged electrons that attracts the positively charged butterfly.<\/p>\n

You will need; pencil, thin card, thick card, balloon, glue, pipe cleaner, googly eyes, tissue paper, scissors, paint and brush.<\/p>\n

Video 2: Floating Balls<\/strong><\/p>\n

Learn about propulsion by making foil balls float in mid-air. Gravity will make them come down eventually but the harder you blow the higher they\u2019ll go.<\/p>\n

You will need; pencil, thick card, bowl, scissors, straw, foil, tape.<\/p>\n

Video 3: Balloon Rockets<\/strong><\/p>\n

Make your balloon rocket across the room and learn about propulsion! The air inside the balloon acts like the fuel. It is stronger than the forces acting against the balloon such as air resistance and gravity.<\/p>\n

You will need; balloons, straws, scissors, string, tape.<\/p>\n

CBeebies Get Creative App <\/strong><\/p>\n

Finally \u2013 there is an app<\/a> that is available to download for free that features great creative tasks where children can choose Bitz & Bob as a buddy to guide them through.<\/p>\n

Tune into CBeebies at 16:45 to catch Bitz & Bob and you can find us on BBC iPlayer<\/a> anytime.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

These new resources are a great addition to Early Years STEM and we can’t wait to try them out. They are also planning on creating more material in 2019 \u2013 watch this space!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow’s Engineers Week 2018 is taking place\u00a05th-9th November and Early Years children can do it too \u2013 so in preparation we\u2019ve been talking to some of the team behind Bitz & Bob, the CBeebies show with an amazing female engineer as its lead character. Bitz is an 8 year old inventor and engineer who can … Continue reading “Early Years Engineering with CBeebies stars Bitz & Bob!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,24,18],"tags":[60,59,58,32],"class_list":["post-332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-curiosity-connections","category-outreach","category-schools","tag-bitz-bob","tag-engineering-activities","tag-tomorrows-engineers-week","tag-women-in-stem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":337,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions\/337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}