Micro Sparks spur innovative and imaginative thinking among early childhood organizations, technology and media providers, and other community stakeholders by seeding small-scale and first-time projects. Micro Spark awards made to date:

• Character Therapy from Interbots is a program at the Autism Center of Pittsburgh that uses Popchilla, a friendly and expressive robot, to engage children living with Autism Spectrum Disorders in emotional health and communication exercises. Learn more about Popchilla at Interbots.
• Curious Creatures from Art Energy Design is a collection of kinetic, wind and solar powered objects that each demonstrates the fundamentals of mechanical motion and sustainable energy creation. Friendly characters, made from recycled materials, resemble familiar insects, reptiles and mammals and are designed for hands on discovery learning. Learn more at Art Energy Design.
• Digital Toys for Math Literacy from Propel Schools is a low cost, kid-friendly object with embedded electronics that enables young children and their parents to imagine, explore and learn mathematical concepts together.
• Geocaching Curriculum from Venture Outdoors utilizes satellite technology and hand-held GPS units to engage children and their caregivers in active outdoor recreation. The project empowers childcare centers to create and run geocaching courses and related programming for their young participants. Join the next geocaching program at ventureoutdoors.org.
• JAM Sessions from the School of Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh created five Joystick Adaptive Music (JAM) systems to enable children with special healthcare needs play and compose music. JAM Sessions will be located at the Children’s Institute, the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children, Verland Foundation, the Children’s Home, and the Children’s Museum.
• MEMote from the Quality of Life Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon is an open source community-facilitated robot platform for exploring and enacting therapeutic behaviors while educating the public about special needs and technology.
• Message from Me from Carnegie Mellon’s CREATE Lab adapts existing technologies to enable young children to better communicate with parents about their daytime activities at childcare centers by using custom-built age-appropriate interfaces to record and share their daily experiences. Learn more at The CREATE Lab.
• Natural Discovery from Tender Care Learning Center takes an innovative approach to playground design by creating an interactive kinetic sculpture that uses simple mechanics, solar panels, and electrical generators to engage children with technology in its simplest form.
• Out of the Box and Onto the Wall by Joe Wos of the Toonseum introduced children to visual storytelling by combining cartooning with new technology at a Children’s Museum exhibit. Using a touch screen monitor to position cartoon drawings of 75 story elements including backgrounds, costumes, props and character components, children work together to created a visual story.
• Papermation from The Schmutz Company is a monthly stop motion animation workshop for children ages 3-8. Learn about upcoming programming from The Schmutz Company.
• Partnered Explorations from the Mattress Factory use the museums three permanent light installations by James Turrell as the basis for teaching children about the science of light, the scientific method, and inquiry and design.
• Ready Freddy from the Pitt Office of Child Development is a virtual space where children and their parents can prepare for the start of school by visiting an interactive web-based children’s book that takes children through the process of getting ready for school and shows them what their first day might be like.
• RePlayMyPlay at the Carnegie Science Center is an energy-harvesting play structure that converts the mechanical energy from the motion children’s play into electric power. The energy is stored in a light source and outlet that can be used to power other objects. Learn more at RePlayMyPlay.
• Robot Algebra Project from Girl Scouts of Southwestern PA blends technology, dancing, music and pre-algebra concepts through Lego Robot programming to engage girls’ interests and excitement in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) subject areas.
• Signs of Me from Carley Jean Parrish partners with neighborhood civic organizations to run workshops in which children design and fabricate their own street signs to mark their favorite places in their communities, using auto-CAD software, offset printing, and metal sign fabrication technologies.
• Sound Cloud from WYEP 91.3FM create new musical experiences for children by enabling them to record, play, and loop sounds to compose music either solo or together with other Sound Clouds. Using this simple, open-ended tool, children will gain an early understanding of musical structure.
• Story Box from SLB Radio Productions is an interactive, electronic storytelling device that uses emerging audio and photography technologies to capture and share authentic voices of children storytellers while teaching children media literacy. Learn more at The Saturday Light Brigade.
• Walks in the Parks with Robotic Creatures from Ian Ingram took children and their parents on nature walks in Frick Park where they discovered small robots imitating animal behaviors. Learn more about Ian’s creations.
• White Light from artist Amanda Long is a three-channel kinetic video sculpture composed of red, green and blue abstract animations. As children interact with the piece, the projections overlap to form optical patterns demonstrating additive color mixing and other properties of light. Check out Amanda’s work on her website amandalong.org.
• WordPlay from the Fred Rogers Company presents a series of educational posters for advertising windows in bus shelters that provide children and their caregivers with cues for entering into conversations, stories, songs, and other language games as well as call, text, and app-based gaming options.

Super Sparks are awarded once a year to support larger initiatives that contribute to broader community goals and require in-depth research, testing, exploration and program development. Funded projects engage larger audiences, demonstrate deeper partnerships and collaborations, and are eligible for more substantial levels of support. Super Spark awards made to date:

• Baby Promise from the Kingsley Association is an interactive literacy program that connects under-served families with educational resources to teach literacy to children aged 6 years and under. The program provides technological literacy education to parents and care providers and enables them to create new learning experiences for children as they transition into formal schooling. Baby Promise delivers both in-home technology literacy learning experiences with the care provider and child, ages birth to 2 and a summertime day camp at the Kingsley Center for children ages 3 to 6.
• Children’s Innovation Project from CREATE Lab is producing a kit of electric circuitry components designed for young hands to engage young children in broad interdisciplinary learning, with a focus on creative exploration, expression and innovation with technology. Using the kit to hack and remix familiar electrical devices, Children will make connections to objects in their world through disassembling toys, identifying and then re-purposing and reconfiguring their internal components into new inventions.
• Digital Discovery Room from Carnegie Museum of Natural History is a new nature program that creates an online resource for children ages 3 to 8 to supplement their outdoor explorations in and out of school. Children can visit the Digital Discovery Room at the Museum or via the internet to explore GIGAPAN photographs of local parks to identify flora, fauna, and geological features they encounter, upload their own digital images of local flora and fauna in the field and communicate with Museum naturalists to identify organisms and learn more about life in their own backyard.
• Hello Robo! from Carnegie Science Center introduces robotics technology in 131 Head Start classrooms in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties and at Family Science Events at the Science Center. During classroom visits, Carnegie Science Center staff educators lead hands on activities to help students build and use simple robotic kits they can then keep and utilize in other lessons throughout the school year. Students  and families then visit the Carnegie Science Center for Family Science Night to continue their learning experience.
• Isabelle’s Playground at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC is a unique inpatient playground that uses innovative materials and interactive devices including fiber optic tunnels, reactive climbing structures, and a sensory theater to stimulate visual, auditory, and tactile senses.
• MakeShop Media from The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh is a series of digital shows made by and for kids under the direction of Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and The Schmutz Company, with support from the Arts Education Collaborative, Pittsburgh Community Television and other creative partners. MakeShop Media is the first children’s media program to invite children into the vibrant “maker” culture, a growing national movement of tinkerers, inventors, creators and innovators inspired by Make Magazine and Maker Faire.
• Mobile Applications for Kids from playpower.org is developing new mobile applications that engage, educate and empower young children through a portfolio of creative applications designed to support participatory play and learning between parents and children.
• Reefbot is an interactive exhibit using a remote controlled submersible robot with on-board fish recognition technology designed to swim in the PPG Aquarium’s Big Ocean Tank. Interactive controls and multimedia display allow children to navigate the robot, find, record, and identify marine life in a coral reef habitat. Learn more at ReefBot.