SAM Labs

SAM Labs offers innovative courses to teach both STEAM and Coding with confidence in the remote-learning and classroom environment.

SAM Labs’ mission is to teach 500million students high-demand STEM skills, knowledge,computational thinking and behaviour. The world is increasingly powered by science and technology.There’s plenty of data on the growth of STEM careers, and the need for qualified workers to fill these jobs. We are committed to strengthening the delivery of STEM and 21st-century skills for learners to build work readiness. 

SAM Labs provides teachers and students with three K-9 courses: STEAM, Learn to Code, and Maker.SAM Labs largely uses widely available technologies, however, it is the combination of these technologies working together, and complemented by world-class curriculum and support, that makes our solutions unique.The hands-on aspect of the STEM learning experiences that we provide is enabled by our wireless, rechargeable hardware blocks that connect to a student’s device through Bluetooth. 

The wireless nature of these blocks means that students are not just building circuits, but classroom-spanning systems.These blocks are programmed through one of two coding interfaces: SAM Space and SAM Blockly. These apps are available across all devices and operating systems (iOS, Windows, macOS, Android, Chrome), which is essential for the K-12 education market. 

By scaling SAM Labs’ solutions to Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand or Malaysia, the quality of teaching STEAM & Coding will improve. Our courses are designed to increase teachers' confidence.With our pricing methodology, schools and families with a lower budget will have access to STEAM & Coding resources, and the number of candidates being ready to start a career in STEAM/STEM-related positions will increase.

Malaysia

Problem: Lack of High-skilled Workforce with 21-st century skills

Malaysia’s human capital is weak compared to other markets in terms of innovation, entrepreneurship and overall activity. Malaysia needs a high-skilled workforce with 21st-century skills, including but not limited to computational thinking & technology literacy. STEAM career-ready students from rural areas will contribute to the income inequality reduction in Malaysia. 

Problem: Lack of K-12 products and support for teachers

The Malaysian Government is focused on devices and infrastructure in schools but it does not provide support for teachers and students in terms of the STEAM & Coding pedagogy and learning outcomes. While the number of Edtech startups is growing, they focused their products on the post-K-12 sector (higher education and professional education). 

Source: ‘Edtech in Southeast Asia’ https://info.solve.mit.edu/res...

Thailand

Problem: Low digital literacy among students and teachers

Thailand has an ageing population and faces the highest skilled labour shortage in the region. A rapidly ageing society will lower the working-age population by 11% by 2040. 

The student and teachers digital literacy is low, which is likely to further increase the skilled labour shortage in the future.  

The main reason for the limited digital literacy across students and teachers is still the small EdTech community and the lack of formal EdTech and information and communication technology strategy.

Source: ‘Edtech in Southeast Asia’ https://info.solve.mit.edu/res...

Malaysia&Thailand

Students’ Need:21-st Century Skills,Secondary Education &  Limited digital literacy 

By introducing SAM Labs’ STEAM&Coding solution to Malaysian schools and education centres,students will improve their 21st-century skills,including Technology Literacy, Computational Thinking, Critical Thinking, Collaboration,Leadership and a range of Social Skills. 

STEAM Education pushes students to incorporate elements of technology, computer programming and engineering into classwork and projects.SAM Labs solution is the one that can give students real-world applications in their work. 

Although SAM Labs can not resolve all the reasons for students dropping out of school, it can definitely encourage students to learn&study and increase their motivation and engagement in STEAM subjects. 

Teachers’ Need:Training&teaching quality improvement,Ed-Tech products designed for the K-12 sector &Distance Learning Solutions

SAM Labs offers STEAM&Coding solutions designed for the K-9 sector. Teachers and educators using SAM Labs have access to solutions designed for students in primary, lower and upper secondary education. 

SAM Labs created hardware,software,lesson material, and activities that allow teachers to run STEAM & Coding lessons in the classroom, remote, & hybrid learning environments.

In Southeast Asia countries, poor teacher quality and lack of training are one of the main reasons for the students’ poor performance. 

Source:‘Edtech in Southeast Asia’https://info.solve.mit.edu/res...

SAM Labs’ solution responds to teachers&educators’ needs.Teachers who do not specialize in STEAM or coding rarely have the knowledge or tools to implement STEAM activities in their classroom.

SAM Labs’ solutions have complete entry-level access to teachers with little or no technical background—you do not need a technical background to use SAM Labs’ solutions.

We believe that the SAM Labs' solution is strongly aligned with the challenge as it is an affordable and accessible Edtech solution focused on providing STEAM & Coding courses to K-9 students. 

SAM Lab’s solution can strengthen the delivery of STEM and 21st-century skills for students in the classroom, hybrid and remote learning environments by providing software, hardware, lessons and assessments. Our solution reduces teachers’ workload with curriculum-aligned courses, with lessons and teachers materials available to use within Google Classroom and Nearpod. SAM Labs increases teachers’ confidence with online and live professional development to develop teachers’ 21st-century skills.

By providing comprehensive STEAM education, SAM Labs' solution contributes to the development of students’ soft skills like technology literacy, computational thinking skills, critical thinking, leadership, collaboration & communication. SAM Labs’ STEAM & Coding solution supports a diverse range of learning paces and styles, with a plethora of lessons, educational technology tools and curriculum available for educators to pick from, to challenge students and align to their learning plans. 

SAM Labs is operating in Thailand and Malaysia, over 100 schools in Malaysia and in Thailand are using Sam Labs’ solution. In order to reach more students and teachers in these regions with the STEAM & Coding solution, SAM Labs’ will translate and align its lessons with the region's curriculum.

Joachim Horn, CEO

Scalable Hardware&Software

SAM Labs allows schools to use the same hardware and coding platform from K-8, removing the need to purchase something new every year.Lessons complexity is scalable by grade and individual student comfort level. 

The browser-based SAM Studio platform means that teachers and educators do not have to worry about devices’ technical requirements for the platform to work. 

Focus on Teachers & Educators

One of the biggest barriers to getting kids engaged with STEM is the lack of teachers who feel confident and proficient in teaching these new skills.We have found a way to make it easy and accessible for any teacher to bring our solutions into the classroom.All algorithms created by students are represented visually on the coding canvas.Teachers without a technical background can easily understand how it works without needing to know how to write lines of code.

SAM Labs also offer in-depth training and support to all educators, either through live training or asynchronously.

Easy Access to All Students 

The visual nature of SAM Studio  enables students who might have a challenge reading code such as English language learners to get started with programming.

The modular and hands-on aspect of our solution also provides a unique flexibility for students to build any project, rather than just for example controlling a pre-built robot.

Formative assessments

Alongside other teaching materials SAM Labs provides educators with built-in formative assessments for students to evidence and reflect on learning as well as track student’s attainment and provide progress data.

Our solution was tested in two ways:

1. For new prototypes, we were sending them to both existing customers as well as educators who have not used SAM Labs solutions before (globally). We then collated feedback from them, analysed it and implemented the required changes. 

2. We worked with existing customers who implemented our solution in their classrooms, running extensive case studies to understand how our solution resolves educators’ issues and what additional improvements can be made to optimise our solution (across software, curriculum and hardware). 

Additionally to the aforementioned tests, SAM Labs is regularly checking the effectiveness of our solution through data analysing. We are checking the following metrics on a weekly and/or monthly basis:

• NPS scores and additional comments left in the NPS survey

• Number of new and returning users using our software

• Time spent per user and number of projects created per user in SAM Studio

Our online Progressive Web App allows students to build projects directly from a Chrome or Edge browser. This platform is powered by web Bluetooth. (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Bluetooth_API) This enables users to connect to physical hardware using their browser. The programming UIs are created with a combination of HTML5 canvas and svg elements. SAM Blockly is built entirely on Google’s open-source Blockly (https://developers.google.com/blockly) project, configured to work with our blocks and partner products, (like Vernier sensors, Google Sheets). Our technology uniquely brings together multiple STEM products, such as sensors, drones, robots to create a whole open learning ecosystem.

The interface allows users to visually lay out inputs, outputs and behaviour blocks on a graph, connecting them using virtual wires to build logical algorithms. The non-text nature of this approach to teaching computer science has been proven to be substantially more accessible for teachers and students of all learning abilities.

To enable flow-based coding that is immediately interactive, we developed a comprehensive system of logical rules that control how components interact, so students are immediately captivated by what they create and are drawn into continuing to build and iterate on their projects.

Another key technology of SAM Labs is Bluetooth technology in our blocks, which allows students to freely move blocks around and insert them into the projects that they build using accessories without having to worry about keeping devices attached through the wires to their laptops, computers or iPads. 

Sam Labs Theory of Change

Assumptions

1. Most teachers currently have insufficient knowledge and understanding of STEAM to teach it effectively and insufficient time to prepare lessons properly. 

2. Most students are disengaged from STEAM subjects.

Activities

1. School purchases SAM Labs and teachers follow onboarding guides and follow customer journey.

2. Sam Labs provides onboarding, training and certifications for teachers.

3. Students use products and work in groups but fill out individual worksheets. 

Outcomes

1. Teachers' workload decreases, meaning they have more time to engage.

2. Teachers better understand the importance of STEAM, become more confident and engaged with STEAM topics and more engaged in teaching them.

3. The quality of STEAM teaching improves.

4. Students become more engaged in STEAM subjects and are more motivated to learn. 

5. Students get a better understanding of core skills i.e. computational thinking. 

6. Student’s perception of STEAM subjects changes for the better as stereotypes are challenged. 

Third-party research supporting SAM Labs theory of change

Cucuiat V.,Exploring the Meaning of Effective Exploratory Learner Behavior in Hands-on, Collaborative Projects Using Physical Computing Kits. AIED (2) 2018: 508-512

Bonetti, R., Cohen, N., Uğur Yavuz, S. 2019. ‘Enabling relationships in a co-creative process with children’. In: Proceedings of the 4th Biennial Research Through Design Conference, 19-22 March 2019, Delft and Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Article 14, 1-16. DOI: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7855919.v2. 

Torben Wallbaum, Swamy Ananthanarayan, Andrii Matviienko, and Susanne Boll. 2020. A Real-time Distributed Toolkit to Ease Children’s Exploration of IoT. In Proceedings of the 11th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Shaping Experiences, Shaping Society (NordiCHI ’20),October 25–29, 2020, Tallinn, Estonia. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 9page

SAM Labs &  Teachers success stories in teaching STEAM & Coding:

Julia Dweck, iTech Preparatory School  Interview with STEM presidential finalist + free ebook, wall poster and video - Blog

John Nguyen, St. Charles Borromeo, Washington Why Physical Connections Create Learning Success in K-12 Education - Blog

Paula Perryman,  Tenino School District, Washington K-12 Teacher Interview: Why Educators Need to Make STEM/STEAM a Way of Life - Blog

Julia Dweck, Allentown, Pennsylvania STEM/STEAM Learning Teacher Interview: Why Educators Need to Power Through - Blog

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STEAM, STEM & Coding hardware & software for K-9

1. Increase no of Teachers prepared to teach STEAM & Coding

SAM Labs will measure the number of the Level1 and Level2 certifications awarded by SAM Labs to teachers and educators on a quarterly and yearly basis. 

2.Increase no of schools using SAM Labs to teach STEAM & Coding

SAM Labs will measure the number of users using the SAM Studio) on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis, as well as number of projects that are created and average time spent in app per user. 

3.Improving students results in the STEAM subject and computational thinking - based on formative assessment data

 SAM Labs will measure the students’ improvement in STEAM by collecting feedback data from teachers and educators who use SAM Labs assessments yearly.

SAM Labs Impact goals for Thailand, Malaysia regions:

1. Increase no of Teachers prepared to teach STEAM & Coding

SAM Labs will measure the number of teachers using SAM Labs within the year time from receiving the first kit. SAM Labs will also measure the number of teachers awarded Level1 and Level2 certifications awarded by SAM Labs (on a quarterly and yearly basis). 

2.Increase no of schools teaching STEAM & Coding

SAM Labs will measure the number of students from Southeast Asia regions using the SAM Studio on a daily, monthly and yearly basis. 

3.Improving students results in the STEAM subject and computational thinking - based on formative assessment data

 SAM Labs will measure the students' improvement in STEAM by collecting feedback data from teachers and educators who use SAM Lab’s solutions and assessments on a yearly basis.

To achieve these goals, SAM Labs is committed to: 

1. Translate its STEAM & Coding lessons and activities to Thai and Malay languages.

2. Add Thai and Malay languages to the SAM Studio app. 

3. Increase marketing activities promoting translated SAM Labs resources. Promote the solution through resellers’ and educators’ partnerships, camps and events.

4. Focus its reach out on public schools in those regions. 

5. Organise webinars for teachers and educators from Thailand and Malaysia.

6. Plan for the STEAM & Coding competition for students from Thailand and Malaysia and organise it in the year 2022/2023.

Barrier (Malaysia & Thailand):  English language of the lessons; lessons would have to be translated and aligned to the Malaysian and Thai syllabus.

Product

Lessons language and curriculum alignment

SAM Labs lessons are available in English. In order to reach students and teachers in non-English-speaking schools, especially public schools, SAM Labs would have to translate its lessons to Thai and Malay languages. SAM Labs would then consider the curriculum alignment to succeed in schools. The Thai and Malay languages will be introduced in SAM Studio too. 

SAM Labs has experience in content translation, our lessons and activities are translated into Italian. It allowed us to scale our solution significantly in this region. 

Cost

Schools do not have enough funding to purchase STEAM & Coding solutions. They’re also not willing to purchase software with no access to translated lessons.

Joachim Horn founded the company in 2014 and SAM Labs is now present in schools around the world. As a mechanical engineering graduate, Joachim was working in Tokyo when the idea for SAM Labs came to him over a bowl of soba noodles. He wanted to create technology to help students code and create their own connected devices. Joachim fused his passion for education, design, and tech to develop what is now SAM Labs.

SAM Labs’ vision is to inspire generations of problem solvers. We achieve this through our mission, which is to equip educators with the tools, know-how and mindset to reach learners’ potential for computational thinking.

SAM Labs’ current educational products are used by over 1 million students in over 3,000 schools globally. Our usage spans from Pediatric Hospital Schools in Italy (Andrea Bocelli Foundation collaboration, 2020), to Full rollout in Helsinki Public Schools, to Title 1 districts and schools across the USA. SAM Labs has already showed success with the 3,000 schools. As an example, SAM Labs is deployed in 57 schools in the Dallas Independent School District. This originally started as a pilot at 1 school and grew thanks to an internal case study.

Full-time staff   20

Contractors 2

Other workers 4

SAM Labs has a fantastic team with deep experience in education, data analytics, marketing and engineering. 

Indeed, SAM Labs employees hail from the US, UK, China, Vietnam, France, Italy, Belgium, Poland and Iran. Their different education and socio-economic backgrounds play key roles in shaping SAM Lab’s potential impact in many parts of the world. SAM Labs employees have been part of different education systems, very often in more than one country. Each of the countries mentioned above has its own spending budget and financial abilities. This diversity has helped SAM Labs to spot and address deficiencies in teaching approaches, respond better and more efficiently to educators’ and children’s needs.

Educational Consultants: with 10+ years of experience in STEAM, coding and curriculum development. Their experience helps them successfully identify teachers’ needs and improve our products. 

Insights Team: data analysts, with experience in product, usage and customer analysis. They draw high-quality attainment and engagement insights to empower the teachers to adapt and improve their practice.  

Lead Software Engineers: the engineering team continuously improves our app and website, making our products user friendly, solving any bugs or problems regularly. They are constantly iterating on new products and will be critical to helping us scale.

Sales Associates, Customer Success and Marketing: experienced professionals lead these teams with keen market knowledge, including Southeast Asia countries. Their market knowledge and network will be key for scaling through client outreach, responding to client needs and translating those needs into new product iterations. 

During the Covid-19 pandemic teachers, educators & students’ needs and expectations changed rapidly. Students and educators needed affordable, manageable, and engaging resources to successfully teach & learn in a remote-learning environment. 

SAM Labs transformed the innovative classroom resources it has built over the past 6 years, used by 1 million students globally, into state-of-the-art resources for remote learning. Bringing the innovative pedagogical approach to a mass scale in the remote learning environment, considering students’ access to technology and teacher’s ability to classroom manage from a distance, was completely unchartered territory. 

SAM Labs’ team, over the course of 6 months, planned, executed and completed the series of SAM Labs’ remote learning kits and transformed the SAM Labs software into a web-based SAM Studio app. 

SAM Labs’ team successfully completed market research, created product prototypes, developed new lessons, transformed the SAM Labs software & shared product prototypes with several teachers from different countries in order to gather feedback and iterate on it. 

Vernier, Micro:bit, Strawbees,

1. Vernier: Integrated solution; SAM Labs wireless-enabled output blocks are easy to integrate with Vernier Go Direct® sensors when coding, which helps boost learning and critical thinking skills. Customized packages of Vernier Go Direct® sensors and SAM output blocks make it easy to engage students in scientific discovery and introductory block-based programming.

2. Micro:bit: Integrated solution: SAM Labs wireless-enabled blocks (input and output) integrate via our software with Micro:bit boards (V1.5 and V2) allowing students to expand on their skills and creativity.

3. Strawbees: SAM Labs partnered with Strawbees to co-create the Creator STEAM kit. It is an entry-level kit ideal for schools or districts implementing STEAM into their technology plans for the first time using SAM Labs blocks with Strawbees connectors and straws. Designed for Grades 2-5, each kit comes with NGSS and Common Core-aligned lesson plans that allow students to code, create, and experiment at home or in school. Integrating SAM Labs technology with Strawbees accessories allows students to build various contraptions, engage and familiarize with basic engineering principles, with a particular emphasis on the hands-on side of STEAM learning.

Investing in STEAM & Coding education should be a top priority for schools. STEAM is cross-curricular and touches all these subjects which increase student understanding by giving them the opportunity to use their knowledge in different situations. For instance, a 2019 study on the effect of integrated STEAM education found that STEAM had an overall positive effect on student learning, especially in areas of the affective domain, career aspiration, thinking skills, and emotional skills. 

STEAM also contributes to developing Socio-Emotional Skills, 21-st Century skills (Critical Thinking, Technology Literacy, Leadership and Computational Thinking) and student engagement in the classroom. 

SAM Labs believes STEAM and coding education is a top priority. We also think that STEAM and Coding education should be developed in many areas, by providing affordable hardware and software, developing new engaging standards-aligned lessons, and equipping teachers with the mindset, tools and know-how including guides, webinars and professional development. 

 The prize funding will allow SAM Labs to translate its lessons to the languages used in Thailand and Malaysia and also to align its solution to the region’s curriculums. SAM Labs will also provide the number of schools with free yearly access to SAM Studio and discounted prices for the next years if schools decide to continue teaching STEAM & Coding with SAM Labs.

Access to a network of resource partners, mentors and coaches across industries and sectors will help SAM Labs to better understand the students’ and teachers’ needs in those regions and reach more schools with its solution.

Product

To overcome the barriers and achieve the impact goals, SAM Labs needs to translate its STEAM & Coding lessons to the languages used in Thailand and Malaysia and also to align its solution to the region’s curriculums. Many schools lack funding to purchase the STEAM & Coding solution. The prize awarded will allow SAM Labs to provide several schools with free software and hardware. 

Network Connections

SAM Labs would like to increase the impact and reach out to many teachers and students in Malaysia and Thailand. For SAM Labs, it is important to test and prove that its products truly benefit society and contribute to the student’s achievements.

SAM Labs is looking for support to better measure the demonstrable and beneficial change in behaviours, beliefs and practices regarding STEAM and Coding learning and further improvement based on its research.

Public Relations

SAM Labs have little experience in branding and marketing strategy in Thailand and Malaysia. SAM Labs is looking to better understand the Thailand and Malaysia markets and achieve brand recognition.