Hands-on educational programs where students build real structures, test them against real forces, and learn to see how the physical world actually works.
A Structure Smart™ Experience is a facilitated, hands-on educational event delivered at your school, library, museum, scout troop, homeschool co-op, church group, or community organization. Every experience follows the same learning sequence: students predict how a structure will behave, build it with their own hands, observe what actually happens, and explain why, practicing structural reasoning across engineering, biology, chemistry, and design.
Plan a session with Mike Acerra using the patented Lux Blox™ construction system and Structure Smart™ curriculum materials. All materials are provided.
A digital motion study
Make movement part of the question.
Which connections turn? What stays together? What changes shape? A moving model gives students something they can observe, describe and compare.
Bring that habit of investigation into the subjects you teach.
Movement & Strength - Our Flagship Structure Smart™ Experience
Students investigate a Sarrus linkage, tracing how its hinged panels guide movement, and a corrugated bridge, comparing how a folded surface responds to a load. They predict what will move or bend, test their models and record what happens.
Students explain which joints allow the linkage to move and how changing the bridge’s shape changes where it bends. They use observations, sketches and a revised design to support their explanations.
Materials Lux Blox™ building materials and Structure Smart™ activity guides provided
Workshop Menu
Structure Smart™ Workshops by Audience
Elementary (ages 6-10)
Structure Smart™ Discovery Workshops
Young builders explore squares, triangles, and hinges, discovering with their hands why some shapes hold and others collapse. Sessions emphasize prediction, play, and the joy of testing ideas against reality.
Middle & High School (ages 11-18)
Structure Smart™ Engineering Workshops
Students work through load paths, degrees of freedom, and failure modes using real mechanisms and structures they build themselves. Ideal for STEM classes, engineering clubs, and robotics teams.
Homeschool Groups & Co-ops
Structure Smart™ Co-op Programs
Multi-week or single-session programs designed for mixed-age groups, with take-home activity guides that extend learning between sessions.
College & University
Structure Smart™ Structural Reasoning Sessions
Hands-on sessions for education, engineering, and design students, with model building, evidence-based discussion, and sample structural reasoning activities.
Adults & Professional Groups
Structure Smart™ Workshops for Adults
Team events and professional programs where participants rediscover mechanical intuition: how force, shape, and constraint govern everything from bridges to biology.
Educators
Structure Smart™ Professional Development
Live virtual and in-person staff sessions with Mike Acerra. District purchases can be planned with multiple training sessions to help staff implement the materials.
Request a school, library, community, homeschool, college, adult, or educator workshop. Tell us what you have in mind; we’ll discuss the details with you before anything is booked.