RaceYa Customizable RC Cars Provide Speedy Offline STEM Learning

While there are lots of STEM-based toys available now or in some state of development or crowdfunding, most concentrate on coding. While we’re obviously huge fans of that pursuit, what if you’d like to expose kids to something that, as RaceYa’s promo video puts it, is “hands-on not screens-on?”

RaceYa — now on Kickstarter — aims to fill this gap, as a remote-controlled car that can be customized with different sets of wheels, along with a drive gearbox that can be opened up for observation and to provide power for external projects.

The cars come with companion materials designed to point out the underlying concepts that kids are having fun with, such as how wheels produce friction with the ground, and the gearbox changes the torque output from the motor. These companion materials also list a number of challenges to get kids started tinkering. For that matter, while it’s not necessarily meant for this purpose, the components, including a 2.4GHz controller, receiver, and ESC could even be harvested for a new project if you or your kids are so inspired.

Rewards currently include a single car for $125, or if you feel like going all-out, there’s a version made out of titanium for only $2,000. Whether that’s worth it to you is an open question, but I’d guess that few who read that statement don’t want one, at least a little bit!