Over recent years, many startup enterprises in Da Nang have showed their keen interest in designing and producing ‘made-in-Viet Nam’ educational toys in a bid to meet the increasing needs of kids.

The race between voice-controlled robotic tanks produced by the AI Fablab company attracting a great deal of attention from children and adults

There is no denying that STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) toys make learning a fun experience for the children.

STEM skills are integral to fostering creativity and problem solving in young minds. Opting for toys that help develop these skills encourages children to explore, examine, and be curious about the way the world works-ultimately helping build confidence in STEM fields for the future.

Not only will science come alive with these picks - from learning about science concepts from a young age to coding programs with robots, they're also fun — a win-win for both parents and kids.

At the Marine Environment Festival 2019, which took place in Da Nang early this month, a lot of children and adults kept their close eyes on the fierce race between two voice-controlled robotic tanks which were seen go through any obstacles to finish the race. The game really made the kids excited and eager to wait for their turns to loudly voice their commands to control the robots.

These lovely tanks are amongst the STEM products developed by the Son Tra District-based AI Fablab company.

La Trung Kien, the founder of AI Fablab, said he and his close friend established the company in August 2018 in order to produce STEM products that serve as toys and educational tools meeting STEM education’s requirements.

These products help users learn how to assemble, connect, learn about technologies and processing, and solve the real-world problems through games, challenges, and competitions.

Kien said: “We always have wanted to create quality educational products for children. There are a wide range of STEM toys on sale in the market, but many of them are imported and offered at high prices, especially STEM robotic toys. This fact has inspired us to set up AI Fablab with the goal of designing and building robots for children”.

In addition to voice-controlled robotic tanks, AI Fablab has developed robot arms that can move and grab objects, and humanoid robots which can move and simulate human activities.

In a similar vein, since the start of last year, the Thanh Khe District-based Things Changing Technology Co., Ltd. has created a wide range of STEM-assembled toys and robots for sale to not only individual customers but also STEM schools and centre across the country.

STEM toys have been proving its high usefulness and popularity, especially in young families. Although the price of these toys usually is between a few hundred thousands of VND to several millions of VND, relatively higher than that of normal ones, parents are still willing to spend such amount of money buying them thanks to greatly educational benefits they bring to kids.

Currently, locally-made STEM toys for children are managing to penetrate into foreign markets, gradually developing the brand name for ‘made-in-Viet Nam’ toys that are both highly attractive and educationally valuable.