Pibbit's Workshop

About Pibbit's Workshop

Pibbit's friends keep asking for deliveries: an apple for Hedgehog, a fish across the ice for Penguin, a birthday cake over a hill, a gap and a frozen pond. Your child bolts wheels, motors, fans, balloons, springs and sandbags onto Pibbit's cart, presses Test and watches what really happens. Machines that fail do it in a way that teaches something: the motor spins uselessly on ice, one motor stalls on the hill, too many balloons float right over the friend. The build stays put, so the next try is a small change, not a fresh start. Fifteen jobs, then a free-build track.

Pibbit's Workshop is one of our science & nature games for kids. This one plays in the iPhone and iPad app rather than in the browser, but 33 of our games are free to play right here — browse the full library to find them.

How to Play

• Listen to the job, or tap the picture at the top to hear it again.
• Drag parts from the bench onto the glowing spots on the cart. Tap a part on the cart to take it off.
• Press Test it! and watch the cart try the job.
• If it doesn't work, Pibbit says why. Press Fix it, change one thing and test again.

Tips & Tricks

• Change one part at a time, so you can tell which change made the difference.
• Each part has one job: wheels roll, motors turn wheels, fans push, balloons lift, springs jump, sandbags add weight.
• Stuck after two tries? The Hint button suggests the next part to add or take off.

What Kids Learn

Pibbit's Workshop is a small physics lab dressed up as a delivery service. Every part does exactly one thing, and the jobs are built so that the first idea most children try fails in a way they can see: the cart scrapes along without wheels, one motor gives up halfway up the hill, the wheels spin on the ice while the fan just pushes. That is the design cycle engineers use (build, test, look at why it failed, change something) and it is what the early-years engineering standards ask children to practise.

Later jobs need two ideas at once. The cliff needs lift and a push; the dock needs the cart to slow down before the water, which one balloon or a single wheel will do; the last job combines a hill, a gap and ice. Every job was checked by a solver that tries every build the bench allows, so each one has an answer, and the hardest has only two out of 144 possible machines.

• Forces: pushes, lift, friction and weight
• The engineering cycle: build, test, find out why, improve
• Changing one thing at a time to see what it does

Curriculum links

For teachers and homeschooling parents, here is where Pibbit's Workshop lines up with what children are taught at school:

• NGSS K-PS2-1: Compare the effects of different strengths or directions of pushes and pulls
• NGSS K-2-ETS1-2: Develop a simple design to help a shape or tool work as needed

What Age Is Pibbit's Workshop For?

Best for ages 6 to 10. The first five jobs are fixes to an almost-working cart and are fine for a five-year-old with a grown-up nearby; everything is spoken, so reading isn't needed. The last few jobs make most 9-year-olds stop and think, and the free-build track keeps older children experimenting.

Tips for Parents

Ask "what do you think will happen?" before they press Test, then "was that what you expected?" after.

When a test fails, ask what Pibbit said went wrong before reaching for the Hint button.

Try a wrong machine on purpose together, just to see what it does. Failing on purpose is a good experiment.

Try It Without a Screen

• Roll a toy car down a book ramp, then onto a towel. Which surface stops it sooner?
• Tape a balloon to a light toy and see whether it can lift it. Add a coin at a time until it can't.
• Build a paper-cup cart from bottle caps and straws and push it with a hand fan.

Pibbit's Workshop — Frequently Asked Questions