For children, ages 4 and up

Be a Thinking Machine Maker

Grown-ups call this a AI Engineer.

Thinking Machine Maker — a AI Engineer at work. Thinking Machine Maker picture for kids from Ellis Abel Learns. For families in Petroleum County, MT.

I teach computers to notice things.
I show them lots of pictures.
I check when they get it wrong.

Why it matters

A machine can spot illness early.
It can hear a broken engine.
People still decide what is right.

How a AI Engineer helps the world — Thinking Machine Maker world impact picture from Ellis Abel Learns.

You can start today

Sort your toys into two piles.
Tell a grown-a-up your rule.
See if they can sort like you.

You can be a Thinking Machine Maker in Petroleum County.

For parents

Five steps to encourage a future AI Engineer

Petroleum County is one of 56 counties in Montana. Somewhere in that number is a future AI Engineer who has not met the idea yet.

These five steps are taken from Estonia’s ProgeTiger program, which begins in kindergarten and runs on three pillars — engineering sciences, information technology, and design and technology. Estonian fifteen-year-olds finished top in Europe for both math and science in PISA 2022. The world is short of qualified STEM people; Estonia is the clearest evidence that the shortage is made, not fated.

1. Start at four, not at ten
Estonia does not wait for secondary school. ProgeTiger begins in kindergarten, and it is one reason Estonian fifteen-year-olds finished top in Europe for math and science in PISA 2022. The window you are in right now is the one that matters most, and nothing about it requires a device.
2. Floor robots before screens
Estonian kindergartens teach the first coding ideas with physical floor robots — Blue-Bot, Qobo, mTiny, Matata Lab — that a child pushes buttons on and then watches drive across a carpet. Sequence, direction, cause and effect, all in the hands. Screens come later and mean more when they do.
3. Teach the loop, not the answer
Try, fail, find out why, fix, try again. ProgeTiger's own stated point is that children there learn far more than programming: they learn to solve problems, be creative, collaborate and think critically. When your child is stuck, the most useful thing you can say is "what did you expect to happen?"
4. One enthusiastic adult beats a curriculum
Estonia's program runs on a network of teachers they call progetigers — ordinary teachers who got interested, in every county in the country. You do not need a science degree. You need to be the adult who says yes when your child asks to take the toaster apart.
5. All three pillars, not just coding
ProgeTiger is engineering sciences, information technology, and design and technology together. A child who only codes misses the half of STEM that involves building something with their hands and deciding whether it is any good. Rotate: build a week, code a week, design a week.