SAM Labs Reviews 157

My students are highly engaged with Sam Labs and enjoy the hands-on experience. The teacher materials are easy to implement in the classroom and well thought out.

The transaction was smooth. I did encounter an issue with price changes. After contacting customer service, it was quickly fixed. The team was friendly and great to work with.

Love SAM Labs! It's a fun way to engage students in computational thinking and the coding platforms are easy for students to use. Not to mention, the bluetooth blocks can be used virtually - perfect for our current educational situation! The new curriculum lessons and resources are standards aligned and user friendly. Highly recommend!

I enjoy the idea of the Sam Labs.

Inspiring a generation of problem-solvers. What can I say, SAM Labs have the easiest way to get STEM lessons!

Fantastic , I really appreciate that!

User friendly and fun! Never thought it could be so easy to learn

Fantastic all round product. Both educational and fun to use.

Having used SamLabs for the past two years I would say that they are my go-to tool for teaching computational thinking and programming in the middle school where I teach. I think that students need to see that they can use programming to create and the SamLabs system is great for that. In my class we consider programming for storytelling, prototyping, art creation, and problem-solving and SamLabs is perfect for all those modalities.

The kit is excellent, intuitive and my nephew was immediately engrossed.

The Sam labs blocks are good . And its so easy to connect with app.The students could have more interest and enthusiasm in the class.

My kids loved it :Samlabs prepares them for the future by giving them the indispensable tools to learn science, technology, engineering, arts and maths.

Great product and service!

Great product :) My kids loved it, and so did I - we both learned a lot!

There are things I like and don't like in regards to SAM labs. First off, I had no input as a teacher to say yea or nay on using Sam Labs. My school district made the decision. I can say that I have been to conferences and vendor shows where other STEM products are showcased and I would have most likely passed on SAM Labs when I passed by your table. Why? Well to be honest, I think the car is very generic and it doesn't have the "bells or whistles, or aesthetics" to get the kids excited about learning how to build on and operate the car. We call that in education "the hook" and I'm sorry but the car isn't appealing enough to hook the students and dive into learning.
I like the LEGO interface. LEGOs are simple to assemble and disassemble. As an elementary STEM teacher for 6-7 classes per day, I need things to go together and come part quicky since a new group of students will be arriving in 35 minutes. I guess that was one of my problems with using SAM Labs. Logistically it was hard to get in depth with SAM devices because I only have the students for 35 minutes a week. If I had a block schedule instead of individual periods, it would have provided more time to interact with SAM devices and SAM Space.
Besides the car, the blocks are portable and connect wirelessly. Maybe too portable. They fit in pockets with ease, so that's worry number 1. I hope my kids don't take the blocks. Yes it is up to me the classroom teacher to manage my class and I feel I do it adequately but lets face it. Kids are kids. It bothers me when vendors tout a product and most likely they assume a perfect teaching condition. Perfect classroom space, all students are behaved and 100 percent on task, enough time allotted for an activity period but this just isn't the case. There are background challenges that have nothing to do with learning and using the product.
Another problem with the block is the older mini USB charging connection. The kids want to help with cleanup and elementary students don't have their fine motor skills developed yet. So as a result I have some blocks with broken female charging ports off of the small circuit cards within the blocks. My new cell phone has a USB C charging port. I feel these are more durable. They can be used in either direction like the Apple Lightning cords. So this would help charging port breakage on your blocks instead of using mini USB that only connect in one direction.
We also had a problem with too many blocks in close proximity to others where the wireless connections interfered with others nearby. The simple solution is move the students away from each other but when you have 25 in a class space becomes an issue.
Finally about the blocks, if there were servos to operate car likages like steering and even interface it with a remote control of some sort, like a remote control car, I think the students would definitely become more interested in learning SAM Labs i.e. the remote control car becomes the hook!
Now for SAM Space we are using Chromebooks with students having school administered Google accounts. We had to go to Google Play Store to download SAM Space onto their account. Ok fine but I have 300+ students per week using 25 of my Chromebooks. If the students didn't get the same Chromebook the following week, then they had to download it again. Why couldn't this down go onto the harddrive of the device. Or better yet why not open source on the internet. We have other robotic coding devices that access software via the internet. My students have no problem accessing these softwares on any device.
So in summary, my teaching schedule definitely places constraints on my teaching of SAM Labs and while your product has multiple learning options, I feel the hardware and software can be improved. I hope this gave you some insight from a teacher's perspective.

Excellent lesson content and overall great experience!

As a teacher working at home, I needed the Alpha kit to further my professional development and prepare lessons for when we return to school. I ordered the kit on Saturday evening and received it on Tuesday morning. I also requested a replacement for a block from school that had been damaged and had an immediate response with a new block in the post.

I appreciated the customer support and response to our questions. Thanks so much!