Common Sense Media Review
By Michelle Kitt
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Maker community celebrates skill building and creativity.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 9+?
Any Positive Content?
Privacy Rating Warning
Privacy Rating
Our expert evaluators create our privacy ratings. The ratings are designed to help you understand how apps use your data for commercial purposes.
Pass
Meets our minimum requirements for privacy and security practices.
Warning
Does not meet our recommendations for privacy and security practices.
Fail
Does not have a privacy policy and should not be used.
Privacy Rating
Our expert evaluators create our privacy ratings. The ratings are designed to help you understand how apps use your data for commercial purposes.
Pass
Meets our minimum requirements for privacy and security practices.
Warning
Does not meet our recommendations for privacy and security practices.
Fail
Does not have a privacy policy and should not be used.
What's It About?
The homepage lists popular challenges, features a particular challenge, and shares news about who’s earned a new badge. Kids can explore topics there or go to the Skills page and browse 50 different categories of challenges. Kids have to create a profile and avatar to upload photos or videos as proof for completing challenges. If they complete three in a skill area, they earn a patch that displays online. Kids can follow other DIYers and interact with comments or by asking and answering questions.
Is It Any Good?
Grown up boy and girl scouts will remember doing specific tasks to earn merit badges. DIY is an online form of the same thing, made more accessible and inclusive by its large assortment of skills challenges. It engages kids with varied interests -- technology, art, comedy, the outdoors, the indoors, bugs, computers -- there’s even a Front End Dev skill for kids who like bugs in computers. Skills have a mix of challenges kids can do independently (Minecraft challenges or build an indoor fort) and others that require help from an adult (repair a bicycle tube) or a professional (use a soldering iron). In those cases, success depends on the level of involvement kids can get from adults. Still, DIY rewards any completed challenge regardless of difficulty or time to complete and kids walk away with confidence, new skills, and a nifty online patch.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about appropriate ways to ask questions or make suggestions on others' projects and avoid hurt feelings. How should you respond to questions or suggestions from others? What are some examples of positive interactions? Which behaviors should you avoid?
Ensure kids know how to be safe interacting online with people they don’t know. Check out our advice for elementary, middle, and high schoolers.
Website Details
- Subjects : Science : engineering
- Skills : Thinking & Reasoning : defining problems , problem solving , strategy , thinking critically , Creativity : brainstorming , developing novel solutions , making new creations , Self-Direction : achieving goals , initiative , work to achieve goals
- Genre : Creating
- Pricing structure : Free to try (14-day free trial then $15-20 per month depending on family size.)
- Last updated : November 11, 2020
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