Small dreams, big ideas

Educational initiative to promote creativity, cross-pollination and out-of-the-box thinking

For children aged 6 to 66

The MyMachine-concept is very simple and consists of 3 steps:

STEP 1:   Children from primary schools (in Belgium aged 6 to 12 years) invent and present
(using drawings, models, manuals, …) their own ‘Dream Machine’.
Anything goes:  from a machine that helps you to put peanut butter on a sandwich to a machine that cleans your room. The main criteriom is that it is relevant for the
child who really, really wants it. We call this the IDEA-phase.

STEP 2:  The next phase is that higher education students (eg product design students) propose one
or more solutions to design the  dream machines. The best solutions – according to the
children –  are selected and further developed. We call this the DESIGN - or
CONCEPT- phase

STEP 3:   Finally, the technical drawings/designs and working concepts are handed over to
Secondary Tech Schools (for pupils aged 12-18 years). They build real prototypes of those machines, assisted by the children who invented them (IDEA) and the higher education students who designed them (DESIGN). This final phase is the MACHINE-phase.
Throughout this whole process the children, pupils and students can use the expertise and support of a wide range of local corporations and organizations who share a common view on creativity and innovation. Thanks to their support, MyMachine is able to build these machines

1 MyMachine-run = 1 school/academic year
Step 1 (Idea Generation):  September – October (1 to 4 weeks)
Step 2 (Design and Concept):  November – December (4 to 6 weeks)
Step 3 (Production and Realization): February – April (8 to 12 weeks)

website, Blogs, Collaboration tool, Catalogue

MyMachine ran as a pilot in Kortrijk-Belgium in 2008-2009, involving over 700 children, pupils and students from 17 different schools in the region. Many local corporations and support-organizations endorsed MyMachine. So did the Flemish Government which selected MyMachine as ‘Best project bridging the world of Education and Enterprise’.