First circuits for middle school STEM, in the browser
A switch, a resistor and an LED; a light that turns on in the dark; a blinking 555 with no code at all. Middle school students can open these without an account, on a Chromebook, and change them.
Where Mokxi fits
A middle school STEM or technology class usually wants circuits students can see working in the first five minutes, and a reason to care about why. Mokxi’s first circuits need no code: a switch and an LED, a 555 that blinks, logic gates that light up as you press buttons. Students can break them safely, and a reversed LED costs nothing.
When the class is ready for code, the Arduino projects come with the sketch already written. Students change a number, a pin or a delay and see what happens, which is how most people start programming hardware.
The simplest way to run it at this age is with no accounts at all: share a link, and students open the circuit and share their version back as a link. No student data is collected that way.
The labs, by topic
Each row is a topic, the week of the 12-week course that covers it, a circuit that runs now and the pages that explain it.
| Topic | Course week | Lab to open | Read more |
|---|---|---|---|
| A complete circuit: switch, resistor, LED | Week 1 | Hello, breadboard | How to Use a Breadboard: Your First Circuit · Picking a Resistor for an LED |
| Blinking without code: the 555 | Week 4 | 555 blinker | The 555 Astable: Timed by a Capacitor, Not a Crystal |
| Logic gates you can press | Week 5 | Gate lab | Logic Gates, and the Truth Table You Can Press |
| A light that turns on in the dark | Extra lab | Night light | Arduino LDR Night Light (Photoresistor) · Voltage Dividers and Why They Are Bad Power Supplies |
| A knob that sets the brightness | Week 9 | Dimmer | Arduino Potentiometer: analogRead and a Dimmer · PWM: Faking an Analog Voltage on a Digital Pin |
| A parking sensor that beeps faster | Extra lab | Parking sensor | Arduino Ultrasonic Sensor (HC-SR04) Tutorial |
| Electronic dice | Extra lab | Electronic dice | Arduino 7 Segment Display: an Electronic Die |
Every week has a one-page PDF lesson plan. They are all on the teacher resources page.
Where it does not fit
- There is no block coding. Code is text C++, so younger students work from sketches that are already written. For a class that needs blocks, Tinkercad Circuits is the better first tool, and the comparison page says so.
- A student under 13 may have an account only with consent, which a school gives under COPPA for its educational purpose. Until your school has done that, use Mokxi without accounts.
- It does not replace hands-on building. It is a place to try things first.
Standards this course touches
Mokxi is not certified against any of these. The rows below are the ones this course’s labs genuinely touch, taken from the full map on the teacher resources page.
| Standard | What it asks | Fit | Where Mokxi fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| NGSS MS-ETS1-4 | Develop a model to generate data for iterative testing and modification of a proposed object, tool, or process such that an optimal design can be achieved. | Good fit | Weeks 1, 3 and 4 of the curriculum: students change a resistor, a capacitor or a line of code, measure again and keep the better design. |
| CSTA 2-CS-02 | Design projects that combine hardware and software components to collect and exchange data. | Good fit | Weeks 10 and 12 (serial data and two boards on one wire), and the sensor tutorials: a sketch reads a sensor and reports or displays what it measured. |
| CSTA 2-CS-03 | Systematically identify and fix problems with computing devices and their components. | Partial fit | Debugging a circuit and a sketch together, with a meter, a scope and the serial monitor (weeks 3 and 11). It is troubleshooting a simulated device, not a physical one. |
States adopt these frameworks with their own edits, and some use their own (Texas uses the TEKS, for example). Check the wording in your state’s document. If you send us a unit, we will tell you which weeks cover it and which do not.
Wording from: NGSS: HS-PS3-3 · NGSS: HS-ETS1 Engineering Design · NGSS: MS-ETS1-4 · CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards · College Board: AP Physics 2 course page · College Board: AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism course page
More for this course
Arduino projects for beginners, in order · Arduino science fair project ideas · Science Olympiad Circuit Lab, Division B · Mokxi and Tinkercad Circuits, compared · Student data privacy, COPPA and FERPA · All the free teacher resources · The 12-week course · IT setup for schools
Other course pages: High school engineering and CTE: digital electronics · Intro and AP physics: circuits