Mon 13 Mar 2023 | by Rob Hutchins

Team Repair launches circular subscription service to teach kids essential skills

A new family subscription service designed to teach kids how to repair and refurbish broken household items and arm them with the skills essential for the circular economy is launching to the UK market this week. Called Team Repair, the service provides children with a science, technology or electronic toy or product that has been purposefully broken, along with the tools and information required on how to fix it. Kids are encouraged to dismantle and repair the products, teaching them valuable skills in product maintenance. In celebration of the launch – and to mark London Repair Week kicking off next week – Team Repair will be hosting a series of free fixing workshops across London boroughs between 18 and 26^th of March. These workshops will be open to children aged ten and above with sessions available to book via the company’s website. Team Repair is a circular monthly subscription programme founded by five Imperial College London graduates. The service aims to impart essential skills across science and technology. Each month, Team Repair ship products such as retro games consoles or remote control cars, with strategically planned faults. By dismantling the products, kids can see the science behind how the gadget and its components work, encouraging them to pursue STEM-related fields as they grow up. Each kit contains hours of science and repair activities, guided by its corresponding app which is linked to the school curriculum. The products themselves are sourced from waste, such as products returned to manufacturers and destined for the waste stream. The model keeps those products out of the waste stream and in the value stream. Team Repair was created out of the desire to tackle the some 500,000kg of electronic waste produced in London each day. Once each repair kit is completed, it gets returned for reuse using the return label provided. This means everything from the gadget to the packaging gets reused over and over. Team Repair has received the support of various organisations, including the Mayor of London and the Institution of Engineering and Technology. However, in its mission to tackle the e-waste crisis it is looking for industry support by way of potential brand partnership or for any unwanted products from companies in the toy and licensing sector. “As a female engineer and entrepreneur, my co-founders and I founded Team Repair to teach the repair skills lost through the generations,” said Megan Hale, co-founder and ceo of Team Repair. “When we were young, we enjoyed taking broken things apart and trying to fix them. These hands-on experiences inspired us to become engineers and live more sustainably. Our programme instils a repair mind-set in the next generation, aiming to reduce e-waste and increase diversity in the STEM industry.”