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Small discoveries belong in every day
Figuring things out starts with an interesting question — and our job is to put it where nobody expects it.
We believe every child and every adult can think scientifically. All it takes is the right prompt in the right place — one that wakes curiosity before anyone has time to say the word “learning”.
That's why we bring Koumio® zones into school corridors, transport halls, waiting rooms, libraries and community centres. Into places people pass through every day and where they have the time and space to wonder.
It started at Planeta Hlinsko
Our designer Jakub is a co-author of the exhibition at the Planeta Hlinsko education centre. It has since become one of the science centres schools and families like to return to — because learning through play works whatever your age or level.
Together with his wife Bára, a teacher and experiential-education trainer, that raised a question: why should figuring things out be tied to one building you visit once a year? Children are ready to wonder in a library, a waiting room, a play corner or a school corridor too. All that's missing there is the prompt.
So we began making hard-wearing interactive objects that can stay in those places for years. So a child can stop, reach out, try it — and ask a question.
More people with the same idea soon joined. Illustrator Karla brings playfulness, humour and a child's perspective into the Koumio® boards. Methodologist Karolína builds the sets of curiosity questions, the inquiry challenges and the support for teachers.
We focus on STEM, but we don't stop there. We like it when a scientific finding ends up answering a perfectly ordinary human question: who am I, and what is the world around me like?
The people at Koumio®
Ing. Jakub Fafílek
lead designer
A product designer with over twenty years' experience. He designs and engineers Koumio® boards to be beautiful, hard-wearing and still working in public use years later. He is a science communicator, the author of many interactive exhibits and a father of three.
Mgr. Barbora Fafílková
director
A teacher and experiential-education trainer. She runs Koumio®, talks to schools, regions and institutions, and develops the whole educational concept so that a Koumio® board is never just a nice object on a wall.
MgA. Karla Kučerová
illustrator and art curator
She brings playfulness and humour into Koumio®. Her illustrations accompany the inquiry challenges and help children step into discovery lightly. She has illustrated children's books and educational magazines, and her own work can be found well beyond Koumio®.
Mgr. Karolína Jůnová
head of development and methodology
She draws on her experience with inquiry-based science teaching. She creates content that pulls absolutely everyone into investigating — building the sets of curiosity questions and helping teachers bring Koumio® boards into their lessons, whether they teach from the front or through inquiry.
How Koumio® boards are made
We design, engineer and build Koumio® boards ourselves, in the Czech Republic. This isn't outsourced design and bought-in parts — every mechanism passes through the hands of the person who thought of it.
The basis is beech plywood and steel. No electronic components that will be unobtainable in three years. We always hang prototypes somewhere children and adults walk past first, and watch what they do with them — what holds up goes into production.
Research with the University of Pardubice in preparation
We want to know whether Koumio® boards work outside a school setting too. We are therefore preparing a research collaboration with the University of Pardubice — an interdisciplinary team will study how Koumio® boards affect activity levels and fine motor skills among residents of care homes.
We expect the first results in 2027 and will publish them even if they don't confirm what we hope for.
Who we work with
Planeta Hlinsko
education centre
ZŠ Proseč
Škola Spolu
Want a Koumio® zone at your place too?
Tell us what we're working with. We'll come and look, and bring a proposal with us.