I am talking about 10-14 years old kids - who are my primary target.
They are many books, I agree but have a look at the fundamentals - very little - if any has been developed to respond to the digital era.
The STEM is one of the few brand-new concepts. But even so, if we think to the philosophy in Ancient Greece or to the early polymaths, not even this concept is quite new. Not to mention that despite whistle and bells, I do not know real STEM undertakings at mass-scale.
I agree however that one shall base his/her projects on a particular set of pre-existing knowledge. And this is why I picked Vygotsky: some perennial ideas and easy to his transfer concepts into methods and concepts for the digital era.
I also developed my own pedagogical approach, based on shape representation. I checked this with 10 years old kids, to the extent I can in a non-supervised environment. It looks worth advancing.
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"Rapid reward" - this means that a kid shall get some tangible results in literally minutes.
"Visibility" applies mostly to 8-12 age kids- the only one I am aware to respond at least partially to this request is the ELENCO electricity set.
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I am learning and applying such novelty ideas in my work with kids. Unfortunately, in my location, pedagogy is not financed (and not of much interest I may say), so I am on my own.