Are you or your sons STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) enthusiasts? Do you want to be? Sounds like the new show “The Big Brain Theory: Pure Genius” premiering on the Discovery Channel tomorrow (May 1) is right up your alley. This show will feature an impossible sounding engineering challenge each week which teams of skilled contestants will attempt to solve. Each week the expert panel of judges will determine the winning team and eliminate a team member from the losing team. The ultimate winner will receive $50,000 and a year long contract to work at an award winning design firm.

The show is hosted by Kal Penn, most well known as an actor (the “Harold and Kumar” films and a regular on the tv series “House”) but whose resume also includes a recent two year stint as the Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and an adjunct professorship at the University of Pennsylvania. The regular and guest judges include experts in renewable energy and robotics as well as astronauts and inventors. The show follows the contestants (which include one young man with an awesome Afro) as they work on the various challenges and captures the tension, excitement and angst of their creative process.

The show’s website, found here, has a lot of interesting information about the show and its participants. It also includes some Brain Games which you and your children can try. Check it out, and make a note to check out the show’s debut with your children. It comes on fairly late (10pm Eastern Standard Time), so you might want to record it and watch it with them at a more convenient time. Let us know what you think!