Anyone here familiar with arduino and the fun projects you can use it for? If you are not,here is a link you can checkout for some arduino projects for kids arduino projects for kids.
My question now is, have you ever seen or heard of a school in Nigeria that teaches fun arduino project either for free or not for free? Teaching fun arduino project is the best way to introduce kids to both robotics and programming but there are some problems
Cost of arduino kit in Nigeria
taking away the cost
Buying it from a country oversees and shipping to Nigeria
How many percent of Nigeria’s tech teachers knows what arduino is?
Considering those facts, Arduino fun project is not a project for primary/secondary schools even universities and polytechnics rather a project for a school dedicated to teaching arduino.
After some months of thinking, i came up with an idea although it wont be a free school it will at least introduce Nigeria kids to little programming and also basic introduction to robotics. Y’all should already know what it is by now, if our governments can’t provide what i see as a necessity in the life of the future leader of tomorrow let us provide it for them. in other words the solution is to start an arduino school. i Know it will be a big project but with the proper support and individual contribution, it will work out.
Am open to opinions and if you are interested please let me know.
That’s a brilliant brilliant idea. Please check out fundibots.org . They are doing something like that here in Uganda. Started with small camps and now rolling out spaces all over the country for robotics (Not just arduino) for kids (and interested adults). You can reach out to the founder on Twitter @solomonking. He’s really responsive. Phenomenal work he’s doing. Would love to see it replicated all over the continent.
I support this idea. I’ve been working on how to introduce MIT’s scratch to Nigeria secondary schools too. It’s also an introduction to programming and animation for the young ones. One issue I have is the Nigerian parents, all they are interested in is a good report sheet that shows excellent grades in maths and english. Many of them are not willing to pay extra costs for their kids to learn these important skill building stuffs but they are ready to hire a lesson teacher for maths and english.
i checked out the website and it only proved me right.
check out the price of the arduino kit Price of arduino kit on center4tech,it is Thirty thousand naira. I went to amazon to check the current price Price of arduino kit on amazon and converted it to naira, it is fifteen thousand,seven hundred and forty naira which is 14,259 higher than the normal price. I also checked the shipping cost which is 5,897
You can get it yourself with 20,200 approx, why go to center4tech and spend over 8000 extra?
You don’t have to buy an Arduino kit made by Arduino, get a SparkFun kit for Arduino instead. The SparkFun distributor in Nigeria sells at the standard SparkFun rate, in Naira. I’ve purchased a number of components from him over the last year.
I’m really interested in this thread. my brother, 13 years, is really crazy about robotics and I want to support him all the way. Please keep me posted. Thanks
First of all what is needed is to analyse the basics i.e minimum level of skill set this platform will provide, that is curriculum, course module, duration and even the cost per student.
Although we can still apply the rapid prototyping approach, that is trying out first, make mistakes then come back and make progress.
Also I think you should reach out to Lagos Design Institute http://lagos.design they just organized an Arduino powered Hardware Hackathon recently.
You may need to study about Brainiacs http://www.brainiacs.com.ng it seems they offer hardware bootcamps for kids.
LOL thank you