Ann:$25 PCB to help novices/protect Arduino. Schools. Parents?

I'm not totally sure about your ages for soldering - I think I got my first soldering iron when I was 11 (possibly 12) - I seem to remember teaching some of my kids when they pretty small.

But I can't see anyone in the UK letting primary school kids loose with soldering in the classroom - shame really - it's the burnt finger lessons you remember best !!

MK

Scott Coppersmith wrote:

 

I would suggest going to a school and talking to teachers about what would be appropriate for the age group you are targeting.

An excellent suggestion!

Re...

Soldering: I have never intended for the beginners to do ANY soldering. However, I do want to keep NoviceGuard cheap, and I am most interested in people who have SOME idea of what they are doing being the beginners helpers. There are no SMT components. The assembly is about as simple as soldering gets. No. Not simple for "everyone", but as simple as it gets for someone with any electronics skills. And the loaners I've spoken of will come assembled.

"Visit a school...": I taught for 20 years. I know a bit about kids, schools... including the target age group... already. I also know that many schools, today, are day care centers and others "have no time" for things not "on the test". (Although I strongly believe in sensible external testing of schools' performance.) I HAVE reached out to local-to-me schools... no interest. But then, not every school is interested in fostering creativity, doing something "new". But I'd hoped that someone reading this thread might have an exceptional school near them.

10 year old kids have no interest in programming.  They like to push buttons and watch things happen immediately.

Even 18-25 year olds in my classes have difficulty with programming, concepts like pull-up resistors, and current limiting.

I'm not a full time teacher, but I am a mentor for two free programs we run at various schools.

The first is assembling (inc soldering) and programming a picaxe based Xmas Tree, which they get to keep.

These pupils are year 7 (11/12 yr olds)

The second is a full day introducing pupils to Arduino programming and we target the year 8 (12/13 yrs old)

From both of these I can assure you many of them are interested if they have good examples and are shown and helped.

In some cases it is a matter of having different examples (we're unlucky to have so many roadworks here in Christchurch that the concept of limiting flow due to the roadwarks is easy to explain and compare to a resistor) and in some cases it might take a bit more until the "Ahh Haa" moment strikes.

I have found that once you've captured them with changing the blink program, it's easy to introduce new bits and then it just snowballs and they are hooked.

It does help that it is a full day, and I have done one with 2 hr sessions over 5 weeks and it was not as productive.

So Scott I'm not sure my experience would support your comments.

Mark

talking to teachers about what would be appropriate for the age group you are targeting

You are assumming that the teachers have experience in that area.

Sadly my observation from the many schools I visit is there are few that have teachers experienced in that area.

IT in schools is a broad word, and in some schools they think having the latest itoy to access videos online or use it to make video is IT.

I liked the older days when hand skills were taught in metalwork and woodwork classes.

It also taught safety around machines and gave you some worldly experience, rather than reading or viewing it from your chair.

Mark

TK

I might have missed the answer to the question I posed.

NoviceGuard is supposed to get rid of two of the biggest probems of starting kids on Arduinos!

Your statement has me curious ... what do you see as the two biggest problems.?

I don't want to rain on your parade, but I dunno, teaching Arduino to that age group seems precarious at best.  I've seen some simple block electronics kits that snap together to make something light up or buzz or what not and that may be more age appropriate.  Heck some of the old spring type electronics sets might even work.

If you are going to try and gear it for a slightly older kids, maybe in high school and you are looking to protect the product from damage, let me tell you a little story. In high school, I took a Ham Radio course.  We had access to all kinds of cool technology and equipment, but kids will of course be kids.  We found that in the ham shack there was a switchable outlet.  We decided to stick resistors into the the outlet, flip the power on and hear/watch them go bang.  Took the teacher a good 10+ resistor explosions before he figured out what the hell we were doing and for him to evict us from the shack.  If you are looking to protect a board from this slightly older crowd, I'm telling you right now, good luck.

You could potentially program a simulator to drag virtual wires from terminal to component and teach that way without blowing anything up, but I honestly think that kids learn better when they use their hands.  Breaking things is just a solid part of that learning process.

If I were a teacher, which I am not, and I was going to teach an Arduino class, I would probably ask for an activity fee at the beginning of the class, buy a crap ton of good cheap boards and parts and roll with it, as michaelkellett mentioned.  If someone blows a board up, then guess what?  We take that board front and center (in front of the class) and show why it got destroyed and get some participation from the class on how it could be avoided in the future.  Turn the destruction into a learning experience.  You could even pre-teach some DO's and DONT's before they get to touch their first board.

Our society sometimes I think goes too far to protect the general public and products from harm.  Sometimes I think Darwin just needs to kick in.  Smoke and fire are fun anyhow.

4RINGFAN

(Argh! Sorry... tried to "attach" this as answer to an earlier post, the one from mcb1, earlier in the thread, where he starts "I might have missed your answer...")

Maybe my "answer" missed your question! What do I see as the two biggest problems of getting kids (or others not already persuaded) excited about electronics, programming, being creative with Arduinos? (Or similar, but I find Arduinos particularly suitable):

---------------------------------

1) The bottom of the learning curve can be steep. Getting started is usually especially difficult because, without NoviceGuard, there are several things to get on top of AT ONCE-

i) The very idea of "a program". Difficult not least because you can't see it, can't see it "upload" (Whatever THAT might be!) Can't see the bits moving, as you can, say, in an old fashioned gear-driven clock.

ii) The highly restricted language. The need to say things RIGHT. Yuh kno.

iii) The procedure for moving program from big PC, where at least it is "there" on the screen, into the Arduino. And what goes on in Arduino when it "boots".

iv) The principles of electronics... current/voltage/resistance, what the different "bits" do, physical and conceptual "bits"

v) The practical issues of hooking things up... resistor to a pin (which pin?, etc) of Arduino, other end to LED (reliably!), which end of LED? Other end of LED to "ground". What is ground? Where is ground?

With NoviceGuard, at the beginning, you still have to get to grips with i-iii... but you are spared iv and v until later.

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2) Many people would like to let beginners "play" with some Arduinos don't dare because they haven't the money or inclination to expose the Arduinos to the possiblity (likelihood!?) of damage.

You'll never, of course, entirely control the vandal element. But with NoviceGuard, it is harder to damage something accidentally, and it provides a more clear line between what's allowed and what's deliberate vandalism.

Even if you use cheap clones, fried pins are a major problem for beginners. An advanced users will KNOW their code and electronics are "good", and thus any problem MUST be a fried pin. (Or they can whip up a little test program/ circuit to check a suspected bad pin.) Novices should not have to cope with "Is it my (novice's) code? My circuit? A faulty pin?". With NoviceGuard, there is a LOT of programming you can do without ever having to worry beyond "Is it my pin?".

So! "The two big barriers" more clear now?

=======================================

"Off topic", sort of, skip the rest if you are sated...

NoviceGuard isn't just for baby steps. Yes... there are marvelous things you can do when you have skills and permissions to risk the hardware beyond using the Arduino through a NoviceGuard, but... and this is typical of why I find programming exciting, and wish more people were past that tedious little bump at the bottom of the learning curve....

The longer I think about NoviceGuard, the more programming I see you can do with it. The other evening's random thoughts:

1) A pair of Arduinos "talking" to each other in Morse code. This would require a simple "daughter board", and one instance of each for each of the Arduinos. (The idea is old... see Arduino Playground. But it is "do-able" with NoviceGuard-protected Arduinos.)

2) An authentication "dongle" for a challenge-response access control system. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenge%E2%80%93response_authentication, the "Alice"/"Bob" scenario. If you think NoviceGuard can only do trivial things, reflect on the fact that this form of challenge response had not found its way into Wikipedia until I put it there just now, in case you weren't familiar with it. (And no, Virginia, it wasn';t not there because it is trivial, not widely used! If you see "https" on a url, indicating your connection to the server is less insecure than a mere "http" exchange, you are using this form of challenge-response, for example.)

There's also the question of programming "an answer" and programming a GOOD answer. You don't need complex electronics to show learners the difference between code that "works" (but is a dog's dinner) to WELL WRITTEN code that does "the same thing".

TK

Thanks for clarifying the question.

While the concept of programs and unseen things is scary to us older generation, those born with a tablet/electronic device in their hands is probably not so scary.

I have found that once they have the concept, they just do it and don't give it a second thought.

But you are right that there is a certain amount to learn regardless of what version/flavour of Arduino you use.

As someone else eliquently put " I don't want to rain on your parade" but there seems to be two different concepts in play here.

1.      Hardware that makes it easy/safe to use.

2.      Decent examples for pupils to follow/try in order to expand their exposure and knowledge.

Your hardware and the Brick/Grove style parts rectify the first problem.

The costs vary depending on the source, and I agree that every dollar saved is a bonus.

I wanted to use the brick style for our lessons but the cost was too high until I discovered the source I linked to earlier.

As a comparison I purchased 10 of these kits at USD$22.90 each plus freight

This version also uses a DIL 328 chip, so any pin frying can be easily rectified.

     1x Iteaduino UNO - blue , $11.50

     1x Electronic brick - Buzzer  , $0.60

     2x Electronic brick - Lighting Emitting Diode/Green  , $0.55 ea

     1x Electronic brick - 5V Relay  , $1.00

     2x Electronic Brick - Big Button  , $0.60 ea

     1x Electronic brick - Electronic Brick - DS18B20 1 - Wire Digital Thermometer Module  , $1.20

     1x Electronic brick - Light sensor brick  , $0.80

     5x 3 Pin Dual-female to Grove 4 pin Converter Cable - 20cm  , $0.80 ea

     1x USB Type A to Type Mini.( IM120530007 ) , $0.80

     1x Electronic brick - Rotary Potentiometer ( IM120710014 )  , $0.70

Total USD $22.90

I added I2C 16x2 LCD displays for $6.45 each from another supplier. (Terry King is now offering them at $5.50)

This brought the total to USD $29.35 plus freight for what is a pretty comprehensive brick style kit.!!

Decent examples

While 'spoon feeding' students with ... follow this, do that ... is a great way to get them started, it can lead to simply ticking the box to complete the tasks and not understanding the concepts.

We've seen many questions posed here on the forum where the OP has not even bothered using a search engine to find the answer, and sadly they seem to originate from certain institutes, which should be encouraging self learning.

In the class we run, we make the pupils do some research first to get them used to searching for answers, we discuss the answers to help everyone understand why they need to find the resources, and it gives us an idea of the pupils understanding of Arduino.

We use the built-in examples (because they are there when you download the IDE) to start them off, then encourage them to tinker with the example to generate some lateral thinking.

We then add some twists and lastly give them links to find more tutorials, etc.

As I point out we not always going to be there to answer your question , but the www thingy is.

So would I spend

$25 on a pcb to help novices/protect arduino

The answer is YES but not your pcb ... sorry.

Mark

There is now a page that is a decent "skeleton"... with SOME flesh... for a page to be filled with ideas for "things pupils could do with an Arduino". It is at....

http://Rugguino.com/ModChall.htm

I got up at 5:30. It is now 5pm. Yes, I had a meal. (One.) I spent about 90 minutes on other things.

It won't take you long, reading that page, to discover my heart wasn't in it. But it was asked for. Something has been provided.

Yes, of course, in due course, if anyone adopts NoviceGuard, there's a place for a showcase for good ideas, for prepared lesson plans. At this stage, I feel that if you have to ask "What challenges would I put before the learners to give them goals", then maybe this discussion is not for you. I hope you'll "tag along". Maybe you'll "get it" eventually. But don't expect a "box of goodies" you can buy, put on the desk, and have it teach the kids (or other Arduino novices) for you. That's not what NoviceGuard is.