TEEM'16 - Track 1 Computational thinking in pre-university education
Authors: Pablo Martin-Ramos; Maria João Lopes; M. Margarida Lima Da Silva; Manuela Ramos Silva
https://youtu.be/mVK10HOMmg4
2. Authors & Institutions
PABLO MARTÍN RAMOS
EPSH, Universidad de Zaragoza
pmr@unizar.es
MARIA JOÃO LOPES & M. MARGARIDA LIMA DA SILVA
jeKnowledge, Universidade de Coimbra
lopes.mjoao004@gmail.com,
mariamargaridals@gmail.com
MANUELA RAMOS SILVA
CFisUC, Universidade de Coimbra
manuela@pollux.fis.uc.pt
Presentation template by
SlidesCarnival
4. jeKnowledge
◎ Júnior Empresa da Faculdade de Ciências e
Tecnologias da Universidade de Coimbra
◎ Student-led initiative started in 2008
◎ Aimed at offering students the possibility of
applying the knowledge acquired in their higher
education degrees to the global market
◎ Different internal and external projects
http://jeknowledge.pt/
5. jeKnowledge Academy
◎ jeKnowledge not only works as a start-up
incubator…
◎ Also organizes summer schools for 14 to 17 year-
old students: jeKnowledge Academy
◎ Aimed at actively engaging Portuguese high-
school students in STEM education
◎ Student2student-based approach
6. Why teach a basic microcontroller at early stages?
◎ To expose the students at this stage to tools that
will lead them to ideation, innovation, energy
awareness and problem solving skills
◎ Will enable them to become part of a very
competitive workforce in the future → the
ubiquitous embedded systems are an optimum
platform
◎ Steve Jobs once said: “Everybody in this country
should learn how to program a computer, because
it teaches how to think”
7. Why choose the Arduino platform?
◎ OpenSource
◎ Ease to program in assembly language and high
level languages
◎ Ease to perform graphical system programming
and configuration
◎ Possibility to apply it in project-based learning
◎ Affordable
◎ Useable later in their degree program
◎ Prior knowledge of programming or robotics is
not a pre-requisite, only the desire to learn!
8. “
“You don’t need anyone’s
permission to create something
great”
Massimo Banzi, Co-Founder of Arduino
9. “
“It’s sort of like cooking. You don’t
need to be a chef to cook but
almost everyone cooks
something”
Michael Shiloh, Arduino
10. Even more reasons…
◎ Can provide an introduction to microcontrollers
without dwelling much into programming aspect
of it or the architecture aspect of it
◎ The implementation of Processing used in
Arduino IDE would be a C/C++ ‘dialect’
◎ Many graphical languages available (Visuino,
Ardublock, mBlock, miniblock, Snap4Arduino, Embrio…)
◎ Adding peripherals is not difficult
◎ Huge amount of online tutorials and a large user
base to ask questions to!
13. Students and… “students-teachers”
◎ 18 students, 9th to the 12th grade
◎ 7 h seminar → split into 2 sessions, on 2 days
◎ Small attendance fee → students received an
Arduino starter kit and several other pieces to
take home
◎ Seminar taught by 2nd to 4th-year students from
the Physics Engineering and the Design and
Multimedia degrees
14. Equipment needed
◎ Funduino starter kit was chosen
○ Includes a Funduino UNO board, breadboard, cables, LEDs,
resistors and pushbutton switches
○ … and temperature, flame, and infrared sensors; light-
dependent resistors; a stepper motor; two sizes of seven-
segment display; an LCD display; and even a joystick
◎ Other options available!
○ Official Arduino Starter Kit, Vilros
Ultimate Starter Kit, Sunfounder Super
Kit, DFRobot Beginner Kit for Arduino v3,
ARDX Starter kit for Arduino…
○ Arduino-compatible systems (‘clones’)
for less than $3…
16. Theoretical section
Introduction
General aspects
about open-source
hardware
philosophy,
Arduino’s make of,
models and
characteristics.
Selected sequences
from “Arduino: The
documentary (2010)”
(CC-SA) were played.
Fundamentals of
Arduino
programming
Only variables,
functions and
structures that were
needed to
understand the code
of the mini-project
examples were
covered.
Avoiding…
The aspects that
could be more
overwhelming
(memory mapping,
peripheral
interfacing, using
timers and counters,
serial and parallel
communications,
opcodes and
operands, polling
and interrupts, etc.)
were safely skipped!
17. Installation of Arduino
IDE
Practical section of the course
Mini-projects
6 guided mini-projects +
free choice project:
◎ LED flasher
◎ RGB LED
◎ Dimming a LED
◎ Turning on/off a LED
with a photoresistor
◎ Button-controlled LED
◎ 7-segments display
19. Follow-up
◎ Upon completion of the course, a follow-up was
conducted through a blog
○ New tutorials were posted: a virtual dice, a LED interface with
Processing and Arduino, a memory game, a rain gauge, etc.
○ Aimed at encouraging the students that had taken part in the
Summer Course to contribute with their comments.
◎ Student2Student Arduino
workshops were included
in the first-year syllabus of
the Physics Engineering
Course
20. “
“…The course was definitely a wonderful experience for me!
The lessons were challenging, but thrilling as well. The more I
learned, the more I wanted to discover and explore, which I
find incredible. It certainly helped me decide that I want to
pursue an Engineering degree in the future. In my opinion,
learning through technologies such as computers as opposed
to textbooks also helps because they're more interactive…”
Luis Silva, 16 y.o.
21. “
“Well, for me it was a good experience to have younger
teachers talking to us. I really enjoyed it because as they are
not much older than us, and we are able to communicate
easily with them, using some expressions and slang that we
wouldn’t use with older teachers. I definitely felt more relaxed
too, I didn´t feel the sort of pressure you would feel in a normal
class, probably because they understand us better than any
adult and they know how we think.”
Miguel Galvão, 16 y.o.
23. Outcomes
◎ Was a success: just one drop-out.
◎ Young students were engaged in learning and
motivated to increase the complexity of the
project step by step.
◎ The feeling of achievement after completing a
project reinforced student motivation to
pursue a STEM education.
◎ The advantages of peer-coaching were also
highlighted by the younger students, who stated
that it facilitated the communication and relaxed
the classroom atmosphere.
24. Future plans
Plans are currently
underway for the 3rd
edition → adding a
challenge-type activity
may be conducted, in
which students would
work in teams to develop
a certain project over a
period one/two weeks.
More meaningful
experience!