Posts | Comments

Planet Arduino

Archive for the ‘education’ Category

Discover the future of K-12 & HE at Bett 2024 with Arduino Education

Arduino Education will be back at Bett 2024, the global stage for education innovation, from January 24th-26th at ExCel London. 

Our booth (which you’ll find in Bett Hall, stand NJ12) will be a hub of creativity and excitement, where you can immerse yourself in the world of STEAM education and discover how Arduino empowers students to become inventors, innovators, and problem-solvers.

Meet our new educational solutions

At Bett, you’ll be the first to meet the new Arduino robot and have an interactive demo of our new Programmable Logic Controller, the Arduino PLC Starter Kit. Get hands-on with both of these new kits to explore their unique features and see how they can enhance your classroom for both K-12 and higher education. 

You’ll also have the opportunity to try out the Arduino Cloud for Schools and all its new features, as well as seeing our collaboration with IED Rome and Sapienza Schools, which offers secondary age teaching tools designed to improve physics learning with the Arduino Science Kit R3.

Connect with our thriving teacher community

Create connections with fellow Arduino teachers and exchange ideas, strategies, and resources that will fuel your STEAM teaching journey. 

Come and meet our team

Join our team of passionate educators and STEAM enthusiasts who are eager to share their expertise and guide you through our solutions. You’ll get practical tips and strategies for incorporating Arduino into your classroom, ensuring that every student has the opportunity to experience the transformative power of STEAM education.

Will we be award winners?

Arduino Education has been recognized as a finalist in not one, but THREE categories for the Bett Awards 2024!

  • COMPANY OF THE YEAR: We’re incredibly proud of the work our team has done to bring us this far.
  • COLLABORATION WITH A SCHOOL: Our partnership with Colegio San Jose de Las Vegas in Colombia for the Medellin Challenge.
  • BETT INNOVATION AWARD: Our work in IoT education, specifically with the Arduino Cloud for Schools, the Explore IoT Kit, and the Greenhouse Kit, is being acknowledged as a leading force in educational innovation.

Will we win? We’ll find out at Bett!

We look forward to seeing you at stand NJ12 in the Bett Hall.

The post Arduino Education at Bett 2024: Inspiring STEAM innovation appeared first on Arduino Blog.

We are proud to announce that Arduino Education has been shortlisted as a finalist in three categories for the Bett Awards 2024:

  • COMPANY OF THE YEAR (MORE THAN £3M)
  • COLLABORATION WITH A SCHOOL for the Medellin Challenge with Colegio San Jose de Las Vegas in Colombia
  • Bett INNOVATION AWARD for innovation on the Internet of Things in education with the Arduino Cloud for Schools, the Explore IoT Kit, and the Greenhouse Kit

The Bett Awards are a celebration of the inspiring creativity and innovation that can be found throughout technology for education. These awards recognize Arduino Education’s efforts  to nurture future talent by bringing easy to use, affordable, and skill-oriented solutions for students at school and university.

Let’s take a look at each of the award categories we’ve been nominated for in turn…

Innovation Award 

Why have we been shortlisted? At Arduino Education, we epitomize the fusion of cutting-edge technology with purposeful learning. Our revamped Arduino Cloud for Schools revolutionizes STEAM education by merging coding, IoT, and accessibility into a comprehensive ecosystem. 

Meanwhile, the renewed Explore IoT Kit R2 is not just technologically advanced; it also aligns with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, promoting practical solutions to global challenges. The kit empowers students to delve deep into data communication, management, and societal problem-solving.

Our innovative Greenhouse Kit addresses urban farming issues, turning students into active participants in sustainability endeavors. 

Across our products and solutions, Arduino Education’s commitment isn’t merely to educate; it’s to inspire, empower, and lead, paving the way for a brighter, informed, and sustainable future. 

Our nomination for the Innovator of the Year award is a testament to this enduring commitment to innovation that truly matters.

Collaboration with a School 

Arduino Education collaborated with the Colegio San Jose de Las Vegas for the Medellín Challenge 2023. Students participating in the challenge experienced a transformative arc during an intensive three months. From the early days of choosing their challenges to turning their innovative ideas into tangible prototypes, their journey was supported at every step by Arduino Education’s state-of-the-art technology resources, including the Explore IoT Kit and the Arduino Cloud. 

An experienced Arduino Education trainer teamed up with the teachers and students during the prototyping stage to provide direct in-person technical support throughout the design phase, and provide ongoing feedback.

Just some of the sustainability solutions that the teams of students devised with Arduino included:

  • Building a smart farm and designing tutorials so children in the Medellín communities could learn how to grow their own food, and potentially create a way to make an income.
  • Creating a virtual platform linked to a solar-powered car that visits local communities to bring learning experiences, such as environmental, technological, and entrepreneurship education to children.
  • A device that makes use of the water lost from natural sources in different activities: washing clothes, watering gardens and fish tanks. 
  • Building a smart farm and designing tutorials so children in the Medellín communities could learn how to grow their own food, and potentially create a way to make an income.
  • Creating a virtual platform linked to a solar-powered car that visits local communities to bring learning experiences, such as environmental, technological, and entrepreneurship education to children.
  • A device that makes use of the water lost from natural sources in different activities: washing clothes, watering gardens and fish tanks. 

Company of the Year (more than £3m)

There’s a significant gap between education and the job market, where technology, methodology, and mindset for educating future talents are generally missing. Arduino Education strives to bring easy-to-use, affordable, and skill-oriented solutions to bridge this gap. We want to continuously redefine the horizons of STEAM education and push for innovation in the classroom. 

Always looking forward, we pioneer educational tools that reflect real-world applications, like our collaboration on machine learning content with Harvard, and our Explore IoT Kit which ties to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. We champion diversity, sustainability, and corporate social responsibility. Efforts such as supporting ‘Jenga Labs‘ in Ghana and local manufacturing demonstrate our broader vision.

Arduino Education’s focus on customer service and a thriving teacher community are testaments to our commitment to the education sector. 

Dan Hubacz, a U.S. high school teacher, sums up Arduino Education’s approach perfectly: “I want my students to be working on things that are real and matter to them, and that also potentially have an impact on the community.”

What’s next for Arduino Education

Further to receiving this recognition from the Bett Awards for our continuous focus on innovative solutions, we’d like to say thank you to all the students and educators who use Arduino Education kits and solutions in their classrooms. It’s your enthusiasm and desire for learning that makes this possible and worthwhile. 

With the newly-released Science Kit R3 and even more exciting kits to come in 2024, we’ll keep striving to innovate, bridge the STEM skill gaps, and nurture future talent.

The post Arduino Education is a three-time Bett Awards finalist for 2024 appeared first on Arduino Blog.

Stephen Hawking once said, “No one undertakes research in physics with the intention of winning a prize. It is the joy of discovering something no one knew before.” That joy is exactly what we hope to ignite with Arduino’s Science Kit R3, bridging theory with practical exploration with a complete toolbox that science teachers can use to develop hands-on and engaging STEM experiments in the classroom. 

From the relationship between color and temperature to the effects of electrical currents on magnetic fields, the kit provides a comprehensive learning experience that allows students to interact with the very core of scientific investigations – also through real-time data collection and analysis. By measuring, recording, and interpreting data with the Arduino Science Journal app, the learning process becomes interactive and dynamic.

So, how does the Science Kit R3 make physics the coolest subject in school?

  • Enhanced understanding of physics: No more passive reading. Dive deep into physics, understanding complex concepts through hands-on experimentation.
  • Promotion of scientific literacy: The real-time data collection and analysis features nurture scientific inquiry skills, priming students to thrive in our data-driven world.
  • User-friendly design: No prior coding or electronics knowledge is required, ensuring educators and students can jump straight into experiments with minimal setup.
  • Designed for education: The kit has been designed with teachers, for teachers and students.
  • Critical thinking stimulation: The kit’s design encourages students to apply what they’ve learned to real-world situations, sharpening their problem-solving abilities.
  • Self-directed learning: Through open-ended investigations, we’re giving students the reins, allowing their curiosity to guide their learning process.
  • Comprehensive teaching support: The Science Kit R3 isn’t just for students. We’ve also equipped educators with an intuitive guide to streamline the teaching process.

If, like us, you believe that learning is most effective when it’s interactive, relevant, and fun, the Science Kit R3 is for you! You can find more information here or sign up to get early access

The post Discover the world of physics, for real – with the new Arduino Science Kit R3! appeared first on Arduino Blog.

Arduino EDUvision Season 4 Podcast

Hopefully you’ve been with us during the roller-coaster ride of Arduino EDUvision season 4, which just came to a close. We’ve had a wonderful time, and the response from the community has been outstanding.

Arduino EDUvision began life as a way to compensate for the lack of in-person events during 2020. And now we’ve already live streamed 40 episodes, with thousands of viewers tuning in each week as we interview guests from across education, tech, science and STEM.

EDUvision Season 4 Podcast

This latest season, which wrapped on 11th November, also broke out into an accompanying podcast. 

Over the months, and with so many episodes under the EDUvision umbrella, we’ve had some amazing guests. The conversations you see in the episodes are only the tip of the interview iceberg. The new podcast gives Arduino fans the opportunity to listen to the full conversations that Melissa and Roxana have with the guests.

The subjects go so much deeper, and there’s so much more to learn from these amazing, entertaining thought leaders who share their time with us all.

You can listen to the Arduino EDUvision podcast anywhere you like. Here are a few links so you can catch up on the exciting edtech, STEM and science subjects we’ve delved into this season.

EDUvision Live Show

The good news is that all the EDUvision live streams remain online. So you can still watch them at your convenience. It’s been a really exciting season thanks to the diverse and fascinating guests who’ve shared their insights, work and projects with us.

Educational technology expert Damien Kee joined us to celebrate International Programmers’ Day in the first episode. Stick around until the end, when he took the opportunity to show off his amazing DIY R2-D2. 

There was an outpouring of excitement from the Arduino community when Locomation’s Çetin Meriçli showed us what the future has in store for self-driving trucks and cars.

And Dr. Erica Colón from YouTube’s Nitty Gritty Science rounded out the season. She dazzled us with an amazing array of science projects you can do at home.

Take a look at the whole season right here. And we want to hear all your thoughts on the subjects you loved, and what you want to see more of in Arduino EDUvision. 

The famous and fabulous Hip Hop Scientist visited us for Halloween. We had a great discussion about bridging the gap between music and science by bringing it into everyday pop culture.

Make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast and our YouTube channel. That way you won’t miss out on the upcoming holiday special!

The post Immerse Yourself in Arduino EDUvision Season 4 appeared first on Arduino Blog.

Arduino Certification

Did you know that Arduino Education offers official certification?

It’s aimed at educators who use (or want to use) Arduino kits in their middle school or high school classrooms. Arduino Certification is an online exam that tests your knowledge of electronics and programming. Students can take the exam, too.

Why take the exam?

  • Adding official Arduino certification to your resumé demonstrates your knowledge of electronics, programming, and coding.
  • You can boost your confidence in Arduino-related electronics, programming, and physical computing.
  • Become part of a wider professional network and thriving edtech community.

Even better, you don’t need any prior coding or electronics experience, and it’s really easy to get started.

What does Arduino Certification cover?

When you take the Arduino Certification, you’ll be learning about the fundamental concepts of electronics and programming.

Key learning outcomes include:

  • Key electricity concepts, such as resistance and voltage, and how to measure and calculate them.
  • How electronics are represented visually, and reading and analyzing electronic circuits.
  • The functionality of the Arduino development environment (called Arduino IDE), serial communication, libraries, and errors.
  • The constitution and capabilities of an Arduino board and how it functions.
  • How various electronic components, such as LEDs, sensors, and motors work, and how to use them in a circuit.
  • The building blocks of the Arduino programming language, such as functions, arguments, variables, and loops.
  • How to program various electronic components.
  • Reading, analyzing, and troubleshooting Arduino code.

Want to see how it works? Take a look at the exam demo.

How to take the Arduino Certification exam

There are two ways to earn the official Arduino Certification.

You can either purchase the exam on its own (you will have one attempt to pass it). Or, you can purchase the exam along with the Arduino Starter Kit as the Certification bundle.

Find out more about Arduino Certification.

The post Arduino Certification Explained appeared first on Arduino Blog.

Arduino Education is delighted to announce its very first Inspiration Lab, in partnership with Technobel in Belgium.

What is an Arduino Education Inspiration Lab?

Inspiration Labs are an exciting new concept designed for students and educators to get hands-on experience. with the joy of making new discoveries. They’ll explore, design and learn electronics, coding, and programming with real-world connections. It’s all about enhancing future skills, having fun, and the joy of making new discoveries.

Technobel is a training and vocational center in Ciney, Belgium. Together we’ve created a dedicated space for teachers and students to learn with the full range of Arduino Education products in an engaging, exciting environment.

Arduino and Technobel Inspiration Lab

What can you do at the Inspiration Lab?

There’s something for everyone at the Inspiration Lab.

  • A dedicated space within Technobel, accessible to the public.
  • Teacher training with workshops on Arduino Education solutions; on demand, and on- or off-site.
  • Teacher coaching on how to create new lessons, with an emphasis on community sharing.
  • Specialized courses for 15 to 18-year-old students with official Arduino certification.

What Can You Learn at the Inspiration Lab?

As well as exploring, designing, discovering and learning electronics, coding and programming, the Inspiration Lab offers the following.

  • Promote a culture of technological innovation and development.
  • Create an advanced technology facility that supports product innovation and design.
  • Provide mentorship and certification programs for teachers and students.
  • Help develop design-focused thinking, product design and innovation skills through technical support and training.
  • Incubate product ideas to help realize them as real-world commercial products.
  • Prepare students to participate and compete in Arduino Technology challenges and competitions across the globe.

Find out more and to book your space, visit the website now.

The post The First Arduino Education Inspiration Lab appeared first on Arduino Blog.

Teaching students complex concepts from a remote distance is something that many educators have had to get to grips with over the last 18 months. Especially where engineering is concerned. Keeping things hands-on and with a strong connection to real-world scenarios is vitally important for students to progress. 

We recently discovered this MathWorks mechatronics article by Mojtaba Azadi at the San Francisco State University. Azadi was able to create several different types of drawing robots using the Arduino Education Engineering Kit. Aiming to foster independent confidence and strengthen the skills and abilities of students, this project is perfect for those teaching outside of the classroom setting or when running courses online.

How to Teach Mechatronics Remotely

In Azadi’s project design, the robot itself uses core components from the Arduino Engineering Kit, including DC motors, pulleys, servos and a USB camera. The robot uses the motors attached to the pulleys to move itself across a whiteboard. Over several weeks during the course, students can develop a program where the robot can replicate an image placed in front of the USB camera.

Throughout the project, students utilize essential skills such as planning on a tight schedule, monitoring progress using a Gantt chart, and gaining confidence in their ability to communicate. All while maintaining a hands-on, real-world connection.

Learning from Home with Arduino Education

There are three Arduino Education kits that support remote learning as well as in-class teaching; the Engineering Kit, the Explore IoT Kit for high school students, and the Student Kit, which is aimed at middle school students. 

These kits, like all Arduino Education kits, also offer a wealth of online learning materials that assist both educators and students in the creation and approach of many different projects. There are also countless forums and resources that are readily available for members of the Arduino community. 

The added benefits of all Arduino Education kits are their versatility and the fact that each one can lend itself to many different experiments that grow in scale and complexity as students learn. 

Explore the potential of Arduino for learning: discover our different education kits.

The post Keeping Things Creative: Real-World Learning from a Remote Perspective appeared first on Arduino Blog.

Arduino Classroom 2

Over the past few years, Arduino Education has expanded, offering new learning solutions to teachers and students around the world. Today, we have more than 10 kits with exciting online courses for STEM teachers and learners ranging from middle school to university.

When creating these products, we were delighted to collaborate with many brilliant educators, who shared with us their unique teaching styles and provided valuable feedback. 

With the pandemic dramatically shaking up the status quo in education, we now have more learning styles than ever. From large schools using hundreds of Arduino kits to smaller classes and study groups. There are even a lot of parents who use kits for homeschooling, along with an increasing numbers of self-learners. 

We’re excited to see Arduino Education products being enjoyed in so many different ways, and want to make sure our kits are easy to use and share in every situation. That said, we’re excited to announce several changes to how our educational products are shared.

Personal courses vs. Classroom courses

Personal courses vs. Classroom courses

From now on, when you register an Arduino Education kit, the online courses associated with it will be added to your personal collection, accessible via “My Courses” in the profile menu. Courses in your personal collection are only visible to you. This way, if you’re learning by yourself, you have a quick and easy way to access all your learning resources in one place.

If you’re learning together with others, or you’re an educator managing a group of students, you can now set up a classroom. This will create a second collection of products which you can share with other people. You can switch between the different product collections anytime, and transfer products between them. 

Setting up an Arduino Classroom

Setting up a classroom

Setting up a classroom takes a matter of minutes. Simply add a few details about yourself and your teaching environment and choose which products you want to share with others.

Once your classroom is set up, you can start inviting students and other educators to join. 

Everyone who joins will immediately get access to all online courses that you add to your classroom.

Using the classroom system, you can now share any Arduino Education product with any number of people, and as the classroom admin, you are in full control of who can access your courses, meaning you can add and remove new members anytime. 

Teacher and admin roles in Arduino Classroom

Teacher and admin roles

When you set up a classroom, you become its admin. You have the power to change settings and control the member list and available courses. When you invite your colleagues, you can choose if they should also be an admin, or take the teacher role. 

Teachers can add and remove students from the classroom, but cannot manage other educators or change classroom settings. Both admins and teachers will see the educator version of the online content, with educator tips, logbooks and more. Roles can be changed whenever you need, and you can have multiple admins at the same time. 

We hope these changes will provide better administration possibilities to institutions with multiple collaborating educators. 

Arduino Classroom Safety for our youngest learners

Safety for our youngest learners

When working on these updates, we wanted to make sure that the system is usable and safe even for our youngest users. If your students are too young to have an inbox, you can invite them by sharing a classroom code. This way, they can join your classroom without using an email address. 

If your students are under the age of 14, you can also be sure they’re in a safe online space. They’ll only encounter child-safe content, and their accounts will be anonymized, with no personal data collected. 

We hope these changes will make learning with Arduino Education easier, safer, and more flexible, and we can’t wait to share with you what’s coming next!

If you have any questions or feedback, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. Head on over to Arduino Classroom right here.

Happy learning!

The post Sharing Arduino Education courses is easier than ever appeared first on Arduino Blog.

A year after the Arduino Education Explore IoT Kit launched globally, we’ve been improving the content of the kit and have made a few tweaks and upgrades!

Since launch, we’ve been working with educators around the world on how we can make the kit even better (because everything can be better, right?) and the invaluable feedback they’ve given us has led to the following updates:

– An introduction to the tools
– Software IDE
– Web editor
– Libraries
– IoT Cloud
– Troubleshooting

  • Simpler sign-in functionality
  • Explanations of the benefits of teaching the Internet of Things to high school students right now

We’ve also dived deeper into how the Explore IoT Kit can help students get career-ready, with new examples and illustrations that show how the kit helps develop the future skills the world will need, especially in the IT sector.

Innovate, create, transform: Take your first steps in building internet-connected objects and explore the Internet of Things with Arduino Education.

The post The Explore IoT Kit gets a mini-makeover appeared first on Arduino Blog.

Science Journal syncs with Google Drive

Note: Google Drive is available to all users over the age of 14. This is so we adhere to the COPPA compliance requirements for students under 14-years-old.

Students and teachers can now sync Google Drive with their Arduino Science Journal experiments. This means you can access experiments from any device using your Arduino account. The brand new Google Drive integration is available now through the latest app update.

Benefits of using Google Drive

You can benefit from Google Drive sync immediately. Simply sign in with your Arduino account and authenticate the Google Drive connection. Then select the folder where you want to back up your experiments. From then on, all your experiments will be accessible from any devices whenever you log in.

Sync Google Drive with Arduino Science Journal

Don’t worry. You’ll still be able to use Arduino Science Journal without logging in. But your experiments won’t be associated with your Arduino account, and will only be locally stored. 

What else is new?

You’ll also find new useful links on the sidebar of your app, so learning becomes even simpler. With just a few clicks, you’ll be able to access the free Science Journal activities, browse the help center articles, and learn more about the Arduino Science Kit straight from the app.

The Arduino Science Journal content platform welcomes seven new activities, as well as great new partners and content creators. The Tech Interactive, Alison Green and Isabella Liu have helped us create some amazing new lessons. Check them out here.

You will be able to experiment with motion and sound, as well as a step-by-step guide to help you access Google Drive on your Science Journal app!

We’re also delighted that the Arduino Science Journal is certified by the Educational App Store with a 4-star rating! 

We’ve helped hundreds of thousands of educators with remote teaching, and we strive to make data literacy and scientific thinking more accessible, wherever you are. If you’re an Arduino Science Journal user, you can help out by recommending the app to your fellow educators. And we’d love to hear how you are using the app in your classroom!

Tag us on social media to show us what you’re working on with #ScienceJournal.

If you don’t have the app already, join over 700,000 other teachers, students and makers by downloading it now!

The post Sync Google Drive with Arduino Science Journal projects appeared first on Arduino Blog.



  • Newsletter

    Sign up for the PlanetArduino Newsletter, which delivers the most popular articles via e-mail to your inbox every week. Just fill in the information below and submit.

  • Like Us on Facebook