Arduino for
Kids
Teaching children electrical and computer engineering through the Arduino open source platform.
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I feel accomplished when I write a string of successful codes.
- Arduino for Kids students
Arduino for Kids, founded in September 2021, is a nonprofit STEM tutoring club affiliated with CAST-SD. The four members who organize and teach the event, Katherine Zhao, Katherine Zhou, Katherine Ge, and Leo Zhang, are all high school students from CCA and Bishops. A shared love of electrical engineering and computer science led them to start the project. The mission of the program is to provide young students an opportunity to develop an interest in electrical and computer engineering.
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​The course’s structure consists of one-week of beginner sessions and one-week of advanced sessions. Both sessions are taught daily using the Arduino platform.
Katherine Zhao, Katherine Zhou, Katherine Ge, and Leo Zhang, founders of Arudino for Kids.
Beginner session starts with a presentation-style lecture to teach students well-rounded introductory knowledge covering topics such as electronic components, logic gates, circuit design, C programming, TinkerCAD, and Arduino component modules. With hands-on help from the tutors, students learn to wire functional Arduino hardware component modules on a breadboard, and then code C to control Arduino modules.
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During advanced sessions, the tutors guide the students to work on more challenging projects of various topics at a faster pace. Students employ more sophisticated hardware elements and advanced coding structures to complete one-two projects per day. After graduating from the advanced session, students are expected to be furbished with knowledge, experience and confidence to explore ideas on their own and design new projects creatively.
Children taking Arduino classes
Arduino for Kids held their first session in April 2022 after 6 months of preparation and effort, then continued to hold more sessions in July and August 2022. Each session admits 16 students to maintain a good 1:4 teacher to student ratio. More sessions will be held in 2023 during spring and summer break.
