My students need to add electronics to their computer programming skills. A soldering iron is needed for the odds and ends on hand, and adding an Arduino board rocks.
$288 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
My students begin with math. In particular, number talks to increase both their insight and communication skills, but as they finish a competency-based curriculum, they want, they need, to move into programming and robotics.
The school district strives to keep all students in school and to have them all graduate.
As the math teacher of last resort, almost all of my students would have been dropouts in decades past. Keeping them motivated and on-task means providing alternatives for them. Alternatives need to be "authentic," which is tricky. Checkbooks aren't authentic, but Minecraft is.
Continuation students benefit and enjoy learning with their hands. Relating the color code of a resister to its value and soldering screams "real." This necessary 20th century skill is enhanced by connecting to the 21st century by programming an Arduino board, an established "standard" product. Robots don't promise jobs, but soldering and programming together grant honestly achieved, high self-esteem.
My Project
Moving reluctant learners into persevering people means giving them hands-on work. This has meant robotics, but many of my students really see robots as toys. Still, their assembly and wiring calmly concentrates. For these students, electronics with computer programming steadies and matures them.
Soldering irons and digital devices work together to create the objects of everyday life. Very few companies exist that don't use both tools. This grant allows students to start learning employable skills for entry positions with positive futures.
Our school has a solar panel installation program that needs students who can assemble and interpret documents. Learning the codes, needed in soldering correctly, pays back in this course.
The Maker movement hovers in the background.
Many of my students find the controllers used in Lego and VEX as dead-ends, but Arduino mother boards and soldering parts onto daughter boards lets them see how the modern world works and they want to be part of it.
This small project serves as a trial to see if soldering and "computer programming" Arduino boards is seen as more authentic that assembling Lego and VEX robots. This knowledge important in setting the technology direction of my school.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mr. A and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.