The idea of the project was to merge two points of excellence in neighbouring countries: advanced education methodologies in mathematics, programming and robotics from Russia. While the efficiency of the Finnish educational system is well known in the world, many experts conclude that STEM component, especially informatics and robotics, are needed to be supported in schools. The project was supposed to assist the deployment of advanced robotics teaching hardware Robbo in Finland.
The activities in the project addressed the goal from two perspectives: methodological and technical. There were 88 educational materials in the form of lesson scenarios, problem analysis and teaching advice developed and spread. The materials are supposed to be used by the secondary school teachers in motivation and challenging the children to consider informatics and robotics as a hobby or further specialty. An open online course for teachers has been developed and released. The course is to help teacher’s self-improvement, it consists of a number of short videos telling the basic ideas behind the modern concepts in the field: robotics, coding, Industry 4.0, 3D modelling. The camps’ agenda consisted of workshops for teachers and children, robotic and programming competitions, hand-ons with robot design, 3D modelling and printing.
Hardware preparation meant minor redevelopment and localization of Robbo Educational Kits for the schools in St.Petersburg, Leningrad region and Finland. The task required the manufacturing of the devices, EU certification of them for the safety, preparation of manuals and instructions for teachers with basic lesson scenarios, transportation of the Robbo Kits from St.Petersburg to Lappeenranta through the custom services, distribution and support. In total 42 Robbo Kits were successfully manufactured and distributed in South Karelia. We don’t know how many (if any) pieces of equipment were distributed in St. Petersburg and Leningrad region after discontinuation of activities in Russia.
Thus, new educational materials for teaching robotics, coding and 3D modelling and printing, new MOOC for teachers to understand the concepts of modern Industry 4.0, new robotic educational hardware kits in several schools and a number of regional events for children and teacher to boost the awareness and interest in learning skills of XXI century, – these are the main pragmatic deliverables and outcomes of the project. The project outreached 3080 children and 790 teachers and education experts in total.
View this project in keep.eu
