CHIP - Arduino-compatible e-learning designer for kids

Chip is an electronic children's designer, which allows in a game form to teach a child the basics of electronics and everything connected with it: soldering, correct connection of components, marking of parts. At the same time working with such a designer is quite simple, and the result appears almost immediately, so that the child will be interested.


')
According to the developers, Chip can be used by children and teenagers (and adults too, why not?) With any level of experience with electronic devices and electronics in general. Chip awakens in a child curiosity and a desire to experiment, while using the kit can also be used to gain knowledge from other areas, such as programming.



Some training sets are designed to obtain elementary experience, for example, soldering. Others are initially complex, so the child loses interest in the set due to its excessive complexity. Chip can be used both for teaching elementary techniques of working with electronics, and for learning more complex techniques.



CHIP comes with a set of different colored LEDs, so that the child can personalize his “Chip”. In addition, a miniature “Pixel Power” board is supplied in the kit, compatible with some other elements. Fee can be used in a variety of projects.

What is included?

• Circuit board CHIP (hero figure is the board);
• Pixel Power;
• 2 buttons;
• Side switch;
• Connectors like "father" and "mother";
• 220 ohm resistors;
• Connector for the battery;
• Two LEDs of blue, red, yellow and green (length - 10 mm);
• 3 Volt battery.

Time to program

When the Chip is inserted into the Arduino (of course, this board also needs to be purchased before use), the child can adjust the control of the “eyes” of the Chip by specifying commands programmatically. You can do without the Arduino, using the board that comes in the kit. After soldering the circuit can be connected to a PC for further work.

To teach the child programming, developers suggest using the Hour of Code project.



The developers themselves recommend also the SALDUINO UNO R3 board.

How much is it

The project raised funds for Kickstarter (and only 2.5 thousand dollars were requested), and the whole amount has already been raised. The price of the same kit with one chip is $ 10. For 25 you can buy already 3 such sets.

The seller is the company SolderingSunday . The capabilities of the kit can be expanded with components offered by this and other companies.

findings

Of course, it all looks simple, and is fairly simple. But the project itself is aimed at teaching children to work with electronics. As far as can be judged, the kit is quite capable of accomplishing what the developers promise, and giving the child an understanding of how modern devices work, as well as experience with electronics, including soldering, connections, simple calculations, and even programming the hardware.