How we opened a children's robotics center in a small town
Hi Habr! Today I would like to tell you about our experience of opening a circle of child robotics and about the nuances that arose in the process.
At the moment, our team is developing a small network of children's robotics centers in the South of Russia. We opened the first center in September 2017. Since the team is quite skillful, we decided to abandon the franchise immediately. It seemed to us: what could be simpler than writing your own small educational program? Lego robotics kits cost some transcendental money that none of us had at the time of launch. Therefore, the development of an arduino-based curriculum for electronics and robots has become a completely logical step.
')
The population of the city in which it was planned to open the first center consisted of only 40,000 people. We took children from the age of 7 to classes. Through complex mathematical calculations, it was found that in a city with a given number of potential, 200 people can walk on robotics. Considering all the numbers, it seemed to us that this type of activity can bring good earnings. If we also take into account the fact that we loved robotics very much and were ready to teach it, then we were absolutely delighted.
The opening was scheduled for the beginning of September, we started purchasing all the necessary things and writing an educational program in mid-July. First of all, the most responsible member of the team discovered the IE for formalizing work activities. The main activity chosen content of the leisure center for children. (I don’t remember exactly which OKVED)
The fact is that in order to officially teach, you need an educational license. To get it is extremely difficult, long and expensive. If you choose the path of a leisure center, then there are only two limitations: we cannot write in advertising and publicly say that we are engaged in the education of children, and we cannot issue official certificates that a child has completed an educational course. In all other respects, the leisure center is practically no different at the time of launch from the educational institution.
Room rental in 15 square meters. m in the city center cost us 450 rubles per square meter. m. To search the premises took a week time. We asked the desks and chairs at the nearest school. Retired furniture, which has been stored in the basement for decades, inspired little confidence. We repainted it and changed the table top. Shelving bought in Leroy Merlin. They are not so expensive, but more importantly, they are ideally suited for the center of robotics. The board and the remaining fines were purchased from local suppliers. The equipment needed for the classes, namely many different electronic components, wires and batteries were ordered in China.
After half a month of work, we had an equipped room, electronics kits traveled around the world somewhere in search of an addressee. The case remains for small: to find the first customers. We began to attend all sorts of events, we carried small robots with us and distributed flyers. For the whole of August, 8 people signed up to us this way, which is exactly one group. Children were recruited somehow sluggishly, and we could not understand: why? Now, after a long time and full of bumps, I understand that we did not do almost everything that could be done wrong. The worst mistake we made was that we thought our customers were children. In fact, our clients are parents, because they have the last word and they pay money for the child. Therefore, all advertising should focus primarily on parents of schoolchildren. Sticking-up of announcements in places where parents gathered and attending school meetings gave an explosive character: at least 3 people were recorded every day.
The second mistake we made was relying too much on social networks. In such a small town, Internet advertising does not work at all. That is all. It is not even necessary to speak about some kind of SMM progress. Perhaps the only source of advertising - "sarafanka." The main problem of a sarafanka is the problem of chicken and eggs. They will not talk about you until a lot of people know about you, but many people don’t know about you until they talk about you. Based on this, you need to promote advertising by all possible methods, until you get the smallest number of people who know about you and can run a sarafanka. You can easily determine this moment: one day you will simply be called every half an hour and learn the details of children's robotics.
We had no competitors in the city at all. Neither direct nor potential. Nobody was engaged in the technical development of children, so from this side we could breathe freely.
In September we started classes with the first group of 8 people. Initially, they studied the basics of electronics and electricity, and learned how to assemble various circuits. The main entry began in September - October. On average, they recruited a new group every two weeks.
The pricing policy on our part was quite banal: we looked at how much they charge for such classes in the nearest large city. It turned out - 500 rubles. With 8 classes per month, 4000 rubles are paid out. It seemed to us incredibly much, and in a small town no one would have paid that kind of money. We just figured that in our conditions it would be enough to hold classes for 150 rubles each, and from that we started. After 2 months, we understood how wrong we were and had to raise the price, which passed with a creak among the parents. We did not take into account at all that attendance of children in the classroom fluctuates at the level of 80%, which already removes part of the potential profit. We also constantly had to buy new electrical components, as children often lost or burned them.
An educational program that was interesting for children to write right away also failed. What seemed banal and understandable to us, the children did not understand, the opposite is also true. At the moment we have a lot of curricula written: on the basics of electronics and electricity, the basics of programming games in Scratch, Arduino programming, 3D modeling and others. We have to constantly adjust the program for children, otherwise they lose interest in classes and leave. The main thing in robotics classes is to maximize the interest of the child. Create conditions for complex technical training to take place in a form that is understandable to him. We did not succeed in creating such an environment right away.
Only six months later, we were able to more or less work out most of the learning and management processes, so that our child robotics classes would cease to be hard labor and would start to bring pleasure and steady income. During this time, we have opened in two smaller cities on the same terms and plan to continue the expansion of the province. Also during this time, our children took part in several major competitions, and in all took first place. A separate topic deserves a comparison of the technical program developed by us with the standard program on Lego - robotics. Our showed itself head and shoulders above from all possible sides.
At the moment, our team is developing a small network of children's robotics centers in the South of Russia. We opened the first center in September 2017. Since the team is quite skillful, we decided to abandon the franchise immediately. It seemed to us: what could be simpler than writing your own small educational program? Lego robotics kits cost some transcendental money that none of us had at the time of launch. Therefore, the development of an arduino-based curriculum for electronics and robots has become a completely logical step.
')
The population of the city in which it was planned to open the first center consisted of only 40,000 people. We took children from the age of 7 to classes. Through complex mathematical calculations, it was found that in a city with a given number of potential, 200 people can walk on robotics. Considering all the numbers, it seemed to us that this type of activity can bring good earnings. If we also take into account the fact that we loved robotics very much and were ready to teach it, then we were absolutely delighted.
The opening was scheduled for the beginning of September, we started purchasing all the necessary things and writing an educational program in mid-July. First of all, the most responsible member of the team discovered the IE for formalizing work activities. The main activity chosen content of the leisure center for children. (I don’t remember exactly which OKVED)
The fact is that in order to officially teach, you need an educational license. To get it is extremely difficult, long and expensive. If you choose the path of a leisure center, then there are only two limitations: we cannot write in advertising and publicly say that we are engaged in the education of children, and we cannot issue official certificates that a child has completed an educational course. In all other respects, the leisure center is practically no different at the time of launch from the educational institution.
Room rental in 15 square meters. m in the city center cost us 450 rubles per square meter. m. To search the premises took a week time. We asked the desks and chairs at the nearest school. Retired furniture, which has been stored in the basement for decades, inspired little confidence. We repainted it and changed the table top. Shelving bought in Leroy Merlin. They are not so expensive, but more importantly, they are ideally suited for the center of robotics. The board and the remaining fines were purchased from local suppliers. The equipment needed for the classes, namely many different electronic components, wires and batteries were ordered in China.
After half a month of work, we had an equipped room, electronics kits traveled around the world somewhere in search of an addressee. The case remains for small: to find the first customers. We began to attend all sorts of events, we carried small robots with us and distributed flyers. For the whole of August, 8 people signed up to us this way, which is exactly one group. Children were recruited somehow sluggishly, and we could not understand: why? Now, after a long time and full of bumps, I understand that we did not do almost everything that could be done wrong. The worst mistake we made was that we thought our customers were children. In fact, our clients are parents, because they have the last word and they pay money for the child. Therefore, all advertising should focus primarily on parents of schoolchildren. Sticking-up of announcements in places where parents gathered and attending school meetings gave an explosive character: at least 3 people were recorded every day.
The second mistake we made was relying too much on social networks. In such a small town, Internet advertising does not work at all. That is all. It is not even necessary to speak about some kind of SMM progress. Perhaps the only source of advertising - "sarafanka." The main problem of a sarafanka is the problem of chicken and eggs. They will not talk about you until a lot of people know about you, but many people don’t know about you until they talk about you. Based on this, you need to promote advertising by all possible methods, until you get the smallest number of people who know about you and can run a sarafanka. You can easily determine this moment: one day you will simply be called every half an hour and learn the details of children's robotics.
We had no competitors in the city at all. Neither direct nor potential. Nobody was engaged in the technical development of children, so from this side we could breathe freely.
In September we started classes with the first group of 8 people. Initially, they studied the basics of electronics and electricity, and learned how to assemble various circuits. The main entry began in September - October. On average, they recruited a new group every two weeks.
The pricing policy on our part was quite banal: we looked at how much they charge for such classes in the nearest large city. It turned out - 500 rubles. With 8 classes per month, 4000 rubles are paid out. It seemed to us incredibly much, and in a small town no one would have paid that kind of money. We just figured that in our conditions it would be enough to hold classes for 150 rubles each, and from that we started. After 2 months, we understood how wrong we were and had to raise the price, which passed with a creak among the parents. We did not take into account at all that attendance of children in the classroom fluctuates at the level of 80%, which already removes part of the potential profit. We also constantly had to buy new electrical components, as children often lost or burned them.
An educational program that was interesting for children to write right away also failed. What seemed banal and understandable to us, the children did not understand, the opposite is also true. At the moment we have a lot of curricula written: on the basics of electronics and electricity, the basics of programming games in Scratch, Arduino programming, 3D modeling and others. We have to constantly adjust the program for children, otherwise they lose interest in classes and leave. The main thing in robotics classes is to maximize the interest of the child. Create conditions for complex technical training to take place in a form that is understandable to him. We did not succeed in creating such an environment right away.
Only six months later, we were able to more or less work out most of the learning and management processes, so that our child robotics classes would cease to be hard labor and would start to bring pleasure and steady income. During this time, we have opened in two smaller cities on the same terms and plan to continue the expansion of the province. Also during this time, our children took part in several major competitions, and in all took first place. A separate topic deserves a comparison of the technical program developed by us with the standard program on Lego - robotics. Our showed itself head and shoulders above from all possible sides.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/352900/
All Articles