Rethinking child robotics

In the two years of the existence of children's robotics centers RoboCore, we have come a long way, full of ups and downs, which we want to tell you in the article.

I propose to move on the following plan:

1. The format of children's circles robotics
2. Advertising
3. Location
4. Teachers

Undoubtedly, there are many more topics in the direction that I would like to reveal, however, I identified 4, in my opinion, the main ones. In these topics were the biggest ups and downs, when we finally began to dig in the right direction.
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1. The format of children's circles robotics

From writing past articles, my opinion about robotics in Russia has not changed. Sure, it all started with Lego. Uncles came, said: “Here is the constructor, you can assemble cars from it. This is robotics. ”For the initial development of mechanics (a section that Lego-robotics has simply registered elegantly) Lego fits perfectly. However, as they could not massively interest the children of the middle and older age groups with the topic, they cannot. For obvious reasons. When you are 12 years old, you begin to understand that robotics is more than just building a designer. Absolutely all the children who passed through our circles were asked, which image first appears in the head at the word robot? 90% answered - Terminator, or its derivatives. So what is common between Terminator and Lego designers? It turned out a cool name for the book.)

So what is robotics for children? How to interest them? I think that this question is constantly asked by the owners of the children's circles of the robotics. I am not saying that we have found the answer, but it seems that we are closer to him. It is worth noting that this answer is well combined with the regional development of robotics. In Moscow, the nut is not fully understood.

The fact is that robotics is interesting to children only as a special case. What? - Techniques in general. After all, sitting at the table and digging into electronic components, repeatedly gathering together it is unclear why useless “robots” driving along the line, children are interested only until a certain time. How often do you (owners of children's robotics centers, teachers of robotics) ask children and parents, “So when are we going to assemble robots?” The primary concept of robotics differs over time from the child’s inner awareness of what robotics should be. And then boredom begins in class, the outflow of children. Half a year ago we introduced a new format of classes. Now our Robotics Centers look like this:



The training class is clearly divided into three zones:

1. Work area with the board, the assembly of robots, the development of drawings.
2. Programming area
3. Work area, workbench.

Innovations here are two. First, we moved away from standard computers or laptops at tables. Developed a rack for programming for 8 seats. All the stuffing computers carried on the rack. Entourage +100 points. Plus, it is quite convenient to conduct classes for the teacher, and for the children to study. Nobody bothers anyone.

Secondly, they introduced a workbench with a variety of tools. Put the drilling machine. In the plans to continue to equip the classroom with machines. At the workbench, the children began to saw different things with their own hands. It was no longer “tinkering with small electronics”, but a full-fledged creation of electronic devices, with a housing, with soldered electronics and a program.

After re-equipping the classrooms, we decided to launch a project activity for everyone, so that the children could feel the new atmosphere and be charged with the necessary energy. Without thinking about the question of what to do, so that there was a lot of manual work, soldering and programming, it was decided to make safes with an electronic combination lock.

At the very first lessons on creating safes in the updated class, we realized that we were finally digging in the right direction. Many children showed fundamental problems in understanding the operation of technical devices. There were a lot of gaps: from ignorance of which side to hold the screwdriver, to not understand how many points you need in order to draw a straight line in the right place when marking the wall of the safe. Here we began to complement the knowledge of children in a number of school subjects. For example, in mechanics, all measurements are made in millimeters. 80% of children did not know how to use the ruler correctly. They simply simply could not measure the desired size on the bar. Phrase: “Measure 155 millimeters” was akin to Hogwarts for them.



To twist the bars into the frame for the safe, it was necessary to pre-mark the holes, since We used pine timber, and without pre-drilled holes, it cracked when the screws were tightened. So to determine the center in a rectangular layout, you need to draw a diagonal. Children in grades 6-8 did not always know what it is, what it is for, and how to use them, let alone young children. And so on. Absolutely at every stage of building a safe with an electronic code lock, we were faced with any problem in the understanding of children.

Having added a multistage building to electronics and programming, the activity of the children has revived to madness. By the way, we conduct classes for 3 hours, 1 time per week. In small towns of the regions, almost no one does this. In the beginning we struggled with the objections of the parents that for the child it is a lot, the child will get tired and will not be able to perceive the material effectively. But when the parents came to take the children out of class after three hours, and the child, sensing the end of the lesson, began to run around the class trying to do as much as possible, and did not want to leave, the objections disappeared by themselves. 70% of children asked to do classes for 3 hours, 2 times a week, in order to have more time. The paradox is that in an hour of classes twice a week, as we did before, we had time to do everything with the children, but the classes were sluggish. It was clear that children do not have enough time and involvement to unleash their potential. Now, children are missing 3 hours of training. Robotics has become a way of life for children. After the next lesson, the children counted the days until the next lesson, took the projects home for improvement. They asked their fathers to help with the markup.



Summing up, the introduction of a new format, we have strengthened financially, because now classes were held not for 1 hour, 2 times a week, but 3 - 1 times. Over the weekend, 6 full groups of 10 people each pass through one teacher. One teacher for 2 days a week brought the circle to the same level in terms of revenue as before 2 teachers for 6 days a week. Classes for children began to like much more. After each class, they came out learning something new. And this is not “what is a humidity sensor, and how to connect it,” but the knowledge that they could immediately apply at home, helping parents with repairs or creating their own projects. Many children took the projects for revision home, asked for help from their parents, which they really liked. Children began to spend more productive time at home, not playing the fool, but doing interesting work, while strengthening relationships with their families. All these factors several times strengthened word of mouth. We began to highly recommend their friends. In especially successful weeks, we had 2-3 records every day only from a sarafanka.

2. Advertising

Smoothly flowing from the last item. In small towns in the regions, one of the best advertising directions is “sundress”. Strengthening it with a new format of employment, new clients have been brought down to us. For two years of existence of children's centers, we tried to download a variety of sources of advertising. Social networks, Instagram, context, offline, etc. We changed the pack of marketers, conducted open lessons and other events.

Summarizing: From online promotion Vkontakte showed itself the worst. Applications with him are minimal with a very high price. The fact is that it is possible to attract new customers there only through advertising. Regularly leading the community, you practically will not be lured there. VKontakte does not work in the best way. Another thing is Instagram. Elementary quality profile maintenance allows you to organically get new customers. If we add to this target, then everything works as it should. The context works only in large cities. On it you need to conduct detailed analytics. The simplest thing is to check the Yandex search results for robotics requests in your city in WordStat. Offline promotion works the worst. The bid price is prohibitive. Standard flyers are already tired of everything. To order advertising on billboards, pylons, and stops is the same. As a result, as it seems to you, pasting all stops in the city, everyone will know about you and start talking, in fact, 10 people will read the announcement in one day, and not one will be interested. Bottom line: the strengthening of the sundress, fueled by stocks, such as "bring a friend, get a 10% discount" stimulates new sales noticeably more than anything else.

What we have not yet figured out is how to get customers directly from schools and kindergartens. We clearly know where our customers are (here we understand that children walk and parents pay, so there are first-rate customers - these are parents, because they ultimately make a decision, and second-rate customers are children) - in schools and gardens. However, with direct advertising we are not allowed there. You can go with workshops and hang up advertising on the information board maximum. But from this little sense. Just reading the ad, the children quickly forget about it. Only the most persistent reach the bell, but their minority.

3. Location

Here, probably nothing new I will not tell you. The main pattern that I noticed when opening circles is when opening next to hairdressers, shops, and other crowded places, you are recommended quite diligently. So we received our first clients in several circles even before the official opening. If you think that having opened next to a school or kindergarten, children will come to you every day, then this is not so. Such an arrangement provides additional convenience when visiting a circle, but not at the first contact. The first contact needs to be strengthened with something else. Just a close location is not enough.

4. Teachers

Earlier, when hiring teachers, they thought that the main thing was the presence of zeal for technology. The teacher should understand electronics and programming, and that's enough - we thought. After all, at first they themselves taught children this way, we only had knowledge of technology, and this was enough for the successful conduct of classes. However, when they began to recruit teachers to various circles, from the first classes they realized that they were thinking wrong. All teachers were poorly conducted classes from the very beginning. They did not understand what to do, even after detailed instructions. The material was given to children in an incomprehensible form, even with our training programs. When the children began to indulge in class, the teachers did not know what to do with these. Although the instructions for such cases, we have provided. There were many assumptions as to why this is so. The main thing, of course, teachers should have experience working with children, even better - teacher education. Without thinking, they began to test the hypothesis. If we hired a person with ped. Education, even if he did not immediately understand electronics and programming, preparing in time for each lesson, teaching was excellent. From classes children were delighted.

Conclusion: a teacher in a children's center should take not an electronics engineer, a programmer, but a person with experience in working with children, or with ped. education.

Another point that I would like to highlight is the payment system for teachers. It is clear that the level of wages must match the load. We tried two payment options: the first is the 5000 rubles rate, which the teacher will receive in any case, plus 250 rubles / hour of classes. The second - 500 rubles per hour, with a minimum rate in the region. The first option is more beneficial for business in case there are a lot of children going to classes, the second is if there are few. The ideal option is to combine payment options. At the level of the contract to prescribe that the first two months of such a payment, then - the other.

In terms of opening and maintaining children's robotics circles, I can tell you a lot more. In particular, how to do it is not necessary.) Write your questions to which I will answer in detail in the following articles.