Something you have to know about Camille is that she loves math and science. She really admires what engineers and inventors do. We researched fun ways that could increase her skills and interest in this area.
Each year at Christmas, every family member receives one present that is a total surprise. This season, Camille found an Arduino under the tree.
Now, you ask, what is an Arduino? It's actually a challenge to describe.
Wikipedia says "Arduino is a single-board microcontroller, intended to make the application of interactive objects or environments more accessible. The hardware consists of an open-source hardware board designed around an 8-bit Atmel AVR microcontroller, or a 32-bit Atmel ARM."
Sure. Whatever. Actually, Camille will tell you it's pretty cool. It's a platform to create electronic projects that are controlled by computer. She got the learning module which has 15 different projects of increasing complexity, like a temperature sensor, or an alarm that you can program. You get introduced to circuits and the programming language, C++, while you make each fun little gadget. You can take it apart and rebuild it as something else. Once you learn the basics, the sky's the limit on the cool stuff you can invent, including even robotics stuff.
Camille is enjoying her hands-on learning and really loves doing the projects. She's even starting to think of the things she can invent. It's all around a lot of fun and is a great lesson in discipline and exactness. One misplaced character in your code can ruin your whole program!
The rest of us are starting to wonder whether we need an Arduino, too!
We purchased the Arduino here.
3 comments:
Wow, this is so cool!
That sounds awesome... and way over my head! Learning computer languages will be such a big advantage to her. I can't wait to hear about her inventions!
That's pretty awesome. Good for Camille to be so creative. Writing code and stuff like that is in high demand.
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