We had barely shaken off the success of receiving the Erasmus+ grant for the “Masters of Technics” project focused on working with small machining tools, when we slowly began, together with SEA – Agency for Education and Science, a new project, this time focused on robotic kits. Although in this case we are involved only as a partner organization and the project did not originate from our own creative minds, we are glad that, along with selected Slovak schools, we will have the opportunity to participate in a significantly larger project than Masters of Technics.
The Hungarian organization Abacusan Studio received the grant, and in addition to Slovakia, Romania, Serbia, Hungary, and Spain will also be part of the project. Abacusan is by no means a newcomer to Erasmus+ projects. They have already led the RIDE and RIDEX projects, both focused on curriculum development for Robotics for inclusive development of both atypical and standard curricula for children using ArTeC robots. The goal of these projects was to develop and test a set of modules to support the development of children aged 8–14 in inclusive groups through robotics.
We met Abacusan at the BETT exhibition in London, where we discussed the progress of this project and had a friendly meeting at their booth over a cup of coffee. Part of the URBOTICS project are visits to participating countries for the purpose of gaining experience and inspiration in developing educational materials for teaching with programmable robots on the theme of 21st-century urbanization.
We will focus mainly on preparing educational materials on specific topics assigned at the beginning of the project. At the same time, we will be in close contact with the participating Slovak schools, which will test the created educational materials directly in practice during their lessons. The project is scheduled to kick off on May 8–10, when all participating countries will attend the initial meeting in Budapest and receive more detailed information about the upcoming activities.
We believe this project will once again move us a step forward, and that we will be able to make the most of the experience in our work with schools as well as in potential future projects.
