Digijeunes held an online summer course for the Digital Heroes project during the Summer of 2020. It had originally hoped that as part of the Digital Heroes project, we would be hosting two summer in Bucharest, Romania. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the travel restrictions put in place, this could not go ahead.
In reaction to the situation, it was agreed that an online course would be given, with the in-person courses to be planned for the following year. These courses were aimed at those who had already expressed interest in the project and consisted of two one week long courses, each with a group of around 5 to 10 participants.
The course took place during the evenings over Zoom, with the aim for the participants to complete tasks in their own time during the day and be able to access support and advice in the Zoom call after. Each session was set up to include two support sessions (1 hour each) before a more technical session of one hour, where the next activity would be introduced and explained.
An Arduino Starter kit was sent out to each of the participants before the course took place so that they could complete the build challenges at home.
Meeting together over Zoom and providing support sessions, allowed participants to interact and support each other by learning their successes or failures across the group.
The technical session, which lasted an hour, had a main topic which would support the activity assigned to the participants. This was led by a facilitator and included topics around: Introduction to Arduino, more advanced Arduino and programming, app development using thunkable and app design. The end result for the workshops was that participants could build their own hand washing timer.
Overall the course was a success, with many participants getting to use and build with Arduino for the first time. We hope that the summer courses will be able to take place in person next year!