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Ponte Academic Journal
Aug 2018, Volume 74, Issue 8

ROLE OF HARDWARE STARTUPS IN FACILITATING ELECTRONICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE EDUCATION FOR KIDS: SURVEY OF HARDWARE PRODUCTS

Author(s): Slim Chtourou ,Mohamed Kharrat, Nader Ben Amor, Mohamed Jallouli, Mohamed Abid

J. Ponte - Aug 2018 - Volume 74 - Issue 8
doi: 10.21506/j.ponte.2018.8.6



Abstract:
The current trend in the world of technology is Ubiquitous Computing, known also as Internet of Things (IoT), boosted by an easier accessibility to internet. Soon, every daily life object will embed a small computer, these different devices will communicate between each other and adapt themselves to make human life as comfortable as possible. However, for a full implementation of these devices, a prototyping step is required to validate the concept, this is where new challenges arise: technical knowledge are required, especially electronics and programming skills. In this context, several efforts have been made to reduce the skill gap and open the prototyping world to everyone, including kids. Many of these efforts have resulted in hardware startups that manufactures devices targeted to non-experts peoples and allow kids also to learn the basic concepts of electronics and Computer Science at an early age. This paper presents an overview of these developed hardware products and evaluates their advantages, limitations and impact on education. The authors present in this paper their own initiative to build a prototyping platform, the proposed solution aims to facilitate for kids the process of building a robotic system and program it without technical knowledge.
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