Hello to everybody in the Thymio community
I havent written for a long time but I was pleased to read that there is so much interesting activity in the community. Specially the activities in France are very encouraging. Im living in the North-western part of Switzerland in a small historic town called Zofingen <http://www.zofingen.ch/?rub=9> . In schools around here Thymio is still hardly known. But Im still actively using Thymio and I try to use every chance to make Thymio known. But for the new members of the mailing list I first repeat my short introduction: Im actually an electro and software engineer but I decided to find a new challenge in my life. Id been working in the field of embedded systems development for more than 20 years in an electronic department <http://www.mullermartini.net/mf/DesktopDefault.aspx/tabid-10017/8945_read-1 3341/> of big machine company producing print finishing systems. Finally, I started a special study program in summer 2013 at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of North-western Switzerland FHNW. This program was launched to gain experienced professionals to become teachers. During the past few month I was very busy finishing my studies and finding a new job while teaching in a part time job. But now Ive successfully finished my studies. During the last school year I used Thymio with four of my classes on secondary level 1 in Schönenwerd (Kt. Solothurn). During my studies at PH FHNW in Brugg I got in touch with people from <http://www.imedias.ch/> imedias. Imedias is an organisation that consults schools and teachers in digital media. They also provide teaching material and teacher trainings. On 24 February 2016 I was invited to a meeting (3. Projekttreffen Informatische Bildung) in Brugg where I could present the features and potential of Thymio. The first part of the presentation was done by Dawn Suter. She showed how she uses the pre-programmed behaviours in workshops with primary school kids. I followed with an introduction to VPL and also explained the basic concepts of text programming. Finally I presented a few applications in VPL and text programming. My focus was the secondary school level application of Thymio. By the way, imedias bought a set of Thymios and they should be available for lending by now. On 11 April 2016 I got another chance to present Thymio. I was asked if I could present Thymio in a team meeting of the <http://www.fhnw.ch/ph/isek/professuren/Mathematikdidaktik> Mathematikdidaktik-Team of Prof. Dr. Helmut Linneweber-Lammerskitten at the PH FHNW. With my presentations I could reach a few key people and make them at least aware of Thymio. As a result I was asked by imedias to do a teacher workshop for Thymio programming at the Stadtschule in Solothurn on 10th of August 2016. There are not many participants but Im happy that the workshop will still take place. Starting in August Im going to deputize the IT lessons for a teacher that is interrupting her work for half a year. I showed Thymio to the head teacher of this school in Safenwil (Kt. Aargau). As a result he agreed to my proposal to use Thymio in my lessons. For me its another welcome chance to gain further teaching experience with Thymio and hopefully involve other people. I have got 6 Thymios that I bought myself. The school I just left was not very open to new ideas and especially because it was clear that I would leave the school this summer it wouldnt have made sense to buy something thats not used afterwards. So I decided to buy some robots for myself. This way I didnt have to explain and justify everything and I could just use it what most of my students really appreciated. I just think we should find ways to make more publicity for Thymio in North-western Switzerland. If anybody has ideas or valuable connections let me know. May be I could represent the Thymio concept with my set of Thymios in other places in North-western Switzerland. I took the following two pictures during my lessons: This beautiful flower was drawn by one of my Thymios and the program was written in VPL by a girl of my classes. There were many nice drawings but the one above is definitely my favourite. For me it has a kind of symbolic value. I gives me motivation for the coming school year where I hope that other flowers with new students will grow. Apart from the many positive things I experienced with Thymio there is one negative point to mention: Unfortunately, one of my Thymios failed. There must have been a short circuit or a damaged component around the motor drivers. Is there a possibility to get just a PCB as a spare part? I hope that there is not a general quality issue in this product. When I opened the case I discovered that the PCB was covered with many spots of soft solder flux material that was spread over the PCB during the manual soldering process of all the component that are not soldered in surface mount technology. For me (used to Swiss quality standards) the PCB looked just awful. I think they should at least cover the PCB somehow while manually soldering. Are there any plans for a redesign? May be with the direct integration of the wireless module and the reduction of manual soldering? Finally, I would like to thank all the people who make the Thymio concept flourish. I spent quite some time writing this email but I felt the urge to sharing my first year of teaching experience with Thymio. May be this urge is also based on the fact that there are almost any sparing partners around in the German-spoken part of Switzerland. Feel free to provide any feedback. Best regards, Thomas Schenker Frohburgstr. 6 4800 Zofingen Switzerland --- Diese E-Mail wurde von Avast Antivirus-Software auf Viren geprüft. https://www.avast.com/antivirus
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