Hello Dr. Selis: My name is Dawn Suter. I am originally from NYC but now have been living in Zurich, Switzerland for 8 years :-). I also have a small company focused on helping Educators and Students use technology in the classroom K-8. Our introduction for "Adventures in Robotics" workshops are given freely to the public schools in the Zurich area, and we also offer an after-school program all centered around the Thymio II robot :-).
I would welcome a trans-Atlantic collaboration, please reach out to me directly and lets discuss further :-) I am surprised at your breakage level and wanted to comment on our experience. During the last 2 years we reached over 1500+ students with our workshop, and most our Thymios have seen over 2200 hours of use. Out of our inventory of 40 units we have had 3 repairs required, two were with wheels not turning and the other was the microphone separated from the circuit board and needed to be resoldered. I have some suggestions for you that might help mitigate your issues when working with young students: 1) We charge the Thymios ourselves prior to any workshop. The battery lasts over 3 hours and we've found it to be not necessary to charge them during the course of our classes, only prior. 2) We now program our Thymios with the wireless dongle - no wire eliminates the need for the child to continuously plug in and out the USB cable, plus the active connection is not lost with VPL as it would be normally when unplugging the USB cable to test out the latest program:-) I hope this is helpful, Kind Regards, Dawn ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: <[email protected]> Date: Fri, Sep 2, 2016 at 12:00 PM Subject: Aseba-edu Digest, Vol 23, Issue 1 To: [email protected] Send Aseba-edu mailing list submissions to [email protected] To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/aseba-edu or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to [email protected] You can reach the person managing the list at [email protected] When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Aseba-edu digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: Thymio build issues, collaboration across the pond (Michael Bonani) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2016 14:56:30 +0200 From: Michael Bonani <[email protected]> To: "Dr. Allen Selis" <[email protected]> Cc: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Aseba-edu] Thymio build issues, collaboration across the pond Message-ID: <CACWvUUxYER=sqgqt2sbwwudj6homclorxcciv3rs_n+g0zn...@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Dear Dr.Selis, I comment your point under: Tél: +41 (0)32 511 64 93 2016-08-22 20:51 GMT+02:00 Dr. Allen Selis <[email protected]>: > Friends, > > For those who have not met me (virtually), I'm Allen Selis and I run a > company that teaches engineering and coding skills for N. American > children. We are based in Dallas, TX and growing. > > > #1 - An offer for kids' collaboration. > We are working with several schools across Dallas with children age 5-9. > If you would like to arrange a trans-Atlantic collaboration with your > students and some of ours, I can put you in touch with our staff. > I will talk around to see if somebody is interest. > > #2- Build feedback. > We have been using Thymio robots with students for two years now and have > some user/design feedback that might resonate with others. > > *First,* the most likely hardware failure point for the wired Thymio > robots is the micro USB connect point at the back of the robot. We have > several robots where children have damaged the usb connect so that it no > longer is flush with its circuit board, breaking the circuit. > Suggestion: The robots would be more durable if the female micro usb > port were built into the plastic frame of the body, then wired in to the > master board in the same way that the speaker is. > I have already see some damages like you describe, with good soldering skills it is possible to repair most time the connector, some time a pad is broken, but it is possible to put a small wire to fix that. The USB female port is directly soldered on the PCB, having a wired female could make some problem of signal or EMC. For a next version we can find perhaps a more robust one to better fix it (glue, plastic casing) so that external effort do not damage the PCB. > *Second,* the next most likely failure is battery. Thymio's build makes > it difficult to swap batteries and it does not help that the LiPo battery > is taped/glued in to the floor of the 'bot. > Suggestion: A Velcro attach would not hurt. A battery change port might > be an option too. One related problem of the Thymio build is that the main > body is secured by metal screws that attach to plastic posts. After > opening the robot once, it's almost impossible to re-attach the plastic > shell snugly. A metal nut on the receiving side that allowed a flat metal > bolt to close the bot would help. > The Velcro is a good idea, I will ask the manufacturer. On last productions, the taped is more small so that it is easier to change. A battery port can make problems for certifications. For the screw normally we used special screw for plastic and most time I re-attach them without problems. A overmolded plastic nut is not impossible but I think the over-cost is not justifiable for open the robot each two years to change the battery. > We continue to love our Thymios, but find that we lose about 15% of our > fleet each year to this kind of breakage/part failure. Love to make it > easier to fix these. > I am glad that you love Thymio. Loosing 15% seems me to much with experience we have here, probably you use them a lot and this is a good news! If you can perhaps send us back we can see if it possible to repair them. Best regards Michael Bonani Association Mobsya Ch. du Closel 5 1020 Renens > > Best to all, > > Allen Selis > Director, Tech EdVentures > www.techedventures.com > > > _______________________________________________ > Aseba-edu mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/aseba-edu > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: </public/aseba-edu/attachments/20160901/4638e3c6/attachment.html> ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ Aseba-edu mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/aseba-edu ------------------------------ End of Aseba-edu Digest, Vol 23, Issue 1 **************************************** -- Dawn E. Onufrak-Suter Founder, Strategic Business Development, Educational Consultant *Technology in Learning* *strengthening the learning experience with technology* www.technologyinlearning.ch
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