Ask HN: What would you buy school kids to help get them hacking and tinkering | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What would you buy school kids to help get them hacking and tinkering

12 pointshakkasan8 comments

The Brief:

Can we come up with a box of toys/tools, with instructions, that can be given to a class of middle school kids with internet connectivity & smart phone access that, without direct technical supervision, could show them they have the ability to tinker with technology and inspire a few of them to explore it further?

Background:

I'd like to use my Grandpa's inheritance it to help the kids at his old middle school. I'm looking for ideas for the most impactful and high leverage way to use this money. Ideally this would be approach that could be scaled and replicated in other schools.

The school in question is in a rural part of China with internet and 3G connectivity. The kids are from farming families and don't get a great technology/engineering education.

If they had a chance to use technology to build and tinker, it would be tremendously empowering and encourage a few of them to learn more. Hopefully this would open up an alternative to becoming unskilled migrant labourers.

Me:

I don't have kids or any experience in ed tech. I know there are tons of new toys / tools out there. My ask is for advice on what to consider given the constaints listed above. I have design skills, the patience and connections to create the supporting instructions / other materials.

I'm willing to spend $1-5K to make this happen. If the cost can be lowered with a similar impact we can send more packages.

Thanks for your suggestions and discussion!

I think your heart is in the right place, but realistically do you think throwing "stuff" at the kids and hoping for the best is the most optimal strategy? I mean if tomorrow someone handed you a book on insects and an insect catching kit, are you going to learn it and go do it? Likely not. That is how much interest some of these kids have in this subject.

A lot of organisations, grants, and so on throw money at things and hope for the best. Technology in particular is popular. They give out millions in technology grants with no specific focus or plan, and then they wind up with everyone having an iPad, no apps, no training, and no specific educational outcome.

So someone, no doubt, will suggesting buying Raspberry Pis for the entire class, and they're great. But the question is: What then? With no instruction, even 101, do you think many kids will pick it up and do much with it? Maybe you should be talking to the school about what could help THEM.

It might sound "boring" but honestly just buying them some digital projectors might do more for the kid's education than actually trying to buy the kids themselves bits and pieces, unless you have a plan to instruct the kids and get them going down a path (this would likely require cooperation with the school, maybe parents too).

Thanks for that feedback. This is precisely the concern I have. I had looked into the popular ed tech gadgets out there but just felt they weren't really viable for exactly the reasons you mentioned.

Part of the reason I asked was to see if anyone could suggest a different approach. I do think there is a way to achieve a win by focusing down the goal and working within the constraints you describe.

I full expect to do some onboarding work e.g. create videos / instructions etc. I'm looking for the right project kit to get them started. The equivalent for my Grandpa's generation was a radio. I wonder what today's "gateway project" would be?

I really like the idea of digital projectors. That might be a really high-leverage way to change how the classes are conducted.

Do you know of any examples where this has shown an impact?

What about the lego Mindstorms kits[0]? I haven't got my hands on them yet but I hear they are good. You could even pace this out into a few phases, like:

Phase 1: Buy them normal Lego sets to get them well acquainted with the toys.

Phase 2: show up with something cool you assembled from a Lego Mindstorms set. Hopefully a lot of them are going to say "Wow! Cool! How did you make it do that?" And that is when you can start teaching them bit by bit. (Also this is when you let them play around with a Mindstorms set)

[0] http://www.lego.com/en-us/mindstorms/?domainredir=mindstorms...

Thats a great idea. So fucking obvious. I think that's a good MVP for this approach. Thanks

I recently played with the GoGo Board recently: http://gogoboard.org/

Starter kit looks to be around $30-35. It comes with a board, a bunch of sensors (humidity, temperature, light, proximity, etc.), and a couple motors. It also connects to NetLogo Lab (https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/), where you can explore various models.

If they have computers, or if you can get them ones, Minecraft is a good idea. Highly moddable, in multiple languages, huge communities and Redstone! Plus, it's fun.

buy an algebra book, let them study galois.

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