On November 27, another STEM workshop on robotics, electronics, and programming was held at the Bacho Kiro Primary School in Byala Cherkva, organized by the Tinusaur Foundation, thanks to the donation campaign on Platformata.bg, held earlier this year. During this campaign, with the help of kind people, funds were raised to hold four such workshops in schools in small towns in Bulgaria.
Our first visit was to the school in Byala Cherkva, which about 60 students attended. The young and ambitious director, Mr. Nikolay Hristov, who’s highly motivated, wanted to encourage the students and provide them with a good quality education.
The Tinusaur team was welcomed to the school extremely warmly, and the students could not wait for the workshop to begin. Eight children between 5th and 7th grades participated in it, and several more students came to observe their peers, as they were interested in what they would do.
The event was held in one of the specialized and equipped classrooms at the school. Each student received (for free) an individual Tinusaur Kids.Micro kit worth 60 BGN (30 EUR), which after assembly remains for them. Each participant found a package in the kit with a printed circuit board and various electronic components, a wooden stand for placing the assembled board, and a USB programmer for uploading the written programs to the board.
At the beginning of the workshop, the founder of Tinusaur, Mr. Neven Boyanov, conducted a short briefing on the safe handling of a soldering iron. Then, the actual part began with soldering the boards. Most of the children were working with a soldering iron for the first time. They also learned the purpose of various electronic components such as resistors, capacitors, LEDs, etc.
All participants put in a lot of effort, and the result was that all the boards worked.
Then, it was time to take out the laptops and show the children how they could write their first program themselves and gradually make it more complex, engaging, and practically applicable.
The children programmed on the Bloktinu platform for block programming developed by Tinusaur, and they definitely liked it a lot.
During the workshop, the school principal, Mr. Nikolay Hristov, as well as the mathematics, physics, and computer science teacher, Ms. Rositsa Ilieva, were there as well and were impressed and very satisfied with our initiative.
We are very happy that we had the opportunity to visit the Bacho Kiro Primary School in the town of Byala Cherkva and to get to know its team and the students. Special thanks also to the Veliko Tarnovo Regional Regional Education Directorate for the support they provide us.