LearnOBots STEAM Camps

LearnOBots designs and implements creative learning hands on workshops for kids. Our curriculum has been designed to address the needs of the future. Kids learn about robotics, renewable energy, Internet of Things, 3d modelling and printing and many more exciting technologies. Our mission is to create future problem solvers.

In order to prepare the youth of today to become future problem solvers, scientists and inventors, LearnOBots focuses on three things:

1. LearnOBots STEAM Curriculum Our state of the art STEAM curriculum has been designed by our in house experts which also includes supporting educational kits. This curriculum is divided over 4 different stages namely (Khoj) (کھوج), Tajassus (تجسس), Tajarba (تجربا), Sciencedaan (سانسدان) over a period of 2.5 years. Starting from Khoj which means to explore, each stage builds on the previous one to inculcate a problem solving and critical thinking skill in the students. 

2. Educational Kits

Our educational kits are designed in-house with an aim of making learning about new technologies fun and interactive. An important aspect of DIY kits is to provide all necessary items required to create e.g. a mobile robot along with instructions, software and parts needed for the creation. Thus, eliminating the hassle of buying and collecting stuff for a particular DIY project at home. Using our educational kits, Children not only experience the art of creating exciting stuff hands-on but also learn about new technologies.

3. Curriculum Integration in Schools - Steam class in Schools

We have introduced ‘STEAM curriculum integration’ in various schools. In such a rapidly changing world the challenge is to ensure that children who are studying in schools today are prepared for jobs of the future which don’t even exist yet. Our curriculum integration program ensures that the children of a school are introduced to such important and necessary skills without affecting their existing ongoing studies. 

Schools of today have been operating on the old model which was based on the needs of the industrial revolution. The requirement was to have a minimum qualification of the masses to enable them to become workers based on their level of qualification. A person with a school diploma could become just a factory worker, one with a bachelor’s degree could become an engineer and so on. However, future factories don’t need degree holders but problem solvers. With robots and AI taking over manufacturing, a future worker should know how to debug problems with the robot’s code or mechanics.

Since 2014, using hands on experiential learning, LearnOBots has generated significant interest, changed the industry in Pakistan, created 23 jobs, sold a franchise and created a market that did not exist. In 2013 Obama administration invested millions in STEM, Finland plans to adapt to interdisciplinary learning and do away with subjects by 2020 and many European countries are pushing Coding into their curriculums. LearnOBots is facilitating this change through its products and solutions. The Edtech market is expected to grow to $ 93 billion by 2020, we believe there is tremendous opportunity in this sector for social enterprises like LearnOBots.

LearnOBots STEAM workshops have been designed to teach kids about Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics using fun and hands on activities enabling kids to become makers instead of consumers. Anyone aged between 8-14 years can learn how to code, make robots, develop apps and games, 3d model and 3d print. Our workshops will be executed in a makerspace (Like a computer lab) which will be created in a community school, college or library. Teachers will be trained by our master trainers in executing our curriculum and use the supporting educational kits. 

Tracking completion of all 4 levels for these children through our registration portal - Training 1000 children in each country on STEAM Workshops

Tracking of projects on the community website that will be track project submissions from each makerspace - Creating makerspaces to facilitate continuous learning

Tracking and reporting successful completion of trainings by LearnOBots master trainers - Training 50 teachers in each country, enabling them to conduct LearnOBots STEAM workshops independently

There are many different tools and technologies to learn Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) subjects. However each tool is focused on its own learning criteria. LearnOBots carefully designed curriculum uses a number of such tools and technologies to enable a child in critical reasoning, problem solving and becoming an independent maker able to address problems of the future with the help of technology. Through this curriculum the students understand how a combination of different technologies can be applied in different ways to solve different kinds of problems.

In order for this initiative to be successful we need to tap into the local communities. Our goal is to provide a platform that can be utilized by locals to learn and teach at the same time. This is possible since as part of our curriculum, those children who finish level one are hired as internees to assist trainers in level 1 (Khoj) while moving onto level 2 (Tajassus) themselves. Participation of the local community is necessary to take this initiative forward as the LearnOBots makerspace will be a community driven space following our curriculum and exploring other ideas. 

Since we are based in Pakistan, we understand that in most developing countries consumers don’t have a lot of buying power. Therefore, from the start, our goal has been to produce affordable educational kits that complement our curriculum. Therefore, all are kits utilize existing technologies to like open source software and hardware to come up with creative hands on sessions. In Pakistan we have been charging $50 for four 2.5 hour sessions per month which includes all the curriculum, trainers and required software. Our most expensive hardware costs $150 ~ $120 as compared to others which cost $400 and above.

LearnOBots is a sustainable company that has grown from 2 to 25 employees in the past 2 years. Started off in 2014 with 2 co-founders we started hiring full time employees in April 2015 and have grown our team, brand and customers. We are working with more than 25 schools in Islamabad and Karachi. To date more than 1500 students have gone through our workshops. To be sustainable we focus on the following three streams of revenue:

• LearnOBots STEAM Camps
  1. We charge $50 per month with $50 registration fee which is one time for 6 months
• LearnOBots Educational Kits
  1. Our most expensive kit is ~$150 where as cheapest is ~$10
• LearnOBots School Curriculum Integration Program
  1. We have signed up three schools which pay us a monthly charge per student. We run this program for 3 to 4 subjects for grades 3 to 8.

As we have already mentioned, our solution is already running successfully in Pakistan. The only limiting factor right now is to scale the solution to a global level which requires investment and partnerships. We have bootstrapped LearnOBots and reinvested all our profits over the past three years to bring it to a point where it now needs investment in order to scale. 

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Throughout the world there has been a focus on promoting K-12 STEM education through robotics and creative learning workshops. However most of these workshops our supported by government initiatives or private funding. At LearnOBots we have created a sustainable business model that can be replicated elsewhere. We will take advantage of Solve by using the funding to scale the model, create partnerships and help promote the same model that we have been able to do in Pakistan. We will establish makerspaces in schools that will be executing our workshops and utilize our educational kits to promote STEM based learning. 

We have partnered with Pakistan’s top University (NUST) and around 10 different schools in Pakistan. We also have one international partner myDevices an Internet of Things company based out of California, US. We are in the process of building more partnerships locally as well as globally.

Some of our direct and indirect competitors include

- Lego

- MakeBlock