MIT Solve

Solution Overview

Solution Name:

Kidbotics

One-line solution summary:

Empowering Kids and youth trough extra academic robotics club connecting them in physical, digital or phygital way.

Pitch your solution.

By 2030, the opportunity and wellbeing gap between people will increase tremendously with those how wouldn't know programming and robotics. Kidbotics is Empowering kids and youth through an extra academic robotics club connecting them in physical, digital, or phygital ways and teaching them to make the club sustainable over time.

How do we do it? Simple: we connect students’ curiosity, engineering students as instructors and coaches, and schools. We empower them to start a robotic-club Physically, Digitally, or Phygitally.

For example, we can help the school with afternoon or Saturday physical robotic classes inside the school.

We can help schools with Digital Robotic Club, where no matter where de kids are, they can join the community in real-time.

We can also help schools in the Phigital way, where students can be at home working with physical materials, or even, kids could stay at school with an online professor in real-time.

Film your elevator pitch.

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What specific problem are you solving?

Kidbotics looks forward to eradicating existing inequities around the world, through the accomplishment of goal number 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals: Quality Education. Specifically, this goal urges to substantially increase the number of youth who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs, and entrepreneurship by 2030.

Additionally, in 10 years from now, young people who lack programming and problem solving through robotics skills will become digital illiterates; We are currently immersed in a digital era that progresses more and more and has no return. Therefore, the educational system needs to make adjustments (such as the incorporation of programming and robotics as essential skills to acquire) so that disadvantaged youth learn the skills they need to prepare them for the workforce of the future and thrive in the 21st century.

What is your solution?

Kidbotics offers adaptive learning programs to teach robotics and programming to boys and girls all around Mexico at the lowest cost by connecting people who know programming and robotics (students, teachers, etc.) with children starting at 5 years old.

Through a mix of free and low-cost platforms (google meet, zoom, tinkercad, scratch, code.org, Arduino, etc.) that allow the interaction and exact mixing of the Physical and the Digital (Phygital), Kidbotics is present in over 5 Mexican States with three modalities:

Afternoon or Saturday kidbotics club inside schools with physical professors presences
At home with google meet or zoom club with free simulators and the optional physical components
Afternoon or Saturday Phygital Kidbotics Club, where students can be at the school with online professors.

These courses are given through laboratories that can be virtual devices at no cost or adaptable and scalable for each institution. In addition, Kidbotics uses recycled materials, universal and free programming circuits.

For a 10 students group, the hour cost is only $2 USD (for each student) and professors can get an $8 USD for an hour, making a competitive payment in Mexico and Latin America for undergraduate university students (and even for professionals).

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

Our target populations are children starting from 5 years old. At least in Mexico and in many other Latin American countries, there is a huge gap between public and private education in elementary school. The obsolete and basic technology classes inside elementary and high school are dividing the opportunities, jobs, and wellbeing.

On the other hand, schools don’t have the time to do this kind of program, they have a basic syllabus to work with, and old school professors don’t want to change or improve their classes.

In Kidbotics, we want to bring together people who know programming, robotics and want to earn extra money teaching children with curiosity, guided with a fail-fast methodology, where students play, develop, fail, learn and improve.

We already have 2 years of reaching child curiosity, inside the school, outside school, in a physical, digital, or phygital way.

Which dimension of the TPrize Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Support teachers and educational institutions with teaching and learning methodologies, tools, and resources that help develop future skills for students

Explain how the problem you are addressing, the solution you have designed, and the population you are serving align with the TPrize Challenge.

Latin American and Caribbean region is currently experiencing an unprecedented educational crisis that requires action now to mitigate and even reverse its effects, according to a new World-Bank report (2021). But the main problem is to move such a huge bureaucracy around professors, schools, and the educational system.

With free educational tools, programming and robotics students, a high replicative program, and a fast-fail model that engages children's curiosity, we developed a step-by-step robotic club.

Our final goal is that these clubs could operate in the mid-term by their own, helping kids to develop skills and prepare them for future jobs.

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

San Luis Potosí, S.L.P., México

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Growth: An organization with an established product, service, or business model rolled out in one or, ideally, several communities, which is poised for further growth.

Explain why you selected this stage of development for your solution.

Growth: In kidbotics, we already have two and a half years of operating the robotic club.

In our first year (before the pandemic), we deployed 3 club levels in San Luis Potosí City :

No readers level
Kids from 7 to 11 years old. (approx. remember we have an adaptive learning program)
Kids & youths from 11 to 15 years old.(approx. remember we have an adaptive learning program)

In our second year (pandemic year), we had the same 3 club levels online, and the opportunity to reach kids from many other cities like Queretaro, Michoacán, Aguascalientes, México City, Leon.

Nowadays we have Physical, Digital, and Phygital clubs with the same 3 levels. We are working with 2 schools and starting a promotion to spread kidbotics all around Mexico and Latin America.

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Carlos Agredano González