NASDAN | ROBOTICS CLUBS

In today’s technology-driven world, it’s important now more than ever to prepare students for the future and it is no secret that jobs in the STEM field are the fastest growing careers, and are projected to grow more in the next decade. By the time all of our students graduate in a few years or so, over half of the available jobs will be in the STEM field and a large chunk of the rest will require employees to have some STEM knowledge.

However, most schools in Uganda don’t have the resources to skill the learners with STEM driven knowledge and are still using an outdated curriculum that does not allow for creative thinking for next generation of innovators. This means we need to find alternative ways to deliver learning that will be relevant in the next decade, build interest in these fields and unlock the full potential of learners.

At Nasdan, we bridge this learning gap by incorporating Robotics learning into the education system in schools through forming Robotics Clubs in nursery schools (2-5years), primary schools (5-13years) and secondary schools (13-22years) because teaching robotics to young students throughout their schooling can increase their ability to be creative and innovative thinkers and open a whole new world to them and exciting opportunities that they wouldn’t have access to otherwise.

We further believe that without the knowledge or access to robotics education at a young age, there’s no way for students to build interest in these fields and without robotics education in schools, who knows how many potential creators and innovators there are who were never given the resources to realize their potential.

We also run school holiday classes for these learners in public speaking because we believe it does not only stop at having the creativity to make a product but also going ahead to talk about the product.

The Robotics Clubs program is a bridge for students in schools to have access to STEM education through Robotics learning.

At the very core of our work, we liaise with the school administration to have the Robotics Clubs set up in the schools and so far, we have been established in 10secondary schools and 10primary schools in Western Uganda.

We use feedback as a learning tool to structure the delivery of our Robotics Classes. In this feedback we found out that students from the primary and nursery schools don’t have technical knowledge to work with our advanced kits like the Arduino.

We therefore used this feedback to get Lego Mindstorms EV3 kits for the learners in primary schools. This has not only helped build Computational Thinking Practices to the learners at a young age but also build interest for the learners in the greater field of technology and find it easier to transition to learning with more advanced kits.

From secondary schools, we use Arduino learning for the students and introduce the learners to concepts of electronics and circuits. This has been helpful for learners to understand the concepts taught in physics classes better and concepts in programming also help learners understand where their knowledge in such subjects would be applied. This has been greatly recommended by the teachers and their encouragement of more students to join the club.

All our content delivered to learners is well crafted with teachers keeping in mind the lessons taught in class and how learners would apply the theoretic knowledge in the out of class experience.

We also worked with these schools to schedule a right time for the Robotics Classes. Some schools have fixed us on their school timetables while the other have given weekends to have these lessons delivered. 

Nasdan is committed to using technology to positively impact the planet and as part of our work, we seek to inspire and empower a generation that will not only survive – but drive and thrive – in the increasingly technological economy.

Relevant education through Robotics Trainings is critical in achieving this.

Activities:

• Approaching schools to establish robotics clubs
• Practical training of students on design thinking, logical thinking, problem solving and robotics concepts like how to program a robot to drive fixed distances in set patterns or how far it should turn.
• Holding internal school technological competitions
• Presentations by the robotics clubs on school assemblies to build student pitches skills.

Outputs:

• Students gain computational thinking practices that are critical for all students to learn and form the cornerstone of the language of innovation in the technological economy.
• Students build the skills, and competencies necessary for success in the technological economy.
• Promote Inclusivity where all genders participate freely and have equal access.

Short Term Outcomes:

• Students have a practical understanding of how to apply the theories learnt in class in the real world.
• Creativity skills acquired applied by students in school and at home
• Students demonstrate ability to design in context of large social and service problems utilizing empathy prototyping and reasoning

Long Term Outcomes:

• Students join our Tech for Good initiative and IT services sections to provide services and keep working in the same mission of the organization.
• Students mentor and train others in their schools to have a sustainability of the program.

Stakeholders:

• School Administrations
• Students
• Parents
• Teachers
• Government and leaders

Assumptions:

• STEM understanding and skills are very vital in the next decade of employment and the student’s future.
• Physical interaction has a key role in better learning of a student at a young age.
• With the right resources, any student can learn better.
• Practical Robotics Trainings (where students participate in building and programming a robot to see it move) are important in creating students’ motivation to continue learning.
• Technology is will continue to evolve and will displace generations that don’t adopt to it.
• Robotics activities are concrete, contextualized, and provide feedback.

We are at level 3 of evidence integration within the Nesta's Standards of Evidence.

A school where we have established our club (Ntare School), participated in the recent regional National Communication Conference and emerged the best among the other competitive schools https://ictclubs.ug/ntare-school-ict-club-presents-up-farm-innovation/ This is attributed to the fact that the school has a better training in STEM and Robotics from our training. 

It is also evidenced that most of the members in the Robotics Club perform better as compared to the rest of the general school students because we believe they get to have exposure to how the class theories truly work.

We track our success based on the following ways:

• Ability of students to lead and train their fellow students.
• Expansion of the program to other schools. This is mostly when the school administrations call us to start the same at their schools.
• Increasing robotics clubs’ memberships in schools.
• Participation and winning of competitions organized.
• Transition of students and desire for students to work with the Tech for Good and IT Service sections of the organization. This has been indicated by the Humura Therapy (www.humuratherapy.com) website created by some of the students that transitioned. This website offers free counselling to mental health seekers.
• Parent, teacher and administration feedback is also key on measuring how we are performing.

Empowering a generation that will not only survive but drive and thrive in the increasingly technological economy through robotics trainings.

The Robotics Clubs have already been established in most schools to bridge a learning gap for STEM skills for the next decade.

But as part of our work, we know everything good has a potential negative cost to it. This is why at the same time we advocate for TECH FOR GOOD with a mind that these skills learned would not be used for the bad in the near future.

It is in the same sense that we know teaching how to program and robotics at a young age is amazing but advocating for the good use of these learnt skills and technologies cannot be neglected.

The LEAP Fellows would be asked to help us answer the question “How can teaching STEM, Robotics and technological skills be tailored to Tech for Good in the future?”

The LEAP sprint's expected outcomes are improving on our current level of the Nesta's Standard of Evidence. Another outcome of would be how we could incorporate learning in the outdated curriculum to increase the enrollment for everyone on schools and out of schools.

A successful outcome of this project would allow us to drive relevant learning for students. We hope to have a curriculum that will be tailored to skilling the young generation for the next years to achieve quality education and be innovators, problem solvers in the future.

Our organization long term plan is to increase the TECH FOR GOOD initiative in the world. We imagine a world where we shall not regret why we taught or did not teach our students the relevant skills needed. And with us hosting the LEAP project, this will drive this agenda in guidance of how we should structure the learning to achieve our greater goal and have everyone thrive in the next decade of the technological economy.