If you have a room full of computers, we have a turnkey solution that gives students real world feedback as they learn computer programming. With our kits, students create tiny computer programs that turn on lights, make noises, and respond to buttons and knobs. This isn’t just computer programming, it’s ENGINEERING. Everything you need to easily setup and run a workshop or series of lessons on computer programming is included in our class set. All you need is one computer or laptop per kit.
What makes the Ultimate Class Kit great?
- Students move at their own pace by following the activities in the book.
- The layout of exercises allows for flexible pacing. Faster working students continue to be challenged by bonus questions at the end of each activity while other students catch up.
- Circuit board construction is compact and robust. No moving parts. No wiring.
- Software is free and open source
With the Young Person’s Guide to Arduino Kit, no wiring is needed. This kit collects all the beginner circuits into a nice little board that allows you to focus on teaching instead of troubleshooting hardware. Student spend time programming instead of the wiring. Nine LEDs, a light sensor, temperature sensor, two switches, and a speaker are permanently wired to a sturdy circuit board that snaps right into an Arduino microcontroller. With the board attached to an Arduino, it is fast and easy to create programs and see instant results.
The Young Person’s Guide to Arduino is structured like a science class. Students learn through iterative experiments of increasing complexity. Each lesson starts with fundamental programming principles, a review of the commands that will be used, and an example program. After coding and executing the sample program, problems are presented that require the learner to synthesize and apply their learning in new ways. You will see them quickly change and execute their modified code to test their ideas.
Each chapter consists of an experiment and each experiment has four parts.
- Description and link to a video showing how the program is supposed to work.
- Example program to try. This is entered into the Arduino software and uploaded to the microcontroller.
- Overview of the programming commands that were used in the chapter. How commands were used and why they were used.
- Word problems that expand the students learning beyond the example program. Two types of problems are posed:
- Type 1: What do you have to change in the program to change the result to X? Perform the change and see if you are correct.
- Type 2: If you changed Y in the program, what do you think will happen? Try it out and see.
What our customers say. . .
Sorry for the delayed response. We only just recently finished up our summer camps, and I was waiting for feedback from our teachers about how the Arduino/Avocado lessons went. So far, I’ve heard nothing but good things about the lessons. Everything was nicely paced with your book, and they even left enough room for the students to customize the simple codes to create their own things.
The only downside of everything was when all 20 students found out about the buzzers and had them all going off at the same time. But this is to be expected with a class full of young students. haha.
Thank you so much for allowing us to use your lessons with your amazing Avocado product. Since we received good reviews from teachers and parents about them, we will try to continue using them for future camps. – N.
“The Avocado Beginner board is just terrific. It allowed my 12 year old to start programming immediately. He said ‘this is more fun than Minecraft!’ That’s high praise!” – Michael C.
I’ve backed a number of “educational” Arduino projects and yours is by far the best. Learned quite a bit working through it. – Jack H.
What can the kit DO?
With the Young Person’s Guide to Arduino, you have 15 projects for beginners:
Starter Projects:
- Pin 13 & Pin3 lights – Turn on the Pin 13 light on the Arduino and then the Pin 3 light on the Avocado Beginner Board
- Blinking lights – Turn two lights on and off
- Button lights – Turn lights on and off by pressing a button
- Beating lights – Make the lights turn on and off like a beating heart
- Tone generator – Make the Arduino output a sound from the speaker
Beginner Projects:
- Knob lights – Make lights turn on and off by turning a knob
- Roll the die – Press the button to make 1 to 6 lights turn on randomly, just as if you rolled a die.
- Crazy lights – Lights flash on and off randomly.
- Trick cell phone & Doorbell – Make the Arduino sound like a cell phone and then a doorbell.
- “It’s my turn” timer – Arduino counts down so everyone get’s their turn.
- Serial Commands – Make the Arduino send information back to your computer.
- Temperature lights – Arduino turns on lights depending on how hot or cold it is.
- Burglar alarm – Arduino makes a noise when a burglar comes around.
- Night light – Turns the lights on when it gets dark.
- Rising tone – Turning knob makes the speaker tone go up and down like in a spooky song.
Ultimate Young Person’s Guide to Arduino Kits:
- Avocado Beginner Board
- Young Person’s Guide to Arduino book
- Arduino R3 Microcontroller
Instructor’s Kit
- Extra book
- DVD with movies
- PDF Answer Key
Avocado Electronics 