Innovation Institute 2018

Student's come to the Innovation Lab with amazing, complex ideas for things to build. Many of these projects require some sort of microprocessor driven electronics to allow them to move, light up, react to its environment, record data, or communicate with other devices. A few years ago, many of their ideas would have been impossible for elementary and middle school students to build. However, the rapid advances in small, powerful microprocessor boards combined with easy to use programming languages (including block based languages like Scratch) and online communities willing to share have allowed our students to create their own advanced projects. But how do you begin? Which boards do the most for the least money and are easy for students to use? Which programming languages should you choose? We will show you how you don’t need to be an electrical engineer to help students make projects “smart.”