Want to write the next killer app or game and put it on the iTunes store? Do you want to be able to open and close the curtains in your bedroom using your iPhone or Android? Are you interested in programming but don't quite no where to start? The world is exploding with computers - both large and small, and increasingly you need to understand computer programming in order to understand the world, how it works, and how to improve it.

 

Learning how to program can be a daunting task. There are numerous programming languages, computer platforms, and development environments and each comes with numerous 500+ page manuals that can be quite intimidating.

 

We created this company with one goal in mind: to help young adults learn how to program in modern programming languages (for example C/C++, Visual Basic) and to be able to have the necessary electronics skills to have their programs interact with the environment. Whether you want to  measure heart rate, turn on and off lights, open and close doors, detect motion or acceleration, you need to be able to  receive and transmit signals to external devices and process them with your software.

 

Each of our educational products   teach a specific set of software and electronics concepts and uses these skills to control various sensors and transducers. Each product builds on the skills learned in the previous product so as you move through the Series of educational products you learn more complex subject matter.

 

Many educational programs like this use breadboards  to build the hardware for the current lesson and then disassemble it to move on to the next lesson. We have chosen to take a different approach. As part of each product, you will construct and program a complete "device" that will remain fully functional and expandable when you move on to the next Pack. In addition, each Pack comes with a 3D printed enclosure for your device. Should you want to modify the enclosure to add additional sensors/transducers, the "3D printer source" code is available on our site so that you may do that.

For parents who home school their children, finding quality technology curriculum can be quite challenging - particularly if the parents themselves are not technology enabled. Our curriculum, based upon progressively more challenging educational products will enable your student to start from no knowledge of electronics or programming and progress to the point where they no longer need our materials and are able to strike out on their own and build/program what they imagine in their head.

 

It is so satisfying to see students start with great apprehension about even picking up a soldering iron or typing the first line of code and then to watch in amazement as they progress to the point where the navigating, coding, debugging, building with confidence and ease.

 

In todays world of smart phones, texting, video games, the constant stimulus makes it difficult for kids to learn how to quiet their mind and focus. Our products are designed so that  students move from reading educational material, building something with their hands (and soldering iron if they so choose), writing some code, and running the code on the target micro computer so see if they get the desired results. Each of these activities (reading, building, writing code, testing) is typically about 20 - 40 minutes so students continue to receive stimulus as they move from one phase to another.

 

In the process of completing the lessons , students learn how to structure their problem solving approach in a logical manner that a computer could understand. In addition, most programs will have bugs - they will not achieve the intended results on the first try. So students will have to think through their trouble shooting strategy so as to locate and correct the bug.

Many Middle Schools and High Schools have after hours clubs in a variety of topics from Year Book, Photography, and increasingly Computer Programming/Electronics/Robotics. Using our products provides structure to clubs such as these by allowing all the students to work on the same Pack while allowing each student to progress at their own pace.

 

Each Pack is designed to be completed in a semester or quarter classroom environment. Additional programming challenges are provided in each curriculum so that faster students will remain challenged after completing the basic curriculum.

 

Where possible, the curriculum is designed so that each stand alone section can be completed within less than one hour. This enables the student to read the material (or listen to the lecture), construct the hardware, write the code, and test all within a typical class period.

Our products and curriculum can be used as "stand-alone" classroom curriculum for a Middle School or High School environment or they can provide an excellent framework and well thought out sequencing of concepts that the Technology Educator can fold into their specific class requirements.

 

For example, by using the fully assembled Programming-It Series, an educator can focus on the software content while still allowing the students to work with something physical and see something happen in the real world based upon the programs that they write.

 

Software concepts are introduced piece by piece rather than all at once so students are not overwhelmed. For example, variable types are introduced one type at a time throughout the Geek Pack series. Starting with integer in the first lesson followed by BOOLEAN and so on in subsequent lessons. In a similar manner, early lessons use simple variable structures followed by one dimensional character arrays, character strings, string conversions, etc.

 

As students progress, they typically have less need to see instant physical evidence of their programming work but early on, the power of being able to blink and LED has tremendous attraction and connects the abstract programming environment with the real world.