Teaching kids embedded engineering with FlowPaw

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srdjan.misic
mikroElektronika team
Posts: 296
Joined: 11 Feb 2014 15:55

Teaching kids embedded engineering with FlowPaw

#1 Post by srdjan.misic » 18 Aug 2014 18:16

Teaching kids embedded engineering with FlowPaw

Introducing FlowPaw—you won't find a more kid-friendly,
playful and fun introduction to the world of embedded
programming.

Image

Conceived by DSPRobotics, designed and built by
MikroElektronika
, FlowPaw is a development board
intended to, as the speaker in the above-video says, "inspire
the next generation of kids to get involved in computer
science, engineering and mathematics."

The paw-shaped PCB carries a STM32F415RG MCU and four
claws with mikroBUS™ sockets, waiting for click boards.

The real power of it comes from FlowStone, an unusual
programming environment from DSPRobotics that uses a
combination of graphical and text programming. It works like
this:

You pick a few click boards and plug them into claws, plug
the whole FlowPaw into a PC via USB, and from there, making
your LEDs blink, motors rotate, buttons do this-and-that, is
all just a matter of drag and drop with your mouse...

It's not just LEDs, buttons or motors, it's sensors, various
displays, communication modules, anything you can find
amongst our selection of click boards.

High-schoolers would surely agree that, for instance,
building robots sounds like an awesome thing to do. But
when they get confronted with the huge gap between what they
can imagine, and the technical skills needed to make it
happen, most of them will probably turn to their Xboxes.

What FlowPaw does, is allow kids to be creative before
becoming technical
. They can explore their ideas, and when
curiosity strikes, they can easily peek at the working
code
under the hood. That way, their creativity and
imagination fuels their desire to learn.

See the video for the variety of examples; different click
board combinations create burglar alarms, music synthesizers,
game controllers, all with a few mouse clicks.

The FlowPaw should be in retail around Septembar, details
coming up, so stay tuned.

After WunderBar, FlowPaw is another project we took
as part of our new Contract Manufacturing services. If
you have some ideas of your own, feel free to contact us.

Yours sincerely,
MikroElektronika

MaGiK
Posts: 897
Joined: 19 Apr 2013 10:00

Re: Teaching kids embedded engineering with FlowPaw

#2 Post by MaGiK » 19 Aug 2014 19:45

WOW! This looks very promising!
Am I the only one who watched the video?
This FlowPaw is so freaking awesome!
And I liked the H& too :mrgreen:

Screw the kids! I want one for myself! :lol:

It is very evident that MikroElektronika are also doing a great job as a contract manufacturer.
Keep up the amazing work guys :D
Best Regards
My hobby is collecting MikroElektronika products.
Gotta catch them all!

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