Looking for projects for education - for a newbie.

[yigalb]

Hi All

I am looking for idea for a project based on Arduino for high school students.
The target is to expose them to Hardware, simple software, and to build something "cool" as a final project.
Duration should be 10-15 lessons.

Few idea on top of my mind:- controlling a miniature car/flying helicopter from tablet/smartphone, noise detector, voice activated robot.

I have experience with hardware and software, but first time looking at Arduino.

Ideas would be appreciated, especially with documentation I can use.

Thank You
Yigal

[MAS3]

Nice ideas.
But a bit wide spread, aren't they ?
You told about some 15 lessons, which isn't a lot.
Are these lessons of an hour or what ?
How many students will be participating, and will they all work on their own, in groups or as one large group (or any kind of mix) ?
Not to dismiss, what kind of budget would be available.

Ofcourse 15 lessons to build and (really) understand a phone/tablet controllable multicopter will be cool / impressive, not just to those highschool students.
But without some extra information, it'll be difficult to give you an answer you can use, i think.

[yigalb]

You have a point.
The number 15 was just a wild guess. So let me get back to the basics:
The high school here is very "exams oriented", so students may know how to answer math questions, and to install apps on their super-new smartphone, but most of them have no clue what's inside. On top of it, the apps generation have no idea that hardware can do also cool stuff,  and simple software can control that.

I would like to build a course, at first for the top students, that will give them a touch to the embedded boards basics, and to software basics. later on (2-3 years from now),  I hope to make it wider with basic/advanced/gurus courses.

So I would appreciate the ideas about what to build, what teaching material can I take, and share/cooperate with others that did/want to do the same.

The ideal application should be a teaser. If succeeded (i.e. in the eyes of the school management) I will have no problem to get attention & budgets to make it wider. So it needs to be "cool" that can be also presented at end of year events, and perhaps even making it a "geek Olympics".

I strongly believe that any science oriented high school student should be exposed to basic HW, SW and integration , before they go to university.