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[on:]

Hello,
We received an arduino kit donated for an engineering student with an interest in computer programming who has been in the tuberculosis ward for over a year in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He has been considering leaving the ward to return to school, continuing with engineering. This would be a bad choice, a deadly one for himself and a high risk for the students that he would be in class with, however, being in the ward for that length of time, it is completely understandable why he wants to leave. Conditions are poor and people pass away on a regular basis. We are trying to find something to keep his mind focused and feed his desire to learn. If there is anyone who is fluent in French and would like to be available for him to ask questions about simple or eventually more complex operations and set-ups of the arduino it would be a incredible and give him the opportunity of interacting with people in a constructive environment. He has a laptop and internet access at the clinic. Please let me know if you are interested or know someone who might be. Thank you so much.
Steve
resources.haiti@grassrootsunited.org

[Reply #1 on:]

Hello Steve,

Your student will be welcome to ask questions here on the forum.
What do you expect more than I propose you?

Regards,

[Reply #2 on:]

Hello Steve,

first, cross-posting doesn't make a topic more popular. Here in the French forum are plenty of people with the right knowledge to help him along if he gets stuck. Nobody really cares what he is, where he is, the only thing that matters just like on any social site on the internet is how he writes and how he behaves.

As to the more technical side, it would be interesting to know what he want to do with the Arduino. The Arduino a tremendous tool to work with, but just like any tool, one needs a purpose to use it. Playing around with an Arduino just for it's own sake gets old and boring very fast. Hand in hand with this goes the question what kind of resources does he have available. If he want to build robots he'll need different parts than if he want to make blinky toys which in turn needs different parts then making Midi peripherals. And the other question is from where does he start, what's his experience in electronics, programming, computers, soldering, model crafting, general education? No skill of aforementioned list is absolutely necessary, but having an idea of some can be a big help and if all a lacking, things are going to start slower.

However, to start out, these questions aren't really critical. One can start with installing the software and doing the first tutorials like Blink. These things should work more or less out of the box. Once that's done, depending on what other parts he has in his kit and what is of interest to him, further projects can be defined.

He should get an account here and if he doesn't want to ask his questions in the public forum, he's very welcome to send me a PM (private message on this site), I can find the time to help him along the first steps and to help him break down bigger projects into manageable parts. If he cares, it's important that he takes the first step to reach out.

Korman