9th grade project accepted at international congress

By Bruna Cronfli

Teacher Rodrigo Lemonica from the EdTech team submitted a paper he did in partnership with 9th grade (Y9) students at the international congress “FabLearn Europe 2021” last year. This year he received the news that the application was accepted.

“FabLearn Europe 2021” is an international conference on Computing, Design and Making in Education and due to the Covid-19 pandemic will be held virtually in June this year. Although initially planned as a face-to-face conference, the aim is to make the virtual meeting as engaging and interesting as possible! The online setup was also seen as an opportunity to explore new forms of interaction. Members, as avatars, will be able to roam freely, mingle with other conference participants, participate in discussions, have private conversations, or just watch.

With the primary objective of providing students with creative learning, programming literacy, and computational thinking in Design Lab classes, a guiding question was raised in 2020: can technology contribute to help control and prevent pandemics? After that, the project took shape and became the “Distance Meter,” a title also created by the students. The device consists of a distance collar that informs the user how far away they are from another person, preventing a possible spread of the virus. Through two mechanisms, a receiver and a transmitter, it is possible to send and receive information in real-time and visualize whether the distance is adequate or not on the device’s display.

Students were invited to think, experiment, create and learn through practical activities – fundamental premises to transform them into producers and not just consumers of technology.