During September, one of our technology leads, Mateo, visited the Dominican Republic to raise awareness of the SmartTEAM project there. As soon as we arrived, we began working alongside Fausto Vargas and Mary Carmen Camacho, representatives of Ediciones Logos in the Dominican Republic. During our stay, we visited eight schools. There, we ran training courses for teachers, gave presentations on the project and also organised open lessons for pupils in Year 3, Year 6 and some secondary school year groups. At all the talks and training sessions, the star of the show was, without a doubt, Buty.
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The sense of wonder and excitement that the project inspires in the pupils is truly admirable. In this video, we can see how the children happily programme Buty and enjoy the project: However, the curiosity sparked by the robotics project wasn’t limited to the pupils alone: Oscar González, a teacher at Santa Bárbara School, after completing the training and having examined the whole kit, told us that SmartTEAM is “really worth it”: “Until now, we hadn’t been able to work with the robots directly. I’d seen the programmes, the books… I had an idea; I knew what the project was about. (…) But today, seeing how each part of the project came together, I realised the true creativity that a project like this sparks and fosters.”.
Today, the teacher’s final words ring out with particular resonance: SmartTEAM isn’t just worthwhile because it makes our job as educators easier… It’s worthwhile because it gives the children “permission” to let their hair down. We couldn’t agree more: the excited look on the face of every boy and girl taking part in the robotics project makes it all worthwhile.
