The first edition of the Makers Festival took place in Zwolle on Saturday 19 March. This engineering event was a resounding success! The crowd was huge and the enthusiasm great.

At AREXX you could do a soldering workshop. You could choose from four building kits and when it was finished, you could take it home. There was also an information booth about weather balloons, EMC disturbances and a real broadcasting station was built.

Another Rising Star from the Dutch SchoolLab series with products for technique lessons at all educational levels: Johnny Walker! This funny robot with its infectious smile teaches you to program with Micro: bit and Arduino Nano!

The students can let him walk and make many other movements. You can also make its LED eyes blink and it can respond to sounds with its built-in microphone. In short, something really different and plenty of opportunities to fill the lessons, because Johnny continues to fascinate the children. That is what we often hear.

The SchoolLab teaching material fits in seamlessly with our educational system, because we are pre-eminently aware of product wishes / conditions. This is because the development of our products and projects takes place in close collaboration with Dutch students / teachers and educators.

How nice he is! For students who already have some programming experience, for example with Scratch, this robot is a great next step. The CAT CAR is programmable with Micro: bit.

Developed in the Netherlands by people with both feet in the Dutch education system. A nice collaboration between students, teachers and educators. Under the direction of AREXX Engineering from Zwolle. How appropriate do you want it?

What we also find very important is a manual that has everything in it: extensive background information, a bit of history, the structure of the robot and many programming exercises.

Part 1 of the series of manuals for this continuous learning path is available. Part 2 is in progress and will respond to the programming of robotics linked to other learning lines and the programming of a game or robot application.

Deltion College Zwolle and its partners have been organizing the Programming with Scratch event for four years now. Unfortunately, the event could not take place physically this year, so the online variant took place this morning. More than 500 students from schools in Zwolle and Hardenberg took part.

Under the inspiring leadership of Arie Koning who formed a fantastic duo with youth presenter Kelian Bwefar, the event was again a great success this year. The theme of this year was 75 years of liberation! The students went back into history together with Leo Major – the liberator of Zwolle!

It is of great importance to make young people enthusiastic about new developments, including computational thinking. Thinking creatively about the use of digital tools to solve a problem. The students completed 8 assignments this morning. In addition, there was an extra plus assignment. The children got to know the visual programming language Scratch in a playful way.

There were great prizes to be won, including the CAT CAR from AREXX ENGINEERING. A robot developed in the Netherlands that can be programmed with Micro: bit – The perfect next step for all students who are already advanced in practicing their Scratch skills.

DEVELOPMENT OF SMART FACTORY
Together with a number of HBO students, AREXX Engineering has developed a Smart Factory for technology education. This Smart Factory is basically finished, we will now continue with the second phase of development.

The factory already works in a simple setup and is programmable in the same way as Blockly, Scratch and Micro: bit. That is, with a graphical software environment. With only little knowledge of programming, the factory in this basic setup can already be programmed by the students. The intention is that pupils in upper secondary school PO / VO / VMBO / MBO can work with this project in which they can simulate an industrial environment.

AREXX would like to collaborate in this second phase with a ROC or business course where students at MBO level follow a study of industrial automation and robotics.

Looking for a fun technology project to do with the students towards the Christmas holidays and what they can take home afterwards?

Last year a huge success, with both boys and girls. We would like to bring them to your attention for this year as well:

·3D mini Christmas tree, programmable with Micro: bit
·3D mini Christmas tree, introduction to soldering
·Infinity Mirror
·Magic LED lamp