Armenian schoolchildren to start building robots on their own soon

YEREVAN, May 23. /ARKA/. Armenia’s Union of IT Enterprises (UITE) will start robotics hobby groups in some 55 schools across the country, UITE executive director Karen Vardanyan said Wednesday.

The idea was given by parents who suggested the UITE creating conditions to involve children in robotics, he said.

According to Vardanyan, three years of studying in such a hobby group will give high schoolers an opportunity to earn a monthly of $240-360, even without higher education.
“And within several years they will be able to get a job with a salary of 400-500,000 drams (over $1,000)”, Vardanyan said.

Under the project, these 55 schools will get robotics sets with assembly instructions for three models. But the capabilities of the sets are much wider, and children can assembly much more models if they want, Vardanyan said.

One set will cost 500,000 drams ($1,200) and a training of a specialist to head such a school hobby group some 300,000 drams ($720).

Still, these groups will help reveal at least six gifted children in the country every year to become the IT future of Armenia, Vardanyan said.
The project director also said the ministry of education agreed to pay salaries to heads of the hobby groups.

This year such hobby groups will open in Yerevan, various regions of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. If the project is a success, then all schools of Armenia will be included in it in two years’ time.

UITE director said younger schoolchildren have the opportunity to try Scretch, an open source programming language for kids.  –0--

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12:30 05/23/2013