USD 500 microgrants available for workshops, short courses

  1. Your name, and that of your organisation (or the organisation that will receive funds on your behalf).

Ebuka Ezeike, Project Manager at Access 2 Perspectives

  1. Name of event. Make another post with another event name if you have another event.

Introduction to Arduino kits in a scientific context

  1. Email address by which you may be contacted.

ebuka@access2perspectives.org

  1. What open science hardware tool(s) will be the focus of your event?

A digital multimeter and an
Arduino Starter Kit which contains the following:
· Arduino UNO board.
· Breadboard.
· LED (Bright White, Green, Red, Yellow, Blue, and RGB)
· LCD Alphanumeric.
· Wooden base that can be easily assembled.
· Solid core jump wires.
· Stranded Jump wires of RED and BLACK color.
· 9V Battery
· Resistors of 220 Ohms, 560 Ohms, 1kOhms, 4.7kOhms, 10kOhms, 1MOhms, and 10MOhms
· Small DC Motor of 6/9V
· (40 x 1) Male Strip pins
· Red, Blue, and Green Transparent Gels
· Diodes
· The Capacitors of 100uF
· Optocouplers
· Small servo meter
· Piezo Capsule
· Push Buttons
· Tilt Sensor
· Potentiometer
· Phototransistor
· Temperature Sensor
· MOSFET Transistors
· H-bridge Motor Driver
· USB Cable

  1. Describe your course or workshop, whom and what it is for, where and when it will be held, how many attendees (IRL or virtual) you expect.

The workshop will be organized for high school students between the ages of 15 and 18. It is designed to have three sessions.

In the first session, the students will be introduced to all the components of the Arduino Starter Kit including their functions.

This workshop is designed as a pilot and introductory course to inform the participants about possible applications in a research context as Open Science hardware.
These applications include building interactive tools in the laboratory like robots and how and where to use sensors and switches to control light and motors. Some other examples of sensor application that would be mentioned to them are as used in doors in labs, homes, offices and cars.
These would serve as a good background knowledge which they can build on as they go higher in their education and in the field of open science hardware.

In the second session, the students will be taught how to build a circuit on a breadboard using the electronic components from the Arduino kit, like the breadboard, the LED, wire, battery etc. This would give them the idea of how current flows in real life connectivity in our labs, homes and offices.

In the third session, the students will be taught how to test for continuity (current flow) on a breadboard using a digital multimeter.

After the sessions, each student is expected to practice what he or she has been taught.
The workshop will take place on the 29th of April, 2023 in a high school in Abuja, Nigeria. Fifteen students (boys and girls) are expected to physically take part in this workshop.

  1. Do you have plans for ongoing activities after this event OR is it intended that the participants will continue activities after this event? If so, describe the intentions and plans here.

The workshop is meant to be an ongoing event. This will help the students to build on what they have learnt about open science hardware tools at the foundation level. As we hold subsequent workshops, it will serve as a platform to train other beginners in various high schools in Nigeria and generally promote open science hardware.
Through our work at Access 2 Perspectives and AfricArXiv, we are well connected within the AfricaOS and GOSH community. We will subsequently explore collaboration opportunities with research oriented applications of Arduino powered tech-driven research hardware, e.g. with
MBOALab, https://www.mboalab.africa/
Open Hardware Makers, https://openhardware.space
LAB Hack, LabHack · AfricArXiv

  1. What event outputs (e.g. teaching materials, curricula, software, etc.) will you make available? Will these outputs carry an open license?

All the written documents and instructional materials used for the workshop will be made available at africarxiv.org under the CC BY SA 4.0 license.

  1. What will you use the grant for, roughly?
    The grant will be used to provide all the materials needed to hold a successful workshop.

The breakdown is as follows:

$ 50 - $150 for planning and facilitation
$300 - To purchase 3 Arduino starter kits and 3 digital multimeters. The students (15) will be divided into three groups.
$50 - Paper notebooks and other writing materials for the participating students.

  1. Provide links (references) to documentation or reviews of similar
    events or works you have executed. School coursework or projects
    can be listed, even social media posts. Anything to give a sense
    of what you’re about and your ability to successfully conduct this
    course or workshop. To keep this short, just the links and their descriptions will do.

I had experience working with Arduino tools in my university laboratory where I built circuits and used the digital multimeter to test for continuity (current flow through a conductor) in my second year Physics course at the Federal University of Technology Minna Niger state, Nigeria