Once he read about the Meet and Code opportunity, he put his creativity to work and came up with ideas for two events that proved successful.
One event was called „AstroCamp - Astronaut for a day”. The purpose was to teach his students to apply digital skills by simulating the possible missions of "astronauts," using different educational scenarios. He came up with this idea as astronomy is not included in any form in the school curricula, but it’s one of his greatest passions.
The other event that received a Meet and Code grant was Play, Code & Enjoy!, and the challenge was to teach programming to students from a theoretical high school programming through gaming, using Scratch, C++:, C#, Game Maker and Unity. With only one event. Fancy that!
And this is how it all started.
Students were thrilled and the feedback for the event was great.
One student said, „I wish this is not just a one time opportunity for us to learn something new and cool.” This positive feedback encouraged the professor’ to do even more for his students.
His experience from Meet and Code encouraged him to apply for the Predau Viitor Fund, a component within Predau Viitor (the first accelerator in teaching computer science in Romania developed by Asociația TechSoup). His idea was to establish a club and continue the activities delivered during Europe Code Week in a much more complex and structured form. This way, with an additional grant smaller than 1.000 euro, he started RoboCode, the first Robotics & IT Club of the „Aurel Lazăr” High School.
His students who joined the club have learned to implement mini-projects in robotics and to build computer games and boardgames on IT topics. Of the participants, 75% of them now believe that they can build robotics projects on their own, using the Arduino board.
This year he successfully applied again for Meet and Code funding with two programming events aiming to contribute to solving burning issues within his community, on automatic watering and recycling: RoboCODE Watering and RoboCODE Recycles. Both events will be delivered within the RoboCode club.
Digital technology is everywhere in our day to day lives. New generations have access to technology even before learning to write or read. These technologies must be used in schools, in the benefit of all students. I am convinced that in the very near future we will learn how to develop our digital skills so much earlier than before.
Professor Viorel Muscaș is dedicated to make learning more relevant and ready to meet the needs of the future. He is a #SuperTeacher helping teenagers to become #SuperStudents that will bring to life #SuperProjects.
