Multiplier Event in Genoa

The Multiplier Event of the Erasmus+ Mindmaths project was held on July 27, 2022, at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Genoa (partner of the School of Robotics). The event was attended by 45 elementary school teachers, education students and experts in teaching and school methodologies.

The keynote address was given by Gianluca Pedemonte who explained what Erasmus+ projects are, how they take place and what their goals are. After that, the lecturer introduced the Mind Maths project, explaining to the audience what the objectives of the project are, the partners, and how the path leading to the creation of the manuals and videos was carried out.

At this point, Filippo Bogliolo spoke and presented the outputs produced during the project. Specifically, he showed the manual produced through the analysis of some of the educational activities developed. At this point, an in-depth presentation of the videos began, which was met with much enthusiasm by the participants.

Once the first presentation phase was over, Emanuele Micheli started the implementation of the teaching activities extrapolated from the manual, and with the help of the videos made during the project, the practical part of the event began.

The first activity realized was an ice-breaking moment with the Tagcloud tool. In short, all participants were asked to write down using their smartphones the first three words they thought of when talking about anxiety caused by math. The results were very interesting, and this activity was preparatory to introduce the other activities of the project.

Two activities related to estimation featured in the manual were then implemented. The teachers worked on the concept of distance estimation using the Mtiny robot. They were asked to estimate the distance to be reached by the robot and then to program the same robot to reach the expected distance. After this activity was finished, they were asked to estimate the size of the robot itself and then apply a more complex concept through the creation of a bridge under which to pass the robot after programming it for this purpose.

At the end of this activity, the concept of left and right was introduced by explaining the importance of proprioception and heteroception, and finally, the green garden was created.

Finally, there was a discussion time with participants recounting their experiences and explaining how they could apply the results of this project. However, the School of Robotics collected contact information from the participants to monitor the progress of the experimentation activity from their side. Once the evaluation form was finished, the event concluded.