It’s hard not to be impressed by the Arduboy. In just a few short years, [Kevin Bates] went from proof of concept to a successful commercial product without compromising on his original open source goals. Today, anyone can develop a game for the Arduboy and have it distributed to owners all over the world for free. If you’ve ever dreamt of being a game developer, the Arduboy community is for you.
Realizing the low-cost hardware and open source software of the Arduboy makes it an excellent way to learn programming, [Kevin] is now trying to turn his creation into a legitimate teaching tool. He’s kicking off this new chapter in the Arduboy’s life with a generous offer: giving out free hardware to educators all over the world. Anyone who wants to be considered for the program just needs to write-up a few paragraphs on how they’d utilize the handheld game system in their class.
[Kevin] already knows the Arduboy has been used to teach programming, but those have all been one-off endeavours. They relied on a teacher that was passionate enough about the Arduboy to put in their own time and effort to create a lesson plan around it. So one of the main goals right now is getting an official curriculum put together so educators won’t have to start from scratch. The community has already developed 16 free lessons, but they’re looking for help in creating more and translating them into other languages.
While the details are still up in the air, [Kevin] also plans to travel to schools personally and help them get their Arduboy classes off the ground. He’s especially interested in developing countries and other areas that are disadvantaged educationally. Believing that the Arduboy is as much a way to teach effective leadership and teambuilding as it is programming, he thinks this program can truly make a difference.
Since [Kevin] first Rickrolled us with his prototype in 2014, we’ve seen the Arduboy project spread like wildfire through the hacker community. From figuring out how to play its games on other gadgets to developing an expansion cartridge for the real thing, the Arduboy has already done its fair share of inspiring. Here’s hoping it has just as much of an impact on the next generation of hackers once they get their hands on it.
I love this! I purchased an Arduboy for my son awhile ago and can totally see the value in using it to teach kids how to code. I would love to try these out in one of my coding clubs that I run in schools. My only concern is the compatibility with chromebooks. All of the schools in my area use chromebooks. I know there is a and Arduino Create chrome extension that may work. Has anyone used the chrome extension specifically with the Arduboy? I will try to get my hands on a chromebook this summer so I can test it out with my sons Arduboy.
I think it would work, arduino.cc has their online web editor, i just checked libraries + leonardo support, its all there. Chromebooks cost .99 a month and depending on how many students that price can go down. https://create.arduino.cc/plans/chrome-app
The ultimate goal is to try and do something like OLPC but for a miniature open source game console.
Learning to program is a LOT more fun when you’re building/modifying games and code that impresses you. Super supportive of this!
Have had my eye on the Arduboy for awhile now. Keep debating if I should get it now, or wait until the v2 I keep hearing about is released.
Either way, glad to see the people behind the project are doing the right thing with their success.
You should get one.