How Arduino Education helped educator James Jones boost students’ 21st-century skills and robotics knowledge at 23 middle schools in Orlando, Florida. 

More and more teachers face the difficulty of instilling the right skills and knowledge, as well as a flexible mindset, that better prepare their students for future career opportunities.

“Today, students need to be thinking about careers in middle school,” Jones said. “If students wait until they are juniors or seniors in high school to decide, their options are already getting slim. Finding a direction in middle school allows for research, job shadowing, and internships in high school. This will translate into more jobs that require more of these skills as part of the daily workplace. This way they know what a career really looks like, instead of jumping into a job and finding out that they are miserable.”

The challenge: learning about careers you love at a young age

Many countries have recently approved changes in their curricula and education systems to allow earlier access to technology in the classroom. In Finland, technology education is not a separate subject but a cross-curricular, interdisciplinary topic studied within various classes. In Florida, the Workforce Education law requires that students explore their career options during grades 6-8, at ages 12 to 14.

How Arduino Education helped

Jones spent last summer looking for a solution to assist him the following semester. He wanted to think big and reach as many schools as possible in Orange County, so he applied for and won the Title IV grant through the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) program. He used the grant to fund 23 middle schools and chose Arduino Education’s products, CTC GO! Core Module and the Arduino Starter Kit, to improve students’ robotics, programming, and coding skills.

“This past summer we ran two weeks of camps for rising eighth-graders. It was a transition camp at our feeder high school,” Jones said. As an educator, he believes his students should not leave school with only basic knowledge of robotics and STEAM but a deeper and more concrete experience of real-world problem-solving. “More and more personal electronics have fewer buttons and more programming,” Jones said.

Jones asked  Pitsco Education – an official Arduino Education Partner – for extra support during his teaching experience. Pitsco “teaches both coding and circuitry concepts in a real-world manner. Along the way, students encounter numerous careers which might spark their interest in pursuing an occupation they hadn’t considered before. A few of the endless possibilities open to students include engineering and design in any field (computer science, electricity, chemistry, mechanics), programming, and even costuming and music production.”

Do you have an Arduino Education success story? We would love to hear it! your success story with Arduino Education!

Find out more about Arduino Education at arduino.cc/education

OKdo’s focus is to create an ‘outstanding’ experience for all microcontroller and IoT customers, whatever their background, goals and ambitions. Bringing them the latest products, solutions and ideas to inspire and enable them to create technology that makes life better.

Visit OKdo’s new website to see the Arduino based inspirational Industrial case study where Fluid Intelligence’s oil performance monitoring service enables  industrial customers in the Logistics, Pulp & Paper, Manufacturing, Chemical and Energy sectors to maximise their operational reliability and reduce the waste generated by up to 50%

Massimo Banzi, CTO and Co-founder of Arduino explains: “We’re excited to be partnering with OKdo. With our roots in open source, Arduino has transformed into a company that serves professional designers by providing complete IoT platforms, as well as continuing to enable students, educators and makers to innovate by making complex technology simple to use.  There are a lot of Enterprises that need simple and secure technology for adding connectivity to their devices, together, Arduino and OKdo can make that happen.”

Richard Curtin, SVP Technology at OKdo commented  “At OKdo we’re excited to work with Arduino to help them meet their objectives and grow their business. We support makers, entrepreneurs, start-ups and global businesses turn their visions into reality. Like Arduino, the philosophy behind OKdo is to put technology in the hands of those who have the biggest potential. Together with Arduino we can work with customers and businesses to help them do something amazing.”

To find out more about OKdo visit  https://www.okdo.com/industrial/ or follow them on Twitter | YouTube | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram.

First, Malaysia. Then, Thailand. Now, Indonesia is home to an official reseller of Arduino.cc’s sister brand Genuino! Andi and Ardi of DigiWare are pictured below, also showing off the Certificate of Participation from the latest Arduino and Genuino Day organized in their location. Thumbs up to that!

- Tell us a bit more about DigiWare

DigiWare was established back in 2008 in Surabaya, Indonesia. We provide electronic components, embedded modules, and robotic parts. Besides our retail store, we also have an store and continue updating our product portfolio with the latest technology trends. One of the favorite products line is Arduino (Genuino), of course! We have been participating in Arduino Day activities since 2015, and finally became Arduino reseller in early 2016.

- What’s your company’s super power?

We have a solid technical support and training team, which makes us different from other stores. We even developed an Arduino community for vocational school called A-UDIK. Our mission is to hold Arduino training for the vocational school’s teachers and students throughout Indonesia.

- Do you have a favorite Arduino/Genuino project?

In 2015 we’ve been setting-up an independent, modular production network with world-class partners that share our very own approach to open source hardware. We partnered with manufacturers and resellers including Adafruit in United States, Seeedstudio in China, Axel in Italy.

Now we are happy to share with our community the updated page dedicated to resellers, making Genuino and Arduino products available around the world. On the  page you can find all the info and links to get in touch if you are interested in purchasing  boards in your country, or you want to become one of our resellers.

From today  we’ll be also highlighting new resellers on the Arduino blog, so you can get to know them better.

Watterott Electronic (Germany)

The team of Watterott Electronic is manufacturing Genuino boards and is the official Genuino reseller for Germany. We started selling Genuino boards manufactured by Watterott during Maker Faire Rome 2015.

In the picture you can see Stephan Watterott of Watterott Electronic (Germany) holding brand new Genuino boards ready to be shipped!

- Tell us a bit more about Watterott

I founded the company Watterott Electronic in early 2008 as a hobby project in Hausen (Thuringia, Germany). The goal was to offer some own microcontroller boards and special hard to find development components.
My first warehouse was in the garage of my parents house. After about 2 years the garage was to small and I moved to the city of Leinefelde (only 5km away). Until today I added more and more products to our portfolio and also the manufacturing of own boards has increased. Finally at the end of 2015 we became a manufacturer and reseller for Genuino boards.

- What’s your company’s super power?

We can do nearly everything in-house and so we a very short time from the idea to a prototype or final product/board.

- What’s your favorite Arduino or Genuino project?

I have two favorite Arduino/Genuino projects:

• DIY-Thermocam (previously Cheap Thermocam) from Max Ritter.
  I followed the project from the first hour and I also supported Max on his first prototypes.
  http://www.diy-thermocam.net
• FabScan (DIY 3D Scanner).
  The project shows how 3D scanning is working and I also designed the Arduino FabScan Shield in 2012.
  http://www.fabscan.org

Contacts

Watterott Store Website – Twitter – Facebook  – Google+

Arduino SRL (formerly known as Smart Projects SRL) sent out a letter to its distribution partners yesterday. If you’ve been following along with the Arduino vs Arduino story (we’ve previously published two installments), the content isn’t entirely surprising; it’s essentially a tactical move to reassure their distribution channels that Arduino SRL is the “One True Arduino”. That said, there’s still some new tidbits buried inside. You can skip down to read the full text below, but here’s our take.

The Business History of Arduino

A quick summary of the legal situation. Arduino LLC was formed in April 2008 by the original five founders to provide a corporate entity behind the Arduino project. Smart Projects SRL, controlled by one of the founders, was tasked with the actual production of the boards. It turns out that Smart Projects had trademarked the Arduino brand in Italy in December 2008, before Arduino LLC got around to filing in April 2009 in the USA. But everyone was friends, right? As long as the licensing fees keep flowing.

Fast-forward to September 2014, when Arduino LLC filed a lawsuit in Italy against Smart Projects claiming that they had infringed LLC’s trademark and that they had recently stopped paying licensing fees on their use of the Arduino name. In October, Smart Projects filed with the USPTO to revoke Arduino LLC’s trademark. In late 2014, Smart Projects changed its company name to Arduino SRL (a “Società a responsabilità limitata” is one form of Italian limited-liability company) and hired a new CEO, [Federico Musto].  Around the same time, Arduino SRL opened up the website arduino.org (different from long-existing arduino.cc) but with nearly identical style. In January 2015, Arduino LLC filed a lawsuit in the US, claiming their right on the Arduino name.

The Gist of it

In short, Arduino LLC has been working on developing the Arduino platform, software, and community while Smart Projects / Arduino SRL was the major official producer of the hardware for most boards. Both are claiming to “be” Arduino, and going after each other in court. So it’s not strange that Arduino SRL would like to try to keep its hold on the distribution channels. Which brings us to their letter to distributors.

March 27 Letter

A good portion of the letter reads to be a very carefully worded defense of why Arduino SRL is the true Arduino:

“Arduino Srl (aka Smart Projects Srl), as you know has been from the  beginning of the Arduino® project, the place where the ideas were turned into reality and into a business.”

This is of course strictly true — Smart Projects was certainly the largest manufacturer of Arduino boards. But it sidesteps the issue at hand in the trademark suits: whether they were simply a licensed producer of the boards or whether they’re “Arduino”.

Similarly, in the questions section of the letter, they ask if there are actually two “Arduino” product manufacturers, and answer “not really”. Of course, that’s true. Arduino LLC doesn’t manufacture boards, but exists to license their trademark out to fund development.

The only real news in the letter is that Arduino SRL is replacing its old distribution and logistics company, Magyc Now, with a new one named CC Logistics. Both Magyc and CC Logistics are named as defendants in the US lawsuit filed by Arduino LLC, so it’s unlikely that this change is due to legal fallout.

What this Means

In conclusion, Arduino SRL’s letter to its distributors seems to essentially follow the line of reasoning in their trademark lawsuit in the US against Arduino LLC: since Arduino SRL is doing the manufacturing and using the Arduino name, they’re the true Arduino. Whether or not this will stand up in court, or whether Arduino LLC can make its case that SRL was simply a licensed manufacturer, remains to be seen.

We’ve embedded the contents of the letter after the break. You can also download the original PDF.

Ivrea (TO) , March 27, 2015

Dear Partners,

At this time we feel it necessary to update our partners on the state of Arduino® products and the distribution business which you are a key part of.

Arduino Srl (aka Smart Projects Srl), as you know has been from the beginning of the Arduino® project, the place where the ideas were turned into reality and into a business. The first Arduino® models were made and initially distributed to schools of interactive design all over the world.

Arduino® products were then offered to the first DIY enthusiasts, contributing concretely, as one of the first open source electronic boards, to found and promote the Makers Movement: your strong efforts and contribution have made this great new movement a success and has grown in many new exciting areas like IoT and m2m. A realization that will change the world of electronics and communications in the physical world.

The family of Arduino® boards has helped professional and non-professional developers to prototype electrical projects and learn in a way that is accessible and possible for everyone.

Currently, Arduino Srl continues to be the only designer and manufacturer of original Arduino® products.

Open Source is the environment we want for millions of designers, engineers, makers and Arduino® lovers around the world. We hope to continue to help children and newbies learn about electrical engineering and computer programming, in order to develop and grow their ideas for today and tomorrow.

This fantastic story and these ideals will continue on the new website Arduino.org, which has been developed to ensure we stay true to the vision of the beginning of Arduino® and Arduino Srl and our distribution of these cool products.

Beginning in 2015 new changes have been put into place to ensure that our companies can continue to grow with the popularity of the Arduino® product line. The production of these high quality products continue to be done in Europe and specifically Italy which has been very successful.

Our distribution and logistics are going through a change for a couple of reasons, to help with faster deliveries and lower transport costs, we have a new company structure cc logistics that have offices and warehouses in three continents, EMEA Cham Switzerland, North American Boston Massachusetts and APAC Honk Kong and Taipei.

Additionally lots of work are being completed to get inventories in line with demand. New personnel are being added to in many areas for response to your buying needs but also in the sales and support areas to ensure we are creating demand for Arduino products and for our distribution channel. These new sales people from time to time will be in contact to forge closer working relationships.

To help inform our partners of some questions recently raised in the press and other areas:

Q: Are there two “Arduino® ” branded products manufacturers?

A: Not really, the only company that ever designed and manufactured the “Arduino® ” branded product is Arduino Srl (formerly Smart Projects Srl). Others, for a number of reasons, have created in USA and Switzerland “Arduino” named companies. Some have been involved in completing contracts for web site development and PR (namely Arduino SA – Switzerland take cares of the web site arduino.cc has been one of those). Clearly this has been the place to go for open source info in the past, but we will make arduino.org your new comprehensive location for this info and other valuable resources and services.

Q: I have heard in the press that there is a disagreement going on amongst initial founders of the open source project which inspired the Arduino® business.

A: Yes, there is a disagreement between the initial founders of the open source project (which have never been shareholders of Arduino Srl) and the actual management of Arduino Srl. We are confident that these issues will come to a conclusion shortly. Frankly some of these issues are complex because related to the validity of the registration of the trademark “Arduino® ” in some areas of the world and cannot be summarized in few words. In this respect just bear in mind that Arduino Srl (aka Smart Projects Srl) has been the sole manufacturer of the original “Arduino® ” branded products, selling and distributing them world wide for 10 years.

Q: Will cc logistics replace Magyc as distribution points ?

A: That is the big plan but exceptions may happen due to the nature of doing a worldwide distribution. cc logistics will help our makers to produce and distribute their projects in a world wide arena.

Q: Will Arduino make new products and new software?

A: Yes, new software and new products are the life blood of Arduino® . Recently new products, Arduino® Zero Pro, Arduino® , 9 Axes shield partnership with Bosch and many more are coming.

Q: Will Arduino forge technology partnership?

A: Arduino is in the forefront of new exciting fields like IoT and m2m which is an exciting direction of the type of prototyping done with present day Arduino® products. We are in constant contact with major companies exploring these exciting fields. The Arduino YUN with its wifi capabilities and open source processing has ignited lots of new opportunities.

Q: Arduino EMEA, APAC and NA Distributors Sales Meeting

A: We are planning and will notify you of the details of the first global annual meeting

Q: Is there a New Management structure in Arduino ?

A: As it happens in every company that grows as fast as the Arduino environment, additional expertises and capabilities are needed to help steer the company in the correct direction. Federico Musto is the new CEO of Arduino group and he has a strong background in the open source business.

You are Arduino and we are honored and privileged to work with you – Arduino isn’t the company, nor the board, nor the software nor the founders – the Arduino is YOU – You made Arduino® what it is today and you’ll continue to make it what it will be in the future.

Thank you in advance for your help and support

Arduino team

Arduino Srl
legal adress: Via Romano, 12 – 10010 Scarmagno (TO) Italy
shipping address: Via Kennedy, 36 – 10019 Strambino (TO) Italy