Participants of the POETA project: technologies of industry 4.0 are important to be taught at school
Collaboration within the international POETA project is ongoing. This week, representatives of SPbPU, Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT; Finland), industrial partner ROBBO Ltd. and the Lappeenranta Department of Education held another online meeting to discuss the progress of the work plan. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the project is not slowing down: among the future plans – organizing international educational camps, olympiads and conferences.
SPbPU was represented by project coordinator Dmitry DANILOVICH, coordinator Maria ZHIDKOVA and International Office staff. LUT University was represented by the Head of the System Engineering group, Professor Leonid CHECHURIN and project coordinator Anastasia CHAKIR. ROBBO Ltd was represented by the project manager Aleksandr EGOROV and Director-General for Innovation Andrey SMIRNOV. On behalf of the Lappeenranta Education Department, the project manager Petja PYYKKÖNEN took part in the video conference.
The parties discussed the details of certification of platform components, conducting surveys to meet the needs of school teachers in the field of educational materials, and the prospects for major educational events for schoolchildren in Russia and Finland. Already in 2021-2022 LUT and SPbPU will hold international educational camps. Thematic master classes will be organized for schoolchildren and students of Russia and Finland, under the supervision of teachers from border regions. It is planned that participants will develop games and 3D models, study the features of programming robots and the Internet of Things. In 2022, the Russian-Finnish Robotics Olympiad will be held at the Polytechnic University, as one of the project’s activities.
POETA coordinators predict that in the near future robots will replace humans in mechanical and routine work. Therefore, in order to provide today's schoolchildren with demanded and highly paid job in the future, the skills of controlling robots or developing them should be mastered now. The founder of ROBBO, Pavel FROLOV, emphasized that one of the main objectives of the POETA project is to help teachers organize lessons using the latest educational methods and software and hardware, to make classes interesting for children of different ages. Over the past two months, the company has developed new competencies: it successfully launched distance learning courses in programming, 3D-modeling and circuitry, adapted teaching materials for the online format, and gained extensive experience in conducting remote lessons. Given the growing interest in online learning and the possibility of repeating the situation with the suspension of the educational process, distance education programs will become part of the developed educational platform.
“The POETA project is a striking example of combining the efforts of universities and science and technology companies to introduce new approaches to education, fully meeting the stated priority of the program - the development of a region of innovation, high qualification and high quality education. As a leading technical university, SPbPU pays significant attention to working with talented young people, and we hope that this project will contribute to the spread of innovations in school education, in the project teams and FabLab initiatives, in student projects, ” SPbPU Vice Rector for International Relations Dmitry ARSENIEV commented.
by SPbPU International Office
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The project "Practice-oriented children's education in the Industry 4.0 sphere on the basis of a unified open educational hardware platform" (KS1950, POETA, 2020-2022) is supported by the South-East Finland – Russia CBC 2014–2020 Programme. and is co-financed by the European Union, the Russian Federation and Finland.
The goal of the project is to develop and certify a unique educational platform in the EU, which is based on a system of teaching materials and hardware and software resources for teaching technologies in Industry 4.0: robotics, 3D printing, the Internet of Things, and programming. Teachers of schools in the border regions (South Karelia, St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region) will have at their disposal a set of guidelines for practical lessons and testing. ROBBO is responsible for the technical component (boards, sensors, etc.). A specially created information system will help organize the learning process.