"SAVA DOBROPLODNI" REGIONAL LIBRARY ORGANIZED FREE SEMINARS AND PROGRAMMING CLASSES WITH THE ROBOT FINCH DURING THE EUROPEAN CODE WEEK

On October 17, 2016, under the initiatives of the European code week /October 15 – 23, 2016/ in the computer hall of "Sava Dobroplodni" regional library the first training for children in programming with the robot Finch was held.

In front of the fourth-graders of III Primary school "Dr. Ivan Seliminski" by a short presentation was presented the history of programming and programming languages ​​and opportunities for programming with the Finch robot. Children got introduced to the Snap! programming language for robot managing. It is suitable for computer trainings of children aged 7 to 12 years. Snap! allows users easily to master the principles of visual programming by working with images, sounds and painting, it gives freedom for modeling of various objects from the environment thereby enriching the culture of children and develop creative thinking and communication skills. In practical training through fun tasks with characters from popular cartoons, kids mastered some of the basic principles of working with the programming language and successfully performed several tasks. At the end of training children received certificates for successfully completed the first hour of programming generated by the program.

A special seminar dedicated to the history of programming and opportunities for programming with the Finch robot was held for the heads of schools in Sliven. The seminar was attended by Dr. Biserka Mihaleva – a Headmaster of Regional Inspectorate of Education-Sliven.

The Finch robot is a two-wheeled robot with bird-like features; it can be programmed to move, talk, dance, and paint or even made its beak to shine. It has many sensors and mechanisms that engage the eyes, ears -as many senses as possible. The Finch currently supports over 12 programming languages ​​and environments, including Java, Python, C ++, Visual Basic, Scala, and Processing. It is used for training in programming for children and students. It is specifically designed for computer science education for students in the US. It has been introduced in teaching programming in schools in the United States for four years.

The Finch robots used in training and software were placed at "Sava Dobroplodni" regional library’s disposal by the US Embassy in Bulgaria and the "Global Libraries Bulgaria" foundation in order to allow experts from the library to help many children to make their first steps in programming in an interesting and funny way.

Trainings in the Regional Library continue today / October 18th / too. On October 20 and October 21 experts from the regional library will organize seminars and trainings in programming with the Finch robot also in the computer halls in libraries at "Prosveta" community centre in the town of Shivachevo and "D. P. Sivkov" community centre in the town of Nova Zagora.

Computer sciences nowadays touch every scientific discipline and they are an important part of most new technologies. Training with the Finch robot can help motivate students to focus on computer sciences, to realize that this is an area which they will have fun to explore and which will allow them future career development. Therefore, "Sava Dobroplodni" regional library took as mission activities in this direction. Due to the great interest the library will continue trainings in programming after European code week too.