Saturday May 17 was Scratch Day worldwide, and for the first time at the Robotics Centre at the new Phyrtual Innovation Gym at the Rome Città Educativa (via del Quadraro 102).

 

While the children learn to programme at the Robotics Center (4-5 pm), adults will have the opportunity to visit the Fab Lab, the first digital craftsmanship laboratory in Rome modelled on MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms.

 

The Scratch lab is held by eleven-year-old Emanuele, a student at the Istituto comprensivo Viale dei Consoli and young engineer Mohamed Haiba.

 

Here is an audio clip of a short interview by Francesca Del Duca [@francesca_fmd] with the young “scratch coach”

 

 

 

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it very easy to create interactive stories, games and animations focusing on learning and education. The youngest students, while creating and sharing projects on Scratch, develop important skills related to designing and problem solving, creative thinking, systematic reasoning and collaborative work.

 

Scratch has been specifically developed for children aged 8-16, but it can also be used by younger children in a variety of different contexts: from schools to museums to introductory computer courses. Scratch is a project developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. The programme is completely free.