WordWand will be available in the new Kitronik Catalogue arriving at some 2500 schools during the first half of September 2009It consists of a PCB with components and a huge array of free downloadable resources from my www.ajbox.co.uk website
Wordwand can be programmed with up to 16 characters, depending on your programming skills, but works best with about 4 characters in a message. The free resources will include a basic and in-depth presentation, 2 page starter and full 10 page Teachers guide, 5 sample programs in Circuit Wizard format (You will need version 1.5 onwards to view) and also sample programs in the free 'Genie Design Studio' program
that is a free flowsheet editor and programmer that is virtually identical to the flowsheet programming within Circuit Wizard
I hope that having a useful project that is customisable to each student, comes with lashings of free resources and is relatively cheap, PIC will start to be used in many more schools in the UK. At its best it is a wonderful project where creativity and problem solving combine to produce an effective learnng tool, at its worst, as shown to me by a friends son who did PIC at his school last term, it is a bent piece of plastic with 4 lights that flash for no reason whatsoever that the pupil cannot fathom a real use for!
