Presentation delivered during the Karel Comenius project meeting, Katerini, 12 - 19.10.2014

1. Karel – Cooperation,
Ethics and Dissemination
Aspects
Mihai Agape
Palatul Copiilor Drobeta Turnu Severin
KAREL Project Meeting
Katerini, 12 – 19.10.2014

2.  This project has been funded with support from the
European Commission.
 This communication reflects the views only of the
authors, and the Commission cannot be held
responsible for any use which may be made of the
information contained therein.

3. The Purpose of the
Presentation
Discuss some aspects related
to cooperation inside the Karel
project
Discuss some aspects related
to ethical aspects
Present future dissemination at
international level

4. COMMUNICATION

5. Karel Project
(Miss) Understanding
 Beypazari
 Karel Language: STEM vs English
 Rybnik
 Problems related to the PCB workshop
 Dimensions of Turkish chassis
 Lack of I/O devices
 Katerini
 New design
 Lesson plans (not) using Karel platform

6. Surprises
 Polish team restarted the Karel design
 The new design is a downgrade related to
the previous Polish design and doesn’t
respect the specifications of the project.
 It would be polite if the Polish contact person
announce the project coordinator related to
this kind of initiatives.
 When there are new members in the project
team, the contact person has to informed this
members related to the work already done in
the project.

7. Surprises
 The chassis manufactured by Turkish team
fits the new Polish design and not the
specifications for the platform and dimensions
decided in Rybnik project meeting.

8. (Non) Cooperation
Example 2
 I didn’t receive anything related to the work of
Polish team related to I/O output.
 Romanian team is in the situation to
design the I/O outputs for the Karel
platform.

9. (Non) Cooperation
Example 3
 I didn’t receive any answer to my emails from
Turkish new contact person
 Supposition: He has some problems with
communication in English language.
 Fact: I found in Katerini meeting that the
communication with Polish contact person was
possible.

10.  Problem
 The written information is understood different
by the people
 Solution
 Ask someone who has the expertise

11. Expertise?
 Who knows better the Karel project?
 Mihai Agape
 Why?
 Initiator of the project
 Author of the all technical part of the project in the
Application Form
 Proves
 Application Form & emails communication during
writing Application Form
 Work already done in the Karel project related to the
management, technical design and manufacture,
training…

12. Turkish Improvement
Proposal
 Turkish teacher proposals
 As coordinator, I have to say to everybody
what to do.
 My answer
 We are not in the army and I cannot order
what to do everyone
 We agreed in application form and meeting
minutes what each partner has to do.
Unfortunately, they are not respected. It
seems that the contact persons doesn’t
make available the information to the team
members.

13. EASY TO USE SOFTWARE FOR
KAREL PLATFORM

14. Arduino compatibility
 For now there is not any initiative related to
assuring the compatibility between the Karel
platform with Arduino IDE.

15. Another Form of Cooperation
Visual Karel Software
 One of my former students, Claudia Tudosie,
who is now student in last year, at Timisoara
University, Computers Enginnering Faculty,
chose for his final project a theme related to
KAREL. She proposed to create a visual
programming language (similar to Scratch for
Karel platform).

16. ETHICS

17. Ethics
 Don’t forget to cite the work done by others.
 To identify a problem is some time more
difficult than to solve it.
 Yes, you have to quote other works even if it
is not related to a solution but to a problem.
 You have to cite other works even if it is not in
written form.

18. FUTURE DISSEMINATION

19. Scientix Conference,
Brussels, 24-26.10.2014
 Conference organized inside of European
project SCIENTIX
 I have a 15 minutes slot for the presentation
“Karelino – a robot for STEM education”.
 There will participate more than 600 people
involved in STEM field, from all the European
countries and from other continents.

20. “Engaging tools for science education”
Sofia, Bulgaria, 31.10 – 02.11.2014
Teamwork Training and Technology Network
 A 30 minutes slot for presenting “Enhancing
STEM activities through contests and
European projects”
 I will present some of STEM projects
 I initiated
 ROBOTOR
 SCRIPT
 KAREL
 I was / am involved in
 SCIENTIX
 RECAP

21. Suggestions?