Proposal for the educational open hardware session

[jurra]

Here is what Vit and I agreed upon:

• Start with the microscope session
• Reflect on the design of the session and the instructional material
• Discuss other examples including the open hardware academy lessons
• Provide an educational challenge about hardware, for example teaching researchers in a lab instrumentation to do measurements, or automation, and provide a lesson template. Each of the challenges can be proposed by us.
• Use ChatGPT or AI to help scope the lesson and have some fun.
• We end up with some drafts of instructional material ;)

[jurra]

Here is Vit's summary: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hkRnADMiEK2zRI6Hd6AuSO5p_E3IEJHVpSx9BK8wPas/edit?invite=CMXDrMMP

[Vsaggiomo]

The academy part should be added, and the proposal for the session should be checked.

[Vsaggiomo]

Final Draft:

Open Hardware - Teaching and Learning

_ @jurra Urra Llanusa - TU Delft
@Vsaggiomo Vittorio Saggiomo - Wageningen University_

“Are you interested in reusing open educational resources around design, development, and prototyping skills in the context of open science?
Would you like to learn how to develop educational content related to such topics? Or are you exploring how to promote open-source hardware in the context of academia? Would you like to contribute to initiatives that are working on these topics? Then consider joining this workshop, where we will go through a building lesson of an open source microscope.[1] We will then discuss examples of lessons around open hardware and share our experiences. After this, you will get also to start drafting a lesson using a style guide that can help you consistently develop, prepare, and teach such lessons”.

In this 2x45 session, we will focus on the teaching elements of Open Hardware.

The first session, which lasts 45 minutes, will be hands-on and will involve the participant in building an OH microscope (ref?). Participants will follow the building instructions provided in a GitHub open repository and program the microscope. The battery-operated, wifi microscope will then be tested using samples from the surrounding area.

The session will conclude with a "learning" component where participants will reflect on the OH project.
They will discuss how they were able to reproduce the hardware so quickly, identify the main problems encountered during the build, and brainstorm ways to improve the microscope. These discussions will also explore Open Hardware concepts, from the initial idea to the implementation, and highlight the importance of OH in teaching. The focus points and learning goals of an OH lecture will be discussed, along with what is needed to teach OH and how it can be used to teach standard classes.

During the second 45-minute session, we will discuss our personal experiences in teaching and using Open Hardware (OH) for teaching purposes. We will explore what strategies worked well, what did not work, and how to improve based on our collective experiences.

As an example, we will showcase the Open Hardware Academy Lessons.[2] These lessons were created based on the Delft Open Hardware initiative and are freely accessible to anyone interested in learning basic programming skills and other related topics.

Another example is the integration of OH in the "Sensors and Devices" course at Wageningen University. In this course, students with a background in molecular science learn how to design, 3D print, and program devices to collect information about chemical compositions of various solutions or detect and quantify analytes. The OH approach was especially valuable during the COVID pandemic when the university was closed. In response, the course was delivered to each student's home in small boxes containing all the necessary components to conduct experiments remotely.[3]

We will contextualize these OH approaches within various standard teaching frameworks, ranging from the traditional Bloom's taxonomy (moving from apply to create) to the more contemporary Kolb's experiential learning (which includes Reflective Observation, Abstract Conceptualization, Active Experimentation, and Concrete Experience) to the Human-Centered Design approach, which is particularly effective in laboratory classes.

[1] https://matchboxscope.github.io/docs/Matchboxscope
[2] https://www.openhardware.academy/03_Lessons.html
[3] Saggiomo, V., Velders, A.H. Experiments@home. Nat Rev Chem 5, 365–366 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-021-00285-2

[jurra]

Hi Vit, I downsized a bit the draft to fit in 500 words, here is what I used for the workshop subimssion

Open Hardware - Teaching and Learning
_ @jurra Urra Llanusa - TU Delft
@Vsaggiomo Vittorio Saggiomo - Wageningen University_

Are you interested in reusing open educational resources around design, development, and prototyping skills in the context of open science? Would you like to learn how to develop educational content related to such topics? Or are you exploring how to promote open-source hardware in the context of academia? Would you like to contribute to initiatives that are working on these topics? Then consider joining this workshop, where we will go through a building lesson of an open source microscope.[1] We will then discuss examples of lessons around open hardware and share our experiences.

The first session, which lasts 45 minutes, will be hands-on and will involve the participant in building an OH microscope (ref?). Participants will follow the building instructions provided in a GitHub open repository and program the microscope. The battery-operated, wifi microscope will then be tested using samples from the surrounding area.

The session will conclude with a "learning" component where participants will reflect on the OH microscope material.
They will discuss how they were able to reproduce the hardware so quickly, identify the main problems encountered during the build, and brainstorm ways to improve the microscope. These discussions will also explore Open Hardware concepts, from the initial idea to the implementation, and highlight the importance of OH in teaching. The focus points and learning goals of an OH lecture will be discussed, along with what is needed to teach OH and how it can be used to teach standard classes.

During the second 45-minute session, we will discuss our personal experiences in teaching and using Open Hardware (OH) for teaching purposes. We will explore what strategies worked well, what did not work, and how to improve based on our collective experiences.

As an example, we will showcase the Open Hardware Academy Lessons.[2] These lessons were created based on the Delft Open Hardware initiative and are freely accessible to anyone.

Another example is the integration of OH in the "Sensors and Devices" course at Wageningen University. In this course, students with a background in molecular science learn how to design, 3D print, and program devices to collect information about chemical compositions of various solutions or detect and quantify analytes. The OH approach was especially valuable during the COVID pandemic when the university was closed. In response, the course was delivered to each student's home in small boxes containing all the necessary components to conduct experiments remotely.[3]

We will contextualize these OH approaches within various standard teaching frameworks, ranging from the traditional Bloom's taxonomy (moving from apply to create) to the more contemporary Kolb's experiential learning (which includes Reflective Observation, Abstract Conceptualization, Active Experimentation, and Concrete Experience) to the Human-Centered Design approach, which is particularly effective in laboratory classes.

[1] https://matchboxscope.github.io/docs/Matchboxscope
[2] https://www.openhardware.academy/03_Lessons.html
[3] Saggiomo, V., Velders, A.H. Experiments@home. Nat Rev Chem 5, 365–366 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41570-021-00285-2