Make
Get hands-on: build something that works
The Maker
This is the longest part, and the hardest. A child picks a project small enough to own completely, but real enough to run on real hardware rather than stopping at a screen.
Over seven sessions the child builds, tests, breaks it, works out why it broke, and fixes it. The guide does not do it for them and does not hand out answers — they only ask questions back, so the child learns to read the information hidden inside the mistake.
The three directions below are three parallel ways in, not three levels. A ten-year-old can go straight to robots; a fourteen-year-old can start with control. Nobody has to queue up and climb.
At Làng Maker
Seven project sessions at Làng Maker (the Maker Village) with a Coach Maker — one of the village’s trained guides — on the 7+1 rule — seven sessions of making and an eighth to share. Every project is a small world, small enough for a child to master completely.
Three directions, side by side
Not three levels. A child picks the direction that fits what they want to build right now.
Control & computational thinking
Tell a machine to do exactly what you mean — draw a shape, travel a distance, repeat it ten times without missing a step.
Tools
Programming
Write your own program to solve your own problem, instead of copying someone else’s worked example.
Tools
Robots, circuits & IoT
Make a real object move, and sense the world around it.
Tools
Three rules for guiding a session
Touch first, symbols later
Hands touch a real object first. Code and formulas arrive afterwards, once there is a concrete experience for the symbols to hold on to.
Hard and joyful
A project hard enough to demand real thought, but chosen by the child. Hard because they want it, not hard because it was imposed.
An error is information
A robot veering off course is not a failure. The guide does not fix it for you — they ask back: why do you think it turned left?