Year 2016 has bought a new wave in becoming the existing R&D and manufacturing to become smart. Trends and technologies were already there but a new pace can be seen in adopting them like, IoT, Connected things, low power consumption, embedded and robotic systems. To meet design demands in advanced applications, leaders in educational kits are offering many dedicated and specialized educational kits. Here is a quick survey on modern educational kits available from market leaders.
Education kit is a area of interest not only for students or developers but hobbyists are quite the customers for the products and solutions. In this article we shall discuss trends on educational kits in the 2016 from students, developers as well as hobbyists perspective. Starting with students and trainees, educational kits are more of assembly type, the kits consists of diffent modules to be assembled in a particular of different ways and preprogrammed set of codes or instructions. Student application kits are aimed to achieve a certain end solution or result out of given guidelines. On the other hand kits for designers and developers are firmware capable to innovate program development and circuit designing. Modern industry asks for the engineers to be innovative than just trained. Basic industry practices like manufacturing, packaging, assembly, testing and trouble shooting is getting more and more upgraded with techs like, connected structure, cloud computing, robotic operation, embedded architecture, power saving and secure modules. Hence required solutions and products (kits) to design and develop solutions for dedicated applications. Market leaders in educational kits are already offering solutions to cater such design and development demands. Basic electronic kits (that works with diodes, transistors, T&M equipments etc) have already been recognized quite a while ago in higher education and technical education. Current era asks for more like, embedded development boards, Robot and copter assembly kits, IoT and cloud based solution development, PLC and automation concept designing and a lot more to be mentioned. Out this article will highlight few of the Turing the table solutions available in educational kits in India. Apart from products and solutions available facts and figures estimating this industry is also worth discussion and you will few of them in the trailing article ahead.
Technical Education in the Country Is Driving “Educational Kits Market”
India holds an important place in the global education industry. The country has more than 1.4 million schools with over 227 million students enrolled and more than 36,000 higher education institutes. India has one of the largest higher education systems in the world. However, there is still a lot of potential for further development in the education system. India’s online education market size is expected to touch US$ 40 billion by 2017. The education sector in India is poised to witness major growth in the years to come as India will have world’s largest tertiary-age population and second largest graduate talent pipeline globally by the end of 2020. As of now the education market is worth US$ 100 billion. Currently, higher education contributes 59.7 per cent of the market size, school education 38.1 per cent, pre-school segment 1.6 per cent, and technology and multi-media the remaining 0.6 per cent. Higher education system in India has undergone rapid expansion. Currently, India’s higher education system is the largest in the world enrolling over 70 million students while in less than two decades, India has managed to create additional capacity for over 40 million students. At present, higher education sector witnesses spending of over Rs 46,200 crore (US$ 6.96 billion), and it is expected to grow at an average annual rate of over 18 per cent to reach Rs 232,500 crore (US$ 35.03 billion) in next 10 years. India’s IT firms are working with academic institutions and setting up in-house institutes to groom the right talent as these companies move to Social media, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) technologies. Various government initiatives are being adopted to boost the growth of distance education market, besides focusing on new education techniques, such as E-learning and M-learning. Education sector has seen a host of reforms and improved financial outlays in recent years that could possibly transform the country into a knowledge haven. With human resource increasingly gaining significance in the overall development of the country, development of education infrastructure is expected to remain the key focus in the current decade. In this scenario, infrastructure investment in the education sector is likely to see a considerable increase in the current decade. Moreover, availability of English speaking tech-educated talent, democratic governance and a strong legal and intellectual property protection framework are enablers for world class product development, as per Mr Amit Phadnis, President- Engineering and Site Leader for Cisco (India). The Government of India has taken several steps including opening of IIT’s and IIM’s in new locations as well as allocating educational grants for research scholars in most government institutions. Furthermore, with online modes of education being used by several educational organizations, the higher education sector in India is set for some major changes and developments in the years to come. Further are few products – kits transforming the way electronics education, training and designing was being done …
Analog Discovery® Design Kit
Analog Devices’ Design Tools simplify your design and product selection process through ease of use and by simulating results that are optimized and tested for accuracy. Analog Devices Circuit Design tools are web based or downloadable but always free to use. The Analog Discovery Design Kit lets you build and test analog and digital circuits in virtually any environment, in or out of the lab. The Analog Discovery® design kit is built around Analog Devices’ world class converters (AD9648 14-bit, 105 MSPS ADC and AD9717 14-bit, 125 MSPS DAC), clock generators, operational amplifiers, and power management integrated circuits. Working with design engineers from Analog Devices, Digilent® was able to accommodate the power, performance, and pricing levels without compromising performance or functionality to enable students to use Analog Discovery as part of their introduction to analog circuits and electronics labs. To extend the capabilities of the basic Analog Discovery design kit, Analog Devices and Digilent offers the Analog Parts Kit, which includes more than 200 components (resistors, inductors, capacitors, LEDs, diodes, potentiometers, transistors, etc.) and more than 20 ICs from Analog Devices? This kit supports all the designs included in the educational materials and offers enough component diversity to support thousands of additional designs with its included breadboard. The ADI parts are a mix of traditional op amps, linear regulators, and matched transistors and also include a variety of sensors and transducers to allow students to investigate real-world phenomena, such as tilt and inclination, temperature, magnetic fields, and audio. Other Circuit Design Tools available from ADI are:
Amplifier and Linear Tools
• ADI DiffAmpCalc
• ADIsimPE
• Analog Photodiode Wizard
• Instrumentation Amplifier Diamond Plot Tool –
BETA
• Analog Filter Wizard
Clock and Timing Tools
• ADIsimCLK™
Data Converter Tools
• Virtual Eval – BETA+
• Visual Analog™
Power Management Tools
• ADIsimPE+
• ADIsimPower™ +
RF and Synthesis Tools
• ADIsimPLL™+
• ADIsimRF™
Raspberry Pi B – Best in class design Tool by RS Components
A small, powerful and lightweight ARM based computer. The Raspberry Pi B Computer Board is a step up from the A+ and is ideal for those who wish to learn about programming and computing, or for those ready to create exciting, innovative and ambitious projects. Featuring Ethernet and USB ports, the Raspberry Pi B is perfect for adding functionality to your projects. Few advantages are • It’s low-cost • It’s really easy to use • It’s Linux-based open source, with access to free software and downloads to help you with your project • There’s a great Pi community out there — check out Design Spark, RS’s own design engineer community • It’s flexible to the user. Want to play games? Stream music and/or video? Do your homework? Create a weather station? Create a home security camera? No limits.
Atmel SAME70-XPLD from Element 14
SAME70-XPLD is an evaluation platform providing a full development experience for Atmel’s SAM E70 microcontrollers. The MCU features an ARM Cortex-M7 architecture and integrated floatingpoint unit, making it well-suited for industrial applications including motor control and lighting, as well as consumer and PC peripheral applications. The XPLD ecosystem consists of the microcontroller evaluation board, and a wide range of extension boards which are integrated with Atmel Studio, Atmel Software Framework (ASF) drivers and demo code, support data streaming, and more. Additionally, the SAME70-XPLD evaluation board supports Arduino shields for further expansion. Each extension board has standardized connectors and headers, and includes an Atmel CryptoAuthenticationTM ID chip for unique identification upon connection with an Xplained MCU board. This information is used to present associated user guides, application notes, data sheets, and example code through Atmel Studio, thereby simplifying and enhancing the development experience. All Xplained kits include an on-board Embedded Debugger, and no external tools are necessary to program or debug the target microcontroller.
3D Printing Kits
education in many different areas. The most obvious applications are in the prototyping capabilities useful for Engineering, Medical, Fashion, Architecture and Art students. 3D Printing familiarizes students with advanced digital tools and techniques to visualize and create prototypes. Students enhance their learning with a hands-on experience and video tutorials. 3D Printing is a way to future careers in various fields. Few + points of 3D printing kits can be summarized as, Enhance learning and student brain development, Encourage creativity at SLP stage (student learning phase), Cognitive improvement (such as thinking, understanding, learning and remembering), Learn product design & development, 3d printing technology, software technique, Create a launch pad for the future for your students for an industry that is growing at the rate of 45.7%. Few leading products are, My Stem Kits Launch 3D Printed STEM Educational Product in Jan 2015. The kits include modules like New York Balance – a Lab in a Box kit that allows students to explore the effectiveness of lever arms and build an interactive environment where students can learn about and come to understand complex interactions within simple machines. The My Stem Kits DNA module allows students to examine the structure and composition of DNA, RNA, and proteins, and it’s built out of interlocking ball-joints, featuring flexible nucleic acid and polypeptide models which can be disassembled and reassembled. The module also includes RNA and amino acid model componImage 182ents for hands-on exploration of DNA replication, DNA transcription, and mRNA translation. Another module, Windfarm, is part of the My Stem Kits Math Starter Kit, and it allows for experimentation with turbine blades provided in the kit. That module is aimed at helping students understand the complex relationship between surface area, mass, and turbine efficiency. Another available product in the market is 3D Printing Educational Kit from novabeams. The 3D Printing School / College kit is first of it’s kind in India. 3D Printing is a great way for schools and colleges to really engage their students in the learning process and offer advanced possibilities for a variety of disciplines. Every schools and colleges would need to intagrate 3D printing to prepare next generation for their future careers. RepRapPro and eSun, a 3D filament company based in Shenzhen, China, have recently teamed up to create a 3D printing kit for kids. The open source kit was released during the 3rd Chengdu World 3D Printing Technology Expo this week. The conference was put together to explore the business of additive manufacturing and the future role 3D printing will play in the larger traditional manufacturing world.
