"We ended up doing more pedagogy than engineering by uniting these two worlds"

RICARDO BONACHE, 33 years old

Doctor in Electronic Engineering URV

CETIT member

How do you get into robotics?

I got involved in this type of project through the foundation of the robotic association URV exebot. I was not one of the founders but from the first day I was collaborating. As a result, we detected the need for young people to know about technology. There was a certain distance between science and robotics and society. We saw that the world of science and technology was not being reached.

Initially we created the company Dynamind to bring robotics to the youngest and change the paradigm and way of educating in projects. We go beyond a way of teaching that goes from a formal and regulated month to a more collaborative one. In our case, the teacher is a mentor and the child is the one who develops his abilities. Teacher guides for the student to learn rooted in these projects.

How do you do it?

Following the theme of the association and Dynamind and programming extracurricular activities, we won the Tarragona City Council Entrepreneurship Award. From here the activities were well received especially the second year we went to more than 70 schools in the territory always approaching robotics as an extracurricular.

From here we take a step forward and from doing robotics activities we go on to program and create curricular activities and content generation, books, PETs and courses for families and with our own academy both in Tarragona and throughout Spain. We have been growing and now we train all over Spain from A Coruña, Madrid, the Basque Country.

Has your passion become your profession?

We end up doing more pedagogy than engineering. We actively collaborate with schools. We take engineering for the youngest in its pedagogical use. We have united the world of engineering in pedagogy. Right now I am combining this job with another, which has more to do with engineering but I also do it out of passion.

What innovation do you have to do in your company? .

We have a long way to go on training platforms in teachers and schools. We want teachers not to be afraid of tools but to see them as a company. Sometimes there is the fear of incorporating technology that is sometimes unknown. We tell teachers that technology in teaching comes to help you is not an enemy. So far there has been no disruption and we are trying to break this concept. Use it in many ways.

We also do pedagogy for families and we do programs that have resulted a lot in educating families. We created the first robotics course where you have your own robot. The video call goes a long way because it’s a barrier and that’s why we wanted to break that wall. That’s why we send a robot to the child, program it, see it, touch it and understand what’s going on. We break down the barrier and do online training. Help families break down the extracurricular and academy barrier with a recorded class you can connect to whenever you want.

We have also created the Esteamedu.es brand to differentiate the activities we offer after school and those that are educational. Our goal is to create an educational community and bring together under one umbrella and share ideas. Lately we offer training in the schools. Teacher training recognized by the Department of Education of the Generalitat compatible training. The next ones will take place from 5 to 9 July and from 12 to 16 July. It will be an educational robotics training course for teachers.

(Article and writing David Ortega)