KUCHING, March 15: Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA) | Sarikei Innovation Center (S.i.C) organised an information technology (IT) course on programming languages recently for youths in Sarikei.
SMA-S.i.C in a statement, said the programme called “Youth Maker’s Hack” has enabled youth to familiarise themselves with Arduino, a mini computer with the size of a credit card, to learn physical computing and programming language.
“Coding is becoming an essential skill in the modern era especially for students who wants to thrive in the 21st century digital age. Coding can help students and youth to pursue their interest and open up opportunities in their future career.
“Physical computing involved building interactive physical systems with the use of software and hardware that can sense and respond to the world around us,” SMA-S.i.C revealed.
It added that students learn about coding and embedded system by completing a series of projects that exposed them to various science phenomena such as the science of colour, electrical conductivity, human heartbeat and lever system.
Participants got to experiment with various sensors such as ultrasonic, tilt, light dependent resistor (LDR) and actuators for instance servo motor, speaker and light emitting diode (LED), it continued.
“The embedded system used is Arduino and the programming language is mBlock, a variant of Scratch,” SMA-S.i.C added.
The agency added that people are currently spending more time on mobile apps. Mobile apps are computer programmes designed to run on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers.
SMA-S.i.C revealed mobile devices come with a wide range of sensors such as global positioning system (GPS), touch screen, accelerometer and camera, enabling students to apply computer programming to access those sensors and in turn design creative and useful applications.
It added that the course, as part of the school holiday programme, have attracted a good mix of youths from Sibu Vocational College, SMK St Anthony, SMK Sarikei Baru, SMK Bandar Bintangor, SK Methodist, SK St Anne and others. — DayakDaily
