Kitronik
| Private, Limited | |
| ISIN | 🆔 |
| Industry | Electronics |
| Founded 📆 | 22 October 2005.[1] |
| Founders 👔 | Geoff Hampson, Kevin Spurr |
| Headquarters 🏙️ | Nottingham, UK |
Area served 🗺️ | |
| Products 📟 | electronic kits materials tools e-textiles test equipment |
| Members | |
Number of employees | 27 |
| 🌐 Website | https://www.kitronik.co.uk/ |
| 📇 Address | |
| 📞 telephone | |
Kitronik is a designer, manufacturer and supplier of educational electronic kits, based in Nottingham, England. The kits support design and technology teaching and learning in schools. The company also sells materials, tools, test equipment and e-textiles products. The company was one of the 29 partners in the BBC Micro Bit project.[2]
History[edit]
Founding[edit]
Kitronik was founded in 2005[1] by Geoff Hampson and Kevin Spurr. After graduating from Loughborough University in the field of Electronic Engineering they set out to fill a void in the resources available for those just starting out with Electronics.
Early History[edit]
The idea for the company came from Geoff Hampson's work with Scouts' technology camps.[3] From 2002 he began designing kits for the scouts and some of these kits later became Kitronik products.
In early December of 2005 the first website was created [4], the first kits were designed and bagged and teaching notes were written for each of the kits. The first Kitronik catalogue was sent to 1000 of the largest UK schools with a xylophone kit with teaching notes.
On 14th December 2005 the first order was received and the very first sale was dispatched to a School in Lancashire.
Recent History[edit]
Kitronik have extended their range of educational kits for the micro:bit with a robotics kit, the :MOVE mini buggy[5], an RGB LED ring, the :ZIP Halo[6] and the :GAME Zip 64[7]
In collaboration with Lorraine Underwood, they have developed lesson plans for teachers aimed at KS3 (ages 11-14) as part of their "Kitronik University".
Product Range[edit]
The company stocks a range of electronic project kits, components, tools and test equipment, a wide range of materials and also e-textiles products including conductive thread.
Kitronik are also one of a small number of official BBC micro:bit re-sellers.[8]
The BBC micro:bit Partnership[edit]
In 2012 the BBC, recognising the growing tech skills gap in the UK, aimed to develop a technology that they would give away free to one million British school children that would encourage them to write code and build things rather than just be consumers of media and thus attempt to bridge the recognised skills gap.[9]. The BBC gathered together a group of 29 partners[2], including Kitronik[10], to produce the micro:bit.
Kitronik's Role[edit]
Kitronik developed teaching and learning resources for schools and also gave away 5,500 e-textile sewing kits to Design and Technology teachers to highlight how the BBC micro:bit can be used to control wearable electronics.[2] Kitronik also developed supporting electronics and kits [11] , such as a motor driver board and Inventors kit [12] , designed to facilitate students learning how to build and control electronic circuits with code. After the roll out to British school children the BBC micro:bit was made available to the general public to buy [13], the BBC put together a group of official re-sellers, which includes Kitronik, to facilitate this.[8]
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 http://www.endole.co.uk/company/05602752/kitronik-limited
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 https://www.microbit.co.uk/partners
- ↑ Rebecca (28 July 2015). "Kitting pupils out for learning". Nottingham Post.
- ↑ Kitronik on wayback, 2016-11-30, archived from the original on 2006-11-29
- ↑ Williams, Alun (27 Jun 2017). "MOVE Mini Buggy moves the micro:bit towards robotics". Electronics Weekly.
- ↑ Williams, Alun (12 Oct 2017). "The ZIP Halo addresses full colour LEDs for micro:bit projects". Electronics Weekly.
- ↑ Hanson, Matt (22 Jan 2018). "Build and code a retro handheld games console with this BBC Micro Bit add-on". Tech Radar.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 http://microbit.org/resellers/
- ↑ Anthony, Sebastian (7 July 2015). "BBC Micro:bit—a free single-board PC for every Year 7 kid in the UK". arstechnica.uk.
- ↑ Franklin-Wallis, Oliver (7 July 2015). "Kitronik Inventor Kit extends BBC Micro:bit". Wired.
- ↑ "Kitronik Launch Innovative Range of BBC micro:bit Compatible Products". ICT for Education. 1 Jan 2016.
- ↑ Williams, Alun (8 July 2015). "Kitronik Inventor Kit extends BBC Micro:bit". Electronics weekly.
- ↑ DarrenAllan (31 May 2015). "Now anybody can bag themselves a BBC Micro Bit". techradar.
External links[edit]
This article "Kitronik" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Kitronik. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
