Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival 2021 to teach robotics, programming as well

Sharjah: The social media station at Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival, one of the event’s most popular features, is set to return as the festival gets underway on Wednesday.

The station will host 10 workshops on in-demand digital skills and creativity. Festival organiser Sharjah Book Authority (SBA) is holding the event from Wednesday to May 29 at Expo Centre Sharjah under the theme ‘For Your Imagination’.

The social media-focused creative workshops are among 530-plus activities that will be held in both in-person and online formats, strictly in line with the UAE’s health and safety protocols for COVID-19. From demystifying the world of Internet of Things (IoT), to an introduction to mobile app and SIRI-like voice software development, game coding, and more, these workshops will be led by industry experts and cater to the interests of novices and advanced-level learners alike.

The main workshops include:

3D theme: The workshop is designed to introduce participants to the world of 3D modelling, and will guide them to build popular characters and places, create logos, memes, and more, on an easy software.

Coding with gaming: The workshop will introduce popular open-source visual programming tools such as Tynker and Scratch from MIT Media Labs to teach students programming concepts.

PYTHON: This workshop is suited for basic, intermediate as well as advance-level PYTHON programmers, covering a broad spectrum of PYTHON applications.

App development: A practical insight into how mobile applications are developed, this engaging workshop will guide attendees through all the stages — from conceptualisation to execution. The participants will be eased into learning the basics of app development on the visual programming interface.

Voice software like Siri: The workshop introduces a voice-based interactive system — the same platform on which Siri, the iPhone’s virtual assistant, is built. The voice recognition software participants build will be tested with questions on social media, science, math and other general topics.

Follower robot: This workshop teaches how to build a smart robot from scratch, creating a paper track and programme that the robot will follow.

IoT: Participants will be given a soft introduction to the Internet of Things (IoT) with a focus on its importance in the world of design. A short talk will be followed by a hands-on session to come up with designing and prototyping ideas.

Kid entrepreneurs: In this two-part series, children can with their parents learn how to use social media to the advantage of the users’ natural talents, safely navigating the world of social media while harnessing the skills every successful child entrepreneur needs.

Caricature sketch: This workshop will teach caricature drawing skills, which will include simple portraits of people sketched with a twist.

Sculpture art: From picking the right kind of clay to improving technique, this beginners-level workshop will help get participants, especially children, started with the basic skills they need for sculpting with clay.