Designing Arduino electronic shields: Experiences from secondary and university courses

In recent years, microcontroller open-platforms and visual programming languages have gained a lot of attention. Low-cost, ease of use and wide availability have opened a new door to democratize electronics. On top of that, Bring Your Own Device (BOYD) policies adopted at different learning stages allow the use of laptops or tablets together with those tools at home or in the classroom, enabling new possibilities in education. This work presents recent activities in this sense, creating electronic hardware for Arduino boards (Arduino shields) and visual software (Visual Basic and Scratch) for educational purposes at different levels. In particular, two experiences will be detailed.