Maré boy dreams of building agricultural robots – 12/04/2023 – Education

The game is simple: to win you have to click on the bullets that fly in front of a school. On the screen, a child is lying on the ground to protect himself from the gunshots. She says that she has already spent more than five hours hiding in the classroom waiting for the end of police operations.

Although the script seems like an action game, it is actually the real story of its creator, a seven-year-old boy living in Complexo da Maré, in the north of Rio de Janeiro.

Adriano Álvaro de Melo played his first game this year in an online course at the American university Harvard. In English, which he learned on his own using an app, he tells the story of Super Alvinho, a super scientist.

“Now I can use my superpowers to learn more. I want to build agricultural robots and do research to improve food production and distribution in the world”, says Super Alvinho in the game.

Álvaro was assessed with AH/SD (high abilities/giftedness) during the pandemic. He was just four years old and was starting to read and write using the GraphoGame application, from the Ministry of Education, recommended for children in the 1st and 2nd year of primary school.

“About 15 days after installing the app, he was already reading and differentiating between uppercase and lowercase letters. He said that the doll had taught him”, says Priscila de Melo, Álvaro’s mother.

The Harvard course is free, but the certificate of completion costs US$299 (around R$1,500 in current conversion, not including fees). Unable to afford the expense, the boy obtained a scholarship through the university’s assistance program, aimed at low-income students.

To do this, he had to answer in English what his financial situation was and how he would benefit from the course within his life goals — a complex question for his age.

Lasting three weeks, the classes were all in English and taught how to make games and animations using Scratch, a programming language in which code is written using graphic blocks, which are fitted together like a puzzle.

The course does not require a specific age, but Scratch is recommended for those over eight years old. In addition to learning this language, the course teaches the fundamentals of Java and Python, which are more complex languages, and serves as a gateway to the world of programming.

Interest in agriculture

Since discovering his high abilities, Álvaro began studying programming, English, chess, robotics and agriculture. Despite his young age, he already has certificates in six Sebrae agricultural courses, including a 32-hour one on “young entrepreneurs in the countryside”.

According to Priscila, the interest arose when visiting her family in Santana do Manhuaçu, a city in Minas Gerais with just under 9,000 inhabitants and which is 300 km from Belo Horizonte.

Álvaro’s story was discovered by the Maré de Notícias portal, about the routine of the group of favelas in the north of Rio. The region is a frequent target of police actions and clashes with criminals, which disrupt the functioning of schools and interrupt classes. The scene described by Álvaro in the game is not just a fruit of his imagination, but the reality experienced in the community.

Another obstacle to teaching, according to his mother, is the lack of services for those with AH/DS. The school and daycare center attended by the boy did not have adequate supplementation for Álvaro, who ended up developing stress.

According to her, the Municipal Department of Education even advised the boy to be transferred to a technological gymnasium and taken to a special education center in the city hall. In none of these places, says his mother, did Álvaro get the care he wanted.

“They told me that no school is complete, there will always be something missing”, says Priscila.

The mother decided to take her son out of the public network until she found a new solution. Since July, the boy has been out of school — which, at his age, is prohibited by law.

Today, he goes to Bible school three times a week in the evenings and takes part in a chess project for children. This year, Álvaro enrolled in a private English course. During the day, without having the routine of formal education, he studies on his laptop at home.