Need help implementing Bitcoin project at kids’ high school
I want to implement a Bitcoin project similar to the one at MIT (
http://bitcoin.mit.edu/announcing-the-mit-bitcoin-project/) at my kids’ high school. I don’t plan on doing it at the same scale as MIT, but think introducing Bitcoin to kids at this age is a huge benefit to them. In a nutshell, MIT is giving $100 worth of Bitcoin to every undergrad—no strings. I emailed them for details of their program and they are still working-out the details and could offer no immediate help.
So, my plan was for the Math teacher to offer this as extra credit for any student that wants to do so. There are about 60 kids in the 10th grade (including both of my kids). I was thinking of starting them with $5 worth of Bitcoin (about 0.0092 9938 BTC @ $537.16; or 9,299 bits, or 929, 938 Satoshi).
I am looking for suggestions for implementation. Specifically:
1) Funding. It’s only about $300 (less than 1 BTC), but budgetary issues prevent me or the school funding it. I was thinking about asking for donations, but getting donations from parents for something they totally do not understand is almost impossible. Should I a) hit-up some Bitcoin millionaire for a single BTC, or b) approach local businesses for generic “school donations”, or c) some other approach?
2) Funding logistics. Let’s say I get the $300 to fund, should I use Coinbase.com to purchase the coins? In my personal Bitcoin venturing, I avoided Coinbase as well as any other centralized, controlled, on-line Bitcoin services. My 0.0799 0421 BTC I have now, I bought from a friend, not any service.
3) Wallets. The students will have both Android and IOS phones, so, should I recommend one wallet for each or let them choose? I am thinking that since this is supposed to be a learning exercise, it would be easier if we told them which wallet to use. I was thinking of Bread Wallet for IOS and Andreas Schildbach’s Bitcoin Wallet for Android. Since we’re dealing with very small amounts and we want to encourage the kids to buy, sell, trade with each other, I figured we would not push desktop wallets at this point.
4) Distribution. My thinking was that once the kids have their wallets set-up, they will email the teacher with their student ID and public key and we would then do a direct transfer at that point. Another option includes printing 60 paper wallets pre-loaded with 9,299 bits that they could sweep, but I am concerned about tracking distribution and preventing kids from getting more than one, etc. I also could see the kids just trading the paper wallets instead of actually using the e-wallets. The other issue with the teacher (or me) doing it at night once we receive an email and public key, is that I wanted the kids to see the immediate transfer from our wallet to theirs. There is just something about hitting “send” and hearing that little ching-ching in your wallet that makes a better impression.
I am open to suggestions on all of the above points. I am also planning on documenting this as well as I can in hopes that other schools can use it as a guide to implementing similar programs there.
Thank you!