PRESS RELEASE: BirdBrain
Technologies’ Hummingbird Robotics Kit Wins a Learning® Magazine 2015
Teachers’ ChoiceSM Award for the Classroom
Panel of
classroom teachers chose electronics kit based on its quality, instructional
value, ease of use and innovation
Pittsburgh, PA, September 15, 2014
— BirdBrain Technologies’ Hummingbird Robotics Kit was named a
winner of Learning® Magazine’s 2015 Teachers’ ChoiceSM Award for the Classroom, one of the
most recognized and prestigious awards in the educational market. The
electronics kit was chosen by a panel of teachers from across the country as one
of only 37 winners based on its quality, instructional value, ease of use, and
innovation.
“The Hummingbird Robotics Kit provides
students of all ages with an engaging, hands-on way to learn about key STEM
concepts, from robotics to programming to electronics, and more,” said Tom
Lauwers, founder of BirdBrain Technologies and co-creator of the Hummingbird
Robotics Kit. “This award further reinforces the impact our kits have in the
classroom and is a particularly great honor since we were evaluated and chosen
by actual classroom teachers.”
The Hummingbird
Robotics Kit is a spin-off product of Carnegie Mellon's CREATE lab. The
kit is designed to introduce engineering and robotics activities to upper
elementary students, while at the same time providing more complex robotics
design opportunities to older students, through an innovative, arts and
crafts-based approach. Students use the kit to make robots, kinetic sculptures,
and animatronics built out of a combination of kit parts and crafting materials.
Students can use the kits with intuitive software programs such as Scratch,
Snap!,
and the CREATE
Lab Visual Programmer – or more advanced programming such as
Python, Java,
and Processing
– to bring the construction materials to life.
“The Hummingbird Robotics Kit enables
endless ways to integrate STEM innovations through creativity and
inventiveness,” said Stephanie Cotsifas, STEM learning specialist at Institute
on Teaching through Technology and Innovation Practice (ITTIP), who uses the
kits with her students. “The age range and project ideas are endless with the
different ways you can program the microcontroller. It is a great way to get
students creating and designing.”
Building off the success of the
Hummingbird Robotics Kit, BirdBrain Technologies will be launching the
Hummingbird Duo later this year. This second-generation kit will include the
addition of tether-less operation, Arduino mode, and more.
No comments:
Post a Comment