MOREbot: A 3D-printed robot ecosystem that grows with its young users

Just ran across this one... LOVE the concept!

MOREbot: A 3D-printed robot ecosystem that grows with you...
MOREbot is a platform for the next generation of innovators to bring their ideas to life

Read the full informational piece at its source:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/morebot/morebot-a-3d-printed-robot-ecosystem-that-grows-wi

NY Yankees are Fans of this Inner City Student Robotics Team!

In my in box this morning... congratulations, 2 Train Robotics! (Morris High School Team/Bronx, NYC)

Ohbot - Too Cool for School, exactly where it belongs to inspirie next-level, Student Robotics-based Learning!

News from 2 Train Robotics, One of the nation's most exciting and accomplished student robotics teams!

This in my In Box this morning form 2Train, one of the nation's most accomplished and exciting student robotics teams. I love to hear from them and would love to hear from other teams, as well!

Mark 

Dear Friends,

After six weeks of building our 2019 robot (the 20th different robot over 20 years) the students and robot are ready to compete this week at the Central New York FIRST Robotics Regional in Utica NY on March 13-16. Next month the team will compete in the NYC FIRST Regional April 5-7.

I hope you will attend the May 4th, 20th Anniversary Robotics Celebration Luncheon hosted by Columbia University. You still have time to take out an ad in this historic year's journal.

For more information about the journal, and the 20th Anniversary Celebration Luncheon call Gary Israel 845-893-0327 or email Gary.G.Israel@gmail.com.

Students in Columbia Lab working on this year's robot.

Central New York Regional March 13 to March 16, 2019 SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Utica, NY New York City Regional April 4 to April 7, 2019 Armory Track in New York, NY

About Us

We are a FIRST® Robotics Competition team based at Columbia University and comprised of students from both Morris High School Campus in Morrisania and Columbia Secondary School in Harlem. Team 395 provides students with opportunities to pursue their goals in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This is made possible by our dedicated mentors and amazing sponsors. We want to build a community here at 2Train, we want you to be involved for the ride. You can contact us using any of the following clickable’s below.

Instagram Facebook Twitter Youtube Official Website 

Sphero’s first-ever robotics challenge

From my In Box, this morning... looks like a very nice addition to the Student Robotics World! I recommend you click on the items below and check these out!!!

Mark

The Robots Are Coming, But It’s Going to Take People...

from EdTech Digest...
https://edtechdigest.com/2019/02/28/the-robots-are-coming-but-its-going-to-take-people-to-run-them/

The Robots Are Coming, But It’s Going to Take People to Run Them

by Victor Rivero

How will we do it? Student competitions will fuel the autonomous robotics workforce.

GUEST COLUMN | by Sebastian Castro

Autonomous industrial robots are the way of the future. The International Federation of Robotics expects the number of industrial robots deployed worldwide to increase to around 2.6 million by 2019—about one million units more than in the record-breaking year of 2015.

In the face of such growth, the stationary industrial robots of today will eventually be replaced by more versatile mobile manipulation systems – that is, robots that are able to grasp objects as well as move around an industrial space

It can be challenging for industry to dedicate the resources required to support the research and development of emerging technologies that enable full autonomy.

Student competitions, such as RoboCupIndustrial, are offering a solution by accelerating research and development of autonomous industrial robots with technologies like motion planning, computer vision, and machine learning.

The competition, with support from corporate sponsors, provides a test center for students to gain experience with real-world hardware and software design tools as they build their autonomous industrial robots.

The insights the participants’ research uncovers can then be leveraged by industry and help further the development of a commercially available autonomous workforce.

Accelerating Research and Development of Emerging Technologies

In the RoboCupIndustrial competition, students design autonomous robots that can perceive their environment and provide increased input and output with superhuman consistency while accomplishing more diverse tasks—tasks the prior generation of stationary robots could not accomplish.

Student teams in RoboCupIndustrial are typically supported by research labs or companies, and their competition work has the potential of becoming trendsetting technology that can influence how commercial products are designed.

The students are at the forefront of integrating emerging technologies such as deep learning and reinforcement learning into their designs, enabling the robots to “learn” on the job. Two competitions under the RoboCupIndustrial umbrella, RoboCup@Work and RoboCup Logistics League, illustrate how student competitors are driving the research and development of a potentially fully autonomous workforce by designing intelligent robots.

During RoboCup@Work, students design robots that can navigate their environment and perform tasks that mimic an actual assembly or factory process. These fully mobile robots can manipulate objects and perform complicated functions like transporting materials, picking materials off conveyor belts, and handling precision parts placement.

RoboCup Logistics League challenges competitors to synchronize multiple autonomous robots by enabling them to communicate with each other and choreograph tasks to achieve common goals like packing boxes or processing orders.

Industry and Competition Collaboration

Because industry benefits from these competitions, companies are increasingly providing students with support to accelerate their research efforts. RoboCupIndustrial sponsors, such as MathWorks, provide students with real-world hardware and software tools, like MATLAB, and technical expertise, which helps simplify complex concepts and limits the amount of time spent on basic coding. Access to such tools also allows competition teams to spend more time implementing their algorithms and writing papers or developing new approaches to robotics design.

Companies benefit by receiving feedback on their tools and getting insights into how students use them in their robot designs. These insights can be leveraged across the company, shared with other research organizations, and incorporated into their product development workflows.

The collaboration between student competitions and industry is driving the research of commercially viable, fully autonomous industrial robots. Student teams and the insights they provide to sponsoring companies further robotics product development efforts and move us closer to robots that provide practical commercial applications. Such partnerships are opening a path to a more fully autonomous robotics future.

—

Sebastian Castro is a multidisciplinary robotics engineer with a passion for education and lifelong learning. He is an education evangelist at MathWorks, preparing and supporting next generation scientists and engineers with software, training, and mentoring to tackle the same technical issues as professional engineers. His interests include modeling and simulation, control systems, computer vision, AI, and software development. Contact him through LinkedIn.