Robotics Integrated into High School MATH Instruction

This wall-climbing robot will teach kids to code!

"Can a wall-climbing robot teach your kid to code?

 Last month, a few hand-sized, hexagonal robots took over a third-grade classroom in Southborough, Massachusetts. They climbed a whiteboard and drew all over it while flashing multicolored LEDs and chirping musically.  All the while, they were teaching kids to code.


Meet Root  — a robot being beta-tested by its creators at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. The Wyss team hopes Root will soon roll into the gap between the growing enthusiasm for K-12 computer science and the lack of qualified teachers.  With Root’s help, they claim, any teacher can become a computer

“Root’s job is to celebrate the code you create by bringing it to life,” said Justin Werfel, a senior research scientist at Wyss. Root magnetically clings to whiteboards (most of which are metal-backed) where it acts out programs that students compose on iPads that are wirelessly linked to the robot.
Unlike other educational robots — such as Bee-Bots, Dash & Dot, and Lego Mindstorms — that are geared to a specific age range, Root is meant to span from pre-kindergarten to college. With black sides and a plain white top crossed with LEDs, Root is deliberately un-cuddly and unadorned — a highly functional, sensor-packed box that can draw with a marker inserted in its middle.

Root’s sensors can spot and react to what you’ve drawn on the whiteboard — following a black line, for instance, or stopping at a red one.

The robot can also lift up and put down the marker to draw as it moves.
Level two of Square is also block-based, but it introduces more text and numeric variables for things like movement commands. Level three is text-based, JavaScript code. Students can toggle between the levels to translate their block commands into text code or vice versa..."

Read the full article at its source:

http://hechingerreport.org/can-wall-climbing robot-teach-kid-code/  

Robot that will fold, press and ‘perfume’ your laundry set to invade households in 2018

SEE IT: Robot that will fold, press and ‘perfume’ your laundry set to invade households in 2018

A space-age appliance straight out of “The Jetsons” could lighten the load of the laundry-weary masses.
FoldiMate, a California-based startup is looking to sell a solution to a first world problem for a first world price.


The robot, slated to cost between $700 to $850, has the sole purpose of folding laundry twice as fast as the average human could.


Additionally it is able to “de-wrinkle” pants and dress shirts with steam and it also “perfumes” them as it goes, according to the commercial.


A space-age appliance straight out of “The Jetsons” could lighten the load of the laundry-weary masses.
FoldiMate, a California-based startup is looking to sell a solution to a first world problem for a first world price.

FoldiMate takes ten seconds to fold, steam and perfume your laundry.

Apparently folding laundry is a tedious enough task that the FoldiMate has started to generate interest among those who truly despise basic household chores.
Its commercial on YouTube, posted less than a month ago, has nearly 2 million views and almost 2,000 likes.


According to FoldiMate’s website, more than 65,000 people have registered to be notified when preorders begin.

Read the full article at its source: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/robot-fold-laundry-set-invade-2018-article-1.2664280 

Inspiring! STEM Brilliance in the midst of poverty!

"Genius 12-Year-Old Dominican Boy Makes Robotic Toys Out of Cardboard Boxes

When he was collecting cardboard boxes, Jasuel Rivera’s grandmother thought he was just making a mess. And like any Dominican matriarch she asked him about “ese reguero.” Jasuel, 12, tinkered with the boxes until eventually he was building robotic toys powered by things like syringes.


According to Zona5, Jasuel’s family is not able to buy him the toys he wants, so he took to the Internet and books to learn how to create his own. Now, he has 12, including a functional semi truck, trailer, and other equipment you might find at a construction site that are all made out of recycled materials. “I didn’t have money to buy one, but I saw one like this on the Internet, so I made my own,” he said. “I liked it, so I kept on doing it.”


He has been very influenced by mathematician Blaise Pascal’s law on fluid mechanics, which he can better explain than me. Pascal’s law led him to trying different liquids to power his toys. In the end, he said water was the best choice."


 See the full article at its source: http://remezcla.com/culture/genius-12-year-old-dominican-boy-makes-robotic-toys/   

Project-Based Robotics for Middle School

Nice video this one. I've never had the opportunity to interview this gentleman, but his ideas are very similar to those that are detailed in my book, Getting Started with LEGO Robotics!

Click on book cover for information

Getting Started with LEGO Robotics. Anyone who works with kids can do LEGO Robotics, a rich and highly motivating platform for important STEM Learning! (surprisingly affordable, too) This books explains it all!

Student Robot Sumo - University Students, Middle School Students, whatevah!

Robot Sumo Event Featured in Scientific American, Vice & Ars Technica

Scoring a tech media hat-trick, The Cooper Union's 2016 Robot Sumo event has been featured by Scientific American, Vice and Ars Technica. The annual competition takes place during the End of Year Show opening night. The students of Professor Brian Cusack's mechatronics class must build their own robots that are able to autonomously stay in the ring against their opponents. The winner is usually, “the one that malfunctions the least," Prof. Cusack is quoted as saying.

 http://cooper.edu/engineering/news/robot-sumo-event-featured-scientific-american-vice  




Middle Schoolers use LEGO Robotics Materials!