iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

Interested in integrating coding and robotics in your classroom instruction and don’t know where to begin? Thousands of educators are taking the leap and bringing STEAM and 21st century skills to young learners. Whether it’s the fundamental problem solving and self-expression of coding activities or the high student engagement and collaborative nature of robotics lessons, there are many benefits to weaving these technologies into ELA, math, science, social studies, and beyond. But without time and resources, how can you get started today?

In this edWebinar, a technology integrationist and an instructional technology specialist who began with no experience in coding and robotics shows you why they fell in love with coding and robotics, their lessons learned, and best practices for making a program work for you and your students. Hear their personal stories, discover relevant resources, and walk away with activities and lessons you can implement on your own. This recorded edWebinar will be of interest to teachers, librarians, school and district leaders, technology integrationists, technology coaches, STEM/STEAM lab teachers, and makerspace teachers at all levels.

This year we celebrated an Hour of Code (other posts from previous years can be found here and here)with an Interhouse Robotics Competition. Our Coding & Robotics Leader introduced the event and asked all the girls to dance to Code.org Dance Party Challenge as a warm up!

Robotics is an emerging educational field with unlimited potential for engaging students and teaching them the most important skills they need to know. Skills like coding, problem solving, and creativity are the foundation for 21st century success and it takes innovative educators and a line of useful tools to help today’s students develop these essential abilities. Thankfully, robotics-based instruction can start early with beginner-level bots designed for kids as young as Pre-K. As they grow older, more skilled, and more confident, the robots evolve with them until they’re programming humanoids to walk, talk, and interact with them by the time they reach high school. To build Future Ready students, start early and introduce them to new robots often!

Computer vision — a machine’s ability to “see” objects or images and understand something about them — can already help you unlock your fancy new iPhone just by looking at it. The thing is, it has to have seen that information before to know what it’s looking at.

Now, researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have developed a computer vision system that can identify objects it has never seen before. Not to mention it’s an important step towards getting robots to move and think the way humans do.

Robotics continue to fascinate, inspire, and sometimes terrify us. These five robot and automation stories show just how diverse the industry -- and human creativity -- can be. Within one video, these five smaller stories explain just how different robotics are. 

The compilation comes from Great Big Story. The first video details the difference between robots and automatons, according to Swiss automaton maker Francois Junod. 

A robotic hand? Four autonomous fingers and a thumb that can do anything your own flesh and blood can do? That is still the stuff of fantasy.

But inside the world’s top artificial intelligence labs, researchers are getting closer to creating robotic hands that can mimic the real thing.

Andy Yung has been teaching Pre-K in New York City for the past six years, and he works thoughtfully to incorporate technology into his instruction in a developmentally appropriate way. “When you think of tech in the classroom, everyone thinks of iPads and SMART boards,” he says. “But with younger ages, they’re often too exposed to screens, so I had to figure out how tech would look different in a Pre-K classroom.”

The verdict: a Roomba.

It turns out the disc-shaped vacuum cleaner, which uses sensors to autonomously zip around homes is also a great tool to teach students about robotics and empathy.

Adoption of drones and robotics will more than double in the next three years. Drones will outpace the larger and more mature robotics category, but both will grow by solid double digits year-over-year for the next three years.

According to the new report from IDC, combined worldwide spending on drones and robotics totaled $84.44 billion in 2017. That figure will jump to $103.1 billion in 2018. By 2021, spending will reach $218.4 billion — a three-year compound annual growth rate of 25.4 percent.

Samantha Sedran and Katrina Usmar are the only girls’ team among 10 boys’ teams but they are trying various approaches to get other girls to join them in the field

Coding and programming are the same thing. As a proponent of high-quality educational experiences, I recommend programming and robotics as incubators of powerful ideas.

When you hear the word “robot” what comes to mind? Probably a metal, humanoid machine—something like C-3PO from Star Wars, Rosie the Robot Maid from The Jetsons, or perhaps one of the menacing Terminator robots.

At a Harvard University lab, I saw some surprising inventions that challenge our popular images of robots. One robot I wore like a glove. Another you could pull on like a pair of pants. Some robots had spongy arms that could pick up the most delicate objects. And others were so tiny and light they could take to the air on paper-thin wings, like insects.

These incredible creations are powerful examples of the exciting innovation underway in the field of robotics. They were also a reminder that while science fiction writers may lead us to fear a future of Terminator-style robots, robotics discoveries have far greater potential to improve our lives. They could offer physical support and assistance, help with search and rescue efforts, and meet medical and other technological challenges.

Look back on the biggest moments in robotics in 2018, from the continued ascendance of SpotMini to the rapid rise and fall of the home robot.

"What do you do with a $2,900 robot dog?

Sony's Aibo won't help wake you up out of bed when it detects daylight. It won't use its internet connection to deliver the morning news report or use its cameras to watch for intruders. Voice commands won't cue up playlists or set reminders or even fetch a pair of slippers on Amazon.

This one-of-a-kind robotic pet doesn't act like other smart-home gadgets. Packed with sensors, cameras and a wagging tail, it instead will trot around your home programmed for just one mission: companionship."

A robot at Georgia Tech has taught itself to slide a hospital gown onto a human. The robot uses the sense of feel rather than vision to complete the task.

A few years ago, toward the beginning of my journey into robotics, I mentored a team for a local competition. We were on our way to building a Tetrix Prime robot from a kit, when the unimaginable happened—our team’s laptops went missing—and with them, all of our code and design work. While we were no longer able to compete in the local competition, this blow to our team was but a temporary setback.

Shortly after a student on the team came to me asked, “Can we build some real robots? Ones that aren’t toys?” We were building real robots, but I realized they were looking for something a little more practical and relevant to their experience at school, so I asked what they needed help with. That’s when one of the girls piped up. “Can we build a robot that can go outside in the rain and take care of our chickens?” she asked. “I don’t like getting wet!”

Erica is 23. She has a beautiful, neutral face and speaks with a synthesised voice. She has a degree of autonomy – but can’t move her hands yet. Hiroshi Ishiguro is her ‘father’ and the bad boy of Japanese robotics. Together they will redefine what it means to be human and reveal that the future is closer than we might think.

From smart phones to self-driving cars, our world is filled with technology. But students and educators alike can still be intimidated about where to start with robotics. Here are four tips that helped me navigate the world of robotics as a student, and now as an educator!

Through a glass case in a new restaurant in San Francisco, I’m watching the chef make lunch. That chef is a Rube Goldberg-like machine, slicing buns, adding condiments, grilling meat, and spitting out a fully prepared hamburger–all without any human intervention. A row of brioche buns moves to the right, dropping one bun down a slot where a tiny saw slices it in half. The machine adds a little clarified butter, toasts the bun, and drops it in a box on a conveyor belt, where the machine squirts a precise amount of each sauce for the order, slices tomatoes and onions in real time, grates cheese, and grinds beef to order before cooking the patty. In five minutes, your meal emerges. I’m a vegetarian, but the meat-eating colleague I brought with me declares that the burger is very, very good.

"Every year, Time magazine gets swamped with pitches from thousands of companies, all convinced their product deserves to be included in Time’s “25 Best Inventions” list. This past December, the magazine reserved its cover for a Pixar-like, 11-inch armless robot named Jibo.

Jibo — a so-called “social robot” — is just the latest example of a clear phenomenon: A new generation of exponentially more intelligent and capable robots is on the way. In fact, they’re already everywhere we look: over our heads, in our cars and operating rooms, next to us on the assembly lines, in our military, and on the last mile.

And the prospect of exponentially more robots, crunching exponentially more data, necessitates not just a lot more computing power but also an entirely new product architecture."

"Georgia Tech is developing a robot that could eventually be used to dress humans in hospitals and elderly homes. According to the university, 'More than 1 million Americans require daily physical assistance to get dressed because of injury, disease and advanced age.

To address this problem researchers are developing a robot that can successfully slide on hospital gowns on people’s arms. The machine uses its understanding of force to guide the cloth over the patient's hands, around their arms, and onto the shoulder."

In today’s’ technology-driven world, it’s important now more than ever to prepare students for the future. Teaching robotics to young students throughout their schooling can increase their ability to be creative and innovative thinkers and more productive members of society. Many governments have already recognized the importance of robotics in the classroom and have begun to create programs and laws that would incorporate it into their public education system. By teaching our students the basics of robotics, we can open a whole new world to them and exciting opportunities that they wouldn’t have access to otherwise.