A Simple Robot Dance

A simple but cool robot dance video from last years International Robotic's Olympiad.  

MEDIA ALERT!

DENVER – The Colorado Convention Center will play host to the prestigious International Robot Olympiad (IRO) in December, 2013, marking the first time in the IRO’s 15-year history that it will be held in North America.

The IRO is an annual competition of the world’s top robotics students, with over 1,000 students from around the world participating. It is unique among robotics competitions, focusing as much on creativity and artistry as on technical skills. The marquee event, Robot Dance, has a universal appeal that cuts across social, cultural and academic boundaries.

Students at the IRO compete in over a dozen different competitions, Olympiad style, during the four-day event that also includes a variety of cultural activities and an educational symposium featuring world-renowned guest speakers.

The successful Denver bid was sponsored by Ameribotics, a local non-profit organization committed to whole-person development through robotics, in partnership with VisitDenver, and supported by Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper and U.S. Senator Michael Bennet.

"I believe Robot Dance is going to revolutionize the way we think about education," Ameribotics Executive Director Randy Menzer said, "The skill set it takes to make a robot tell a story, and then program it to express that 'story' in dance form, is truly like an intellectual 'Super Food'."

Headquartered in Colorado, Ameribotics is working to create a variety of opportunities for educators and students that introduce them to robotics. Ameribotics camps and competitions work to engage children (and adults) in real-life, project-based, hands-on problem-solving exercises, at the same time blending art and science and promoting both left-brained (logical) and right-brained (conceptual) development.

A Robot that Flies like a Bird

It's a bird, it's a plain, NO IT'S A ROBOT! This is like the Wright brothers 2.0 and a toy I definitely want for Christmas this year. I think we can finally say that world robotics are officially "taking flight".

Robotics a tool for creation for Highlands Ranch STEM facilitator

To read a short and sweet article written by the Denver Post.com  about our recent Super Camp, please click this LINK.

Robot Landing on Mars

If you didn't think robots were cool before this video, you will undoubtedly after it! Hard to imagine we have such things going on in robotics as we speak and even harder to imagine how much more the future holds for the advancement of robotics.

Robots Fighting

This is more for a laugh than anything else, but I figured I would put up a slightly different side to robot competitions.  I remember when this used to be a big deal and you could watch these "battles" on ESPN and the like. It is somewhat inane watching robots destroy each other but it is neat to see the ingenuity of some of the contestants and how serious the guy looks when he loses his little warrior. The more I look for videos with robots dancing or fighting like this one, it makes me wonder more and more just how much could we accomplish with robotics?

One Classroom, Many Minds; A Paddle for the Mainstream

 

''Some students have needs that are simply too far from the norm to meet adequately in regular classrooms,''        This quote in a way sums up this 'New York Times' post about differentiated instruction in todays schools.  This fairly lengthy article goes through the pros and cons of this teaching ideology and may by the end give you a slightly different opinion of how today's children should be taught.

By Fran Schumer

Published: November 9, 2003

Montclair, N.J.— SOME fourth graders at the Rand School read at second-grade level; some have already finished ''Lord of the Rings.'' So Cheryl Caggiano organizes her class into clusters based on proficiency, each with a different book and assignment. At any given time, four things are going on at once in Ms. Caggiano's classroom.
Students who struggle with comprehension might be working on questions about their book, while others do an activity that helps them analyze characters and themes. One group might be drilling vocabulary, while another practices sentence structure. In social studies and science, Ms. Caggiano likes to ''mix it up.'' She may put a strong reader with a poor one ''so they can teach each other,'' or put students who think abstractly with ones who only get the point if they actually see it.
If this sounds like a lot of work for the teacher, it is. ''It's crazy, insane, and I don't get paid enough,'' Ms. Caggiano says. Still, she prefers this approach. ''When you teach the same lesson to the whole class, you'll see it in their faces: some kids are completely lost, others are bored,'' she says. ''This way I know the students better, and they're more involved in the process, too.''
Ms. Caggiano is a practitioner of differentiated instruction, a method of teaching students of different abilities in a single classroom. The approach was popularized in the late 1990's by Carol Ann Tomlinson, a professor of education at the University of Virginia. Dr. Tomlinson did not invent the concept, or even coin the phrase, but she laid out a how-to strategy for the ''inclusive'' classroom in her book ''Differentiated Classroom,'' which many regard as the bible of differentiation. Instead of ''What am I supposed to teach now?'' the differentiated teacher asks, ''What does this student need to learn next and what is the most effective way for me to teach it?'' To answer those questions, Dr. Tomlinson adapted a number of progressive strategies already in use, including group learning, peer collaboration and teaching to different learning styles.
Given the increasing number of learning-disabled students and children who speak English as a second language who show up in the same class with gifted students, it's not surprising that the idea has become so pervasive.  Click HERE for the rest of the article

Sony Promotional Dancing Robot

Here's another dancing robot video that I've been able to find while browing the interweb.  Looks like it's a promotion for the Sony Android somewhere in Japan most likely. Neat what kind of moves this sumo wrestler like robot can pull off!  I wonder why we don't see more of these robots as promotions, I wish we did, it would make me interested in buying the product for sure.

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

If you have 20 minutes to spare, I can't recommend this video highly enough.  Sir Ken Robinson is an expert in the education of youth and funny to boot.

What do you think about the notion that we need to re-think education and emphasize arts and humanities at the potential expense of math and science?  Sounds like a good idea to us at Ameribotics!

Google and Robots

I'm one who likes to believe that the Information Technology revolution is running out of steam, and that our best and brightest minds of the near future will turn their attention to Transportation Technologies (flying cars, or even a car that gets 100MPH?), Eco-Technologies (a battery that can make solar power a viable alternative for comprehensive energy needs?) or Household Technologies (a robot like they dreamed about in the '50's that can take care of basic household needs -- especially for the elderly?).

And it seems like I'm ALWAYS wrong.

As the IT revolution rolls on, Google is working on developing robots that can perceive, understand, share and react to their environments.

My question:  Do we REALLY need this more than we need cars with better fuel efficiency?  Or, perhaps tools like this one discussed by ZDNET are a portal to technologies that can better address our basic needs? 

What do you think?

Dancing Robots

Here is another Robot dance competiton much like one I posted a few weeks ago. These videos are really interesting to me for how they get robots to do all these different moves in time to the music. The green guy with the crazy hair makes me laugh everytime I watch this!

Students Sound Off

This article from The Huffington Post is pretty heady and asks students their thoughts on reforming education.

Marie Preston writes eloquently about the need for teachers to connect individually with their students. 

Does the public education system encourage this, though?  Do No Child Left Behind and the general focus on standardized tests force talented teachers, in fact, force the opposite pedagogical approach?

I thought one of the comments hit the nail on the head:

"The SYSTEM pressures teachers to teach to a test and often times a curriculum­. What it doesn't do is promote the teaching of independen­t learning skills. At present, the system - state and local districts - assume parents have prepared thier kids with those minimum skills. When a teacher like myself compensate­s for the lack...the system is rather hostile to the teacher in subtle but exhausting ways.

Obama: STEM Education a Must Have

Dear Mr. President,

Yes, we are in agreement that STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education is necessary for America's future competitiveness.

We would propose, though, that American ingenuity, American creativity, the American Spirit itself is best advanced by an education steeped in both STEM and the arts and humanities.  It's why we at Ameribotics believe that a "STEAM" education rich in the arts is the true key to our country's future business success.

Yours Truly,

Kevin

Hexapod: Best Dance of 2009

This is a little long and repetetive but I think it's  fun and it makes me wonder what has to go into making this possible. How complicated is it for a six legged robot to dance with along with a beat? Well I'm sure it's over my head anyway, I'm having a hard enough time just trying to learn some of their dance moves!

Putting Technology in It's Place

Ok, I know I had a post similar to this just a few days ago but this one has a slightly different take on it and hey I think it's an interesting subject and that's what's really important right? Anyway, this Article from the 'New York Times' quickly goes through the pros and cons of technology being used by and for students. Is it distracting students and not letting them get anything done? Or is it a tool we should take advantage of to it's full, incredible, potential.

Will Artificial Intelligence Replace Your Family Doctor

Actually, I think this article from the Huffington Post makes some sense.  I'm generally not a big fan of GP's, personally.  So much of what they do just seems kind of, you know, robotic.

I know there are those who will say that changes like this will put conventional doctors out of business.  Sorry, I don't buy it.  There will ALWAYS be need for human judgment in medicine and every other major industry.  Those with good judgment, and who adapt to the times, will always succeed.

And besides, think of the support structures necessary to design and engineer these robots.

We're not replacing doctors, we're just elevating their games.  Agree?  Disagree?

Tangled in an Endless Web of Distractions

This Boston.com piece explores efforts at MIT to limit students' access to Internet distractions such as Facebook, YouTube and EBay.

In my mind, this story hits a root nerve in education:  Do we allow students access to these sorts of distractions and train them to resist, or do we remove the distractions altogether?

Let's face reality:  We all need to learn to control ourselves when we get out into the work world and keep things like social networking and on-line shopping in their proper place.  Where better to learn that self-discipline than in school?

What do you think?  Jam the wireless signals during class time?  During certain hours of the day?  Or help students like Katie find tools that allow them to monitor themselves?

Humanoid Robot

This is somewhat cheesy but I think its cool with the slight change in the facial features during the conversation and I'd kill for his voice.  It also makes you wonder how far this technology will be ten or twenty years from now and if we will start to wonder even more if our co-workers are robots.

Thank You, I Think I'll Pass

The following video is from the the Colbert Report:  "Ray Kurzweil predicts that people will merge with technology and become a billion times smarter by 2045."

OK, I have to admit: This just freaks me out. I suppose we all have a certain degree of science built into our bodies, whether it's a heart defibrillator or fillings in our teeth.

But merging man and technology to create a new, "cyborg" sort of body? My goodness.

I have to agree with Stephen Colbert here: "Is there any way this couldn't turn into a horror movie?"

Friendly Robots

In this PBS Nova piece, robot engineer Cynthia Breazeal asks an intriguing question:  What is robot "emotion"?  Certainly, it's not a straight knock-off of human or animal emotion, because we can never truly reproduce that.

So, how do we create robots that are "friendly" and interactive, compelling and engaging?

And perhaps more importantly for us at Ameribotics, how does this field of study work with our goal of whole-person development through robotics?  Good food for thought.