Kids Learn Better When Playing with Robots

For many students, math and science have always been boring subjects, too bogged down with technical details to ever be fun or exciting. Teachers have long tried a variety of strategies to get students excited about STEM. It turns out, one of the best ways to get kids pumped about STEM is through the use of robots.

Boosting Your Child's STEM Skills With Robotics

"STEM" is an important educational topic sweeping through homes and schools across the world.  STEM is an acronym representing the huge push to teach and involve students in science, technology, engineering, and math. Due to struggling test scores and low enthusiasm in many schools, both parents and teachers are striving to find new and better ways to create greater interest in these critical learning topics.

These classroom subjects give our children the keys to a booming future in one of these science-driven fields. Although there are many ways to help encourage a STEM education, robotics education programs are allowing children as young as 6 to learn valuable problem-solving STEM skills. 

Goooal! These are the RoboCup Humanoid League Winners!

Robotics teams and experts competed on Sydney for the RoboCup 2019, aiming to claim the World Champion title.

Two local universities came out with first place honours, University of Sydney (USYD) and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), in the Soccer Simulation 2D League and the Social Robot Standard Platform League, respectively.

The Maths Within… Robots

There is lots of maths in robots! Think of almost any of the clever things robots can do, its maths that makes it happen.

How Robotics Improves Education at School

Educational Robotics allows students to learn in different ways STEM disciplines, with the objective to facilitate students’ skills and attitudes for analysis and operation of robots. But robotics in the classroom has several other benefits: let’s learn more about how it impacts on education.

Feature a Teacher: Using NAO as a tool for learning and as an adventure program simulator.

Bob Barboza is an educator, STEM journalists, composer and founder of the Barboza Space Center STEM & STEAM fellowship Program and Kids Talk Radio Science. http://www.barbozaspacecenter.com/  He trains Jr. astronauts, engineers, and scientists for the "Occupy Mars Learning Adventures." His students and interns are learning robot and satellite design, building, and repair.  

Feature a Teacher: NAO as a dancing tool to understand human-robot interaction. 

Amy LaViers is an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and director of the RAD Lab a website of Robotics Automation and Dance (RAD). During her PhD Thesis she realized that Nao robot is the tool for her engaging for the public and researches alike.  

Who needs robots in the classroom?

Programming and robotics seem to be the new, hip thing in today’s classroom. STEM concepts are being taught from elementary school, sometimes alongside core topics like English and Math. But why is teaching STEM topics to young kids so popular? How useful could it possibly be? (It’s not like the average person interacts with robots all day) 

I’ll take you through my morning just to show you how silly this fad is!

7am

First things first, I got up and brushed my teeth. My toothpaste tube was nearly empty, so I pulled out my phone and ordered a new one on Amazon with one click.

Breaking the habit of too much screen in school by using physical devices

There is no shortage of articles and think-pieces on the evils of “screen-time”.Everyone from the National Public Radio to Psychology Today are bemoaning the negative impact of our dependence on screen-based entertainment and utilities. Here at RobotLAB, we don’t dispute the research.  

Machine Talk

Last month Amazon purchased Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. This is incredible news for several reasons!

 First, it shows the phenomenal success of young companies that emerged from the information technology revolution a few decades ago. Think about what Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple achieved in the past 20 years. Their success is both amazing and inspiring!

 Second is the story behind this purchase. Jeff Bezos just wanted to buy some fruits at Whole Foods, but Alexa didn’t understand it correctly…

Of course, this is a joke. But a powerful one!

Humor says a lot about the culture of its time. And this tells us an interesting story about where today’s technology is going. We are entering an era where we talk to our devices. This brings the biggest change yet to the integration of technology and our lives.

Communication and language are key to the evolution and development of species. And particularly for us humans.