Another way to get around

And so, similar to Tweenbots (but larger and much less cute), Ace gets around by asking directions.

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Just what are siftables?

Siftables are cool. They’re small, block-like, wireless, and interactive computers.  They look like this:

And you can do many things with them beyond playing games… like sequencing music, or creating interactive stories.

I introduced my grade 6  students to siftables during my InfoTech classes recently, and they were very impressed by the cool things they can do.  So impressed, in fact, that many of them chose to write David Merrill, the inventor of Siftables, a short email note letting him know as well.

Many of my students received a response from David Merrill, including David B, in grade 6.  Here’s his response:

Hi David,
Thanks for your message. I have been hearing from many of your classmates
also — it seems like my video was a bit hit.

I invented Siftables because I thought that the world needed a more
physical, hands-on way to use computers. It took a few days to come up with
the specific idea, but I have been thinking about this kind of thing for a
long time. Here is a longer answer, that I wrote in response to an email
interview request:
http://tinyurl.com/dh4oog

We are working to make them available to the world, so please stay tuned!
I’m not sure yet how much they will cost.
Take care,
-David

Hey…  technology works.  I it when stuff works!

Tweenbots

A social experiment:  in big, bad New York City, will the average person on the street help a little robot find its way across the park?  Kacie Kinzer aimed to find out:

In New York, we are very occupied with getting from one place to another. I wondered: could a human-like object traverse sidewalks and streets along with us, and in so doing, create a narrative about our relationship to space and our willingness to interact with what we find in it? More importantly, how could our actions be seen within a larger context of human connection that emerges from the complexity of the city itself? To answer these questions, I built robots.

Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.

Go visit the site:  there’s video!

Robot gardeners

A class of undergraduate students at MIT has created a set of robots that can water, harvest and pollinate cherry tomato plants.

Small, custom built, $3,000 robots,  move through the garden on a base similar to a Roomba vacuum, and are networked to the plants. When the tomatoes indicate that they need water, the robots can water them using an onboard pump. When the robots identify a  ripe tomato, it uses a mechanical arm to pluck the fruit.

Read more courtesy of Ecosalon.

Mr. B says…

Intelligence on a chip

A few weeks ago, I led a group of our students on a trip to a Science Cafe, hosted by Winston Churchill High School. The topic, presented by Dr. Naweed Syed, had to do with the interface between the human brain and the silcon chip.

On a not unrelated topic, researchers in Germany and Switzerland,  have built a full scale  simulation of the human brain on a silcon chip.

From Technology Review, a chip simulates the learning capabilities of the human brain:

An international team of scientists in Europe has created a silicon chip designed to function like a human brain. With 200,000 neurons linked up by 50 million synaptic connections, the chip is able to mimic the brain’s ability to learn more closely than any other machine.

Although the chip has a fraction of the number of neurons or connections found in a brain, its design allows it to be scaled up, says Karlheinz Meier, a physicist at Heidelberg University, in Germany, who has coordinated the Fast Analog Computing with Emergent Transient States project, or FACETS.

I’ll be sending an email to Dr. Syed with this link to see how this research might influence his own work.  Stay tuned.

Google Treasure Hunt

My grade 5 and 6s are beginning to delve into the arcane science of Internet Searching (cue spooky music here). And because astronomy has been on their (and my) minds lately, I thought I’d throw some questions together to see how well our students can make the InterTubz work for them.

(And for pedagogists, to give me some baseline data to see what specific deficits I need to address.)

So, my students, please do this:

• Create a new MS Word document. When you save it, call it “Astronomy Search“.

• Make three columns: 1 – for the question number, 2 – for the URI where you found the answer, and 3 – for the short answer.

• Answer as many questions as you can.  Please don’t help each other out – work by yourselves.

• At the end of the day, save  your document, print it, and put it in your logbook.

And so, some astronomy-related questions…

Click on the see them.

Robot controlled by human thought

Yes, there is one.

From LiveScience.com:

Scientists have created a way to control a robot with signals from a human brain.

By generating the proper brainwaves—picked up by a cap with electrodes that sense the signals and reflect a person’s instructions—scientists can instruct a humanoid robot to move to specific locations and pick up certain objects [video].

The commands are limited to moving forward, picking up one of two objects and bringing it to one of two locations. The researchers have achieved 94 percent accuracy between the thought commands and the robot’s movements.

“This is really a proof-of-concept demonstration,” said Rajesh Rao, a researcher from the University of Washington who leads the project. “It suggests that one day we might be able to use semi-autonomous robots for such jobs as helping disabled people or performing routine tasks in a person’s home.”

And this news is three years old.  Imagine what they’ve come up with since then…

Rock, paper, scissors… a la robot

From the Calgary Herald:

London’s Science Museum unveiled a new member of staff Tuesday — Berti the robot, who entertains visitors by playing rock-paper-scissors with them.

But the robot’s makers hope that Berti, who is less than two years old, will eventually help them develop artificial intelligence to a higher level than ever before.

“We are working towards the design of future humanoid robots that will be intuitive and natural for people to interact with,” said Graham Whiteley of Elumotion, a robotics firm which built Berti with Bristol Robotics Laboratory.

Go  read the rest!

Thirds

As in, the “rule of thirds”.  It’s a basic premise in photography, illustrated by my photo of Elliotte’s water bottle on the kitchen floor.

There are a great many examples over at the Digital Photography School fora. And of course, the rule is defined, over there.

And so, a photography challenge to my photography students (robotics students can try this too, but might not see the point)… shoot a photo demonstrating the rule of thirds.  Show it to me.

Gain fame and fortune. Or perhaps just a bit of food.