Category Archives: Robotics

You might not have heard of Kuka, but youll almost certainly know its products. The German firm is one of the worlds top manufacturers of industrial robots, and its robot arms are instantly recognizable thanks to their signature orange livery. But in the future, Kukas robots might become an even more familiar sight, with the company saying its now exploring the world of consumer robotics.

together we want to do consumer robotics.

In an interview with the Financial Times, CEO Till Reuter said the change was being pushed by Kukas new parent company, Chinese home appliance maker Midea. Midea is not doing any robotics or automation, so Kuka is automation for Midea, Reuter told the FT. And they are very well connected to the consumer industry. So together we want to do consumer robotics.

Midea bought Kuka last year for 4.5 billion. The Chinese firm makes a wide range of products for the home, including air con systems, washing machines, ovens, fridges, and more. Its not clear what sort of product Midea is aiming to produce, but Kukas expertise in automating heavy-duty physical tasks suggests the companies would be looking beyond simple home-hub robots. Instead, they might set their sights on more complex robot assistants, able to help with tasks like looking after the elderly. Robots like these are under development in a number of countries, including Japan, which faces the challenge of looking after an aging population.

Building a robot designed to work closely with humans would fit Kukas evolving interests, which have moved from just static industrial robots, to smaller bots that work side by side with people. These include its iiwa range of bots (the name stands for intelligent industrial work assistant) which are designed to give factory workers a third hand. Kuka told the FT: We come from this direction to the consumer market; Midea comes from the other direction and we meet in the middle.

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Germany's biggest industrial robotics company is working on consumer robots - The Verge

Most of the robots around the world are shipped to factories, where the machines will be used to make other machines, like cars, laptops and dishwashers.

As more people buy more new gadgets, the market for the industrial robots that build devices is poised to grow 175 percent over the next nine years, according to data from the International Federation of Robotics and Loup Ventures.

But the driver of much of that growth isnt going to be from the room-sized metal industrial arms that have been piecing together cars for decades.

Rather, a new generation of manufacturing robots is emerging that is more collaborative, smaller and more perceptive than traditional machinery. Collaborative robots, which Loup projects will account for 34 percent of the industrial robots sold by 2025, are designed to work safely with and alongside people in factories.

In 2016, collaborative robots only represented 3 percent of industrial robots sold.

These robots are smaller and have more sensors, which help them react faster and with more intelligence when approaching another object or a human, so as not to apply too much force and stop operating when appropriate.

Collaborative robots are generally cheaper than traditional robots too, ranging from $25,000 to $45,000, whereas traditional factory floor robots can cost upward of $100,000 each.

That cheaper price tag, combined with the fact that the collaborative robotic arms are typically also smaller and have more nimble movements, could open the doors to more types of manufacturing plants to start to adopt robots on their production lines.

Heres an example of a collaborative robot named Baxter made by Rethink Robotics, a U.S.-based robot manufacturer.

In another example, a medical device manufacturer that runs a smaller factory might be able to start automating some of its assembly line using smaller, less-expensive collaborative robots; traditional industrial robots were typically too big, dangerous or expensive to install to be worth the investment.

Robots for automotive manufacturing currently make up the bulk of the industrial robots sold in the world. But as robots get smaller, cheaper and become better at working alongside humans, Loup predicts robots in electronics manufacturing will match the demand of robots in automotive factories by 2025.

This year, the market value of industrial robots worldwide is estimated to hit $14 billion, up 13 percent from last year, according to the data from the International Federation of Robotics and Loup, with more than 20 percent more units sold than in 2016.

And by 2025, the market for industrial robots is projected to balloon to $33.8 billion. To put that in perspective, in 2016 the global industrial robot market was valued at $12.3 billion. So in less than 10 years, the market value of industrial robots could nearly triple.

Growth is already under way. Factories are actually buying a lot more robots now than they have in previous years. In North America alone there were 32 percent more robots bought in the first quarter of 2017 than at the same time last year. But more robots sold doesnt mean the market value of the industry will rise at the same rate, since the uptick in sales, in part, is due to the price of robots going down.

Additional reporting by Rani Molla.

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The industrial robotics market will nearly triple in less than 10 years - Recode

Starting Friday, Long Beach City College will host a three-day international student water robotics competition during which over 60 teams will test underwater robots they designed and built in scenarios that this year focus on using technology for todays seaports, organizers announced.

The Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Centers 16th annual International ROV Competition will feature hundreds of students from K-12, community colleges and universities representing teams from around the world.

Also known as remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), these robots are the vehicles the MATE Center uses to get students excited and engaged in science, technology, engineering and math while exposing them to related careers and how this technology is used in the real world, organizers said in a release.

As part of the competition, students are challenged to design and build underwater robots to complete workplace scenarios and are tasked with creating mock companies to get them to think like entrepreneurs and work together to manufacture, market and sell their productstheir ROVs, the release stated.

Not only do students develop technical skills as they engineer the robots, they also gain leadership, project management and communication skills as they prepare technical reports and poster displays and deliver presentations that are evaluated by judges from the professional marine technology world, officials stated.

The competition this year will focus on the role ROVs play in securing the health and safety of todays seaports and will encourage students to think about how this technology can help lay the groundwork for port cities of the future, according to organizers.

Students will act like port managers and operate their ROVs to handle tasks like finding cargo containers that fell overboard, constructing an underwater tunnel and cleaning up contaminated sediment. However, instead of piloting the vehicles in sometimes confined and precarious port conditions, they will safely work in LBCCs Viking Aquatics pool.

Many of the teams participated in 30 regional competitions that took place throughout the U.S. and in countries like the United Kingdom, Russia, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and the Middle East to qualify for this event.

The competition is organized by MATE and supported by the Marine Technology Societys ROV Committee. The competition also receives support from the National Science Foundation and other technology and education related organizations.

For more information on the competition, which takes place June 23-25 at LBCC, located at 4901 East Carson Street, click here.

Above, left image courtesy of MATE.

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Seaport-Themed Underwater Robotics Competition Heads to Long Beach City College - Long Beach Post

Image: NASA/GSFC The most efficient way to exploring other planets may be sending humans to orbit, and letting robots do everything else.

As we start looking towards more comprehensive exploration of the Moon and of Mars, the assumption is that were working on sending humans to the surface of those worlds. Its going to be exponentially more difficult and dangerous than sending robots, but thats what exploration is all about, right?

Theres an article in the current issue of Science Robotics that discusses an alternative approacha kind of compromise between sending only humans or only robots. The idea isusing robotictelepresence for planetary exploration. From orbit, the authors argue, a small team of humans would remote operate rovers and other robotic systems and as a result they could do more exploration while keeping the overall mission safer and cheaper.

We already use telerobotics for planetary explorationweve got robots all over the solar system sending us data and then patiently doing what we tell them to do. This is different than telepresence, because of the latency involved: It takes long enough (minutes to hours) for a signal traveling at the speed of light to make it from Earth to Mars or Saturn and back again. That means that theres no way for us to have a real presence experience.

In theScience Robotics article, Dan F. Lester, Kip V. Hodges, and Robert C. Anderson from Exinetics, in Austin, Texas, Arizona State University, in Tempe, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, inPasadena, Calif.,arguefor sending humans into space specifically to reduce latency to something tolerable (better than 0.5 second), for example going into orbit around Mars (but not to the surface) just to make it so that humans can control robots on the surface through telepresence in near real-timewith the robots also doing things on their own when needed.

The European Space Agency (ESA)tried this kind of thing out recently, with an astronaut on the International Space Station (ISS) directly controlling a robot on Earth. We wrote about it here, and theres an article from ESA here. NASA has been trying it in the other direction as well, controlling Robonaut 2 on the ISS from the ground.

There are lots of reasons why space agencies are working on orbital telepresence, many of which are illustrated in the NASA artwork at the top of this article. Using relatively simple assistive autonomy, a horde of robots can spend most of their time wandering around on their own, while a few humans jump between them via telepresence from orbit to provide guidance.

The robot horde can consists of all kinds of different platforms, like driving robots, flying robots, robots that can scale cliffs, robots with arms, robots with drills, robots with lasers, or anything else you want. If some of the robots get stuck or break, its not a big deal, youve got more. Some robots could even collect samples on the surface, and then send them up to you inside little rockets. And, as autonomy improves and robots get better at autonomous navigation and even doing autonomous science, humans will be able to control more and more of them at once, only stepping in when necessary.

As I see it, there are two fundamental questions about using telepresence robots for exploration:

As robots and telepresence get more capable and more reliable, NASA isnt the only one who will have to make decisions like these. Already, you can rent telepresence robots for conferences and to tour museums (or zoos), getting some significant percentage of the value of being there in person without having to spend time and money on travel.

Its certainly better than nothing right now, but at some point, it might be almost as good as the real thing in some ways, and even better than the real thing in others. For those of us who dont have the option for travel, telepresence will be a valuable tool, and for those of us who do have the option for travel, well have to decide whether its really worth it, for destinations around this world, or to another.

[ Science Robotics ]

IEEE Spectrums award-winning robotics blog, featuring news, articles, and videos on robots, humanoids, drones, automation, artificial intelligence, and more. Contact us:e.guizzo@ieee.org

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NASA is giving out Valkyrie robots to universities for space training 24Jun2015

In one giant leap for robotkind, NASA's Robonaut humanoid will travel to space later this year and join the crew of the International Space Station3Sep2010

We find out how well a telepresence robot can visit the zoo and play golf at the beach 7Sep2016

With a solid-fuel rocket and internal gyro stabilizer, this little robot can make a highly targeted long-distance leap 6Jun

This small, nimble robot can fold and unfold itself 13May

This little robot can go where other robots fear to roll 8May

Small, versatile, and autonomous, Astrobee will be getting to work on the ISS 11Feb

This free-flying robot will be a big help for astronauts aboard the International Space Station 9Feb

Top teams will compete in a simulated Mars mission 8Feb

The competition starts with teams operating a robot in a simulated Martian dust storm 17Aug2016

Teleoperation and in-situ materials are how robots will prepare the moon and Mars for our arrival 25Jan2016

Among the challenges: competing with Facebook and Google, and figuring out how to integrate commercial technology into space programs 7Dec2015

The U.S. space agency plans to use tiny satellites and GPS signals to more accurately predict hurricane strength 27Oct2015

An MIT engineer and historian argues that self-driving cars and other robotic systems should still keep humans in the loop 23Oct2015

Robotic teleoperation means we can explore places where it's too difficult to send fragile, needy humans 17Sep2015

This is what happens when we skip a week of Video Friday 11Sep2015

JPL's tumbling robotic hedgehog can jump, spin, and roll in microgravity to explore asteroids and comets 10Sep2015

A robot powered by turbulence might be the best way to explore gas giants 23Jul2015

Refueling and repairing satellites in orbit could drastically lower costs, and NASA is working to make it happen 22Jul2015

The first spacecraft of the asteroid-mining venture Planetary Resources will test technologies for future space missions 20Jul2015

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Are Telepresence Robots the Best Way to Explore Other Worlds? - IEEE Spectrum

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Watched by Kaleidoscope Discovery Center volunteer Matt Trimble, Houston 4-H Club member Allie Benoist works on a robotic helicopter.

Technology and youth education combined for several hours during a 4-H robotics workshop June 12 in the conference room at the Lone Star Annex in downtown Houston.

About 25 kids ages 8-to-18 in attendance had the opportunity to build, program and operate robots made from Lego kits. The event was orchestrated by the University of Missouri Texas County 4-H program and conducted by volunteers with the Kaleidoscope Discovery Center in Rolla.

Members of 4-H clubs in Houston, Licking, Plato and Laclede County participated, along with a few kids not affiliated with 4-H. Kids ages 8-to-10 worked with kits from the Lego Education WeDo series, while the 11-to-18-year-olds worked with kits from the Lego Mindstorms EV3 series.

After putting their robots together, kids used special tablets to program them to perform their tasks.

The goals include having them build the robot correctly and program it to do what they want it to do, said Serena Halger, who leads the Licking 4-H club along with her husband, Bobby. But it introduces the kids into engineering, and robotics applies to a lot of real life situations. It also helps them learn to work together, and kids at this age need practice communicating, sharing and taking turns.

This really helps them get some practice with those skills.

Robots are cool, and teach kids programming and engineering skills, and they have fun doing it."

HOUSTON 4-H CLUB CO-LEADER WAYNE BITTLE

The Kaleidoscope Discovery Center is a non-profit organization designed to offer activities to youth in several counties with regard to engineering, science, technology, the environment, arts and math (ESTEAM). Volunteers on hand at the robotics workshop were all students at Rollas Missouri University of Science and Technology.

Our goal is to get kids exposure to these subjects, said Kaleidoscope volunteer Matt Trimble, especially in communities where they might not normally have access to it. The specific thing were doing here is part of the robotics outreach initiative, and were trying to go to areas where schools might not have the funding or opportunity to have these kinds of robot kits in the classroom.

Trimble said the visit to Houston was fruitful.

Its working out well here, he said. Its always really fun to see the kids get excited about working with these kits. And nine times out of 10, they end up being quick learners and picking things up faster than youd expect.

Platos Clover Kids 4-H Club has had an active robotics program for a couple of years. Leaders in the Houston and Licking clubs plan to introduce robotics as a project option, and preparation is taking place for a regional Robotic Rumble competition July 29 in Plato.

Kaleidoscope Discovery Center volunteer Drazen Gonzalez assists Houston 4-H Club members, from left, Hunter Swingle, Ethan Lee and Ben Cook.

Were training them with kits that will be used in the competition, Trimble said. Hopefully that will give them a jump start on it.

Robots are cool, and teach kids programming and engineering skills and they have fun doing it, said Houston club co-leader Wayne Bittle.With the techno age we are in, it comes natural to kids and the sky is the limit on what they can do.

For more information about 4-H clubs and activities in Texas County, call MU Extension regional youth development specialist Janice Emery at 417-967-4545.

The conference room at the Lone Star Annex in downtown Houston was abuzz with activity during a 4-H robotics workshop June 12.

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Area 4-H clubs participate in robotics workshop - Houston Herald

The agenda for TC Sessions: Robotics just keeps getting more irresistible. We are happy to announce that Rod Brooks, co-founder of Rethink Robotics and iRobot, will join us on stage at TechCrunchs first ever robotics show, July 17 at MITs Kresge auditorium.

Brooks is a former director of MITs CSAIL program as well as an author and prognosticator on the future of robots. At TechCrunch Disrupt NY in May, Brooks expressed contrarian views about the imminence of driverless cars, the capabilities of artificial intelligence, and rules of engagement for robots at war. We are looking forward to taking that conversation further and learning more about Rethink Robotics progress delivering their collaborative robots, Baxter and Sawyer, to work alongside humans in factory settings.

Were also excited to announce two additional workshops for the event. Both will present attendees opportunities to get the inside track from leaders in the robotics field. The DARPA workshop will focus on the agencies aim and how to work with DARPA. It will be led by Dr. William Regli, Acting Director of the Defense Sciences Office. In the MIT CSAIL workshop attendees will get a look at some of the best projects inside MITs robotics lab.

These workshops join the agenda that also includes a workshop on educating future roboticists featuring educators from Olin College, Kettering University and Udacity.

General admission tickets are currently available, but seating in MITs Kresge Auditorium is limited. We hope to see you there.

DARPA The mission of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is to prevent and create strategic surprise by developing breakthrough technologies for national security. The agencys project-oriented approach to science and engineering, however, is different both in approach and execution from other U.S. governmental funding agencies. In this workshop, DARPA leadership will discuss the Agencys vision and goals, provide overviews of each of the organizations technical offices, in addition to an explanation of the mechanics of working with DARPA. The objective of the workshop is to elicit help in fomenting institutional evolution in Americas broader science and technology ecosystem that is needed to better and more rapidly respond to future challenges.

MIT CSAIL MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory is tasked with researching activities around the bleeding edge of technology. Attendees of this workshop will get an insiders look at some of the hottest projects being developed in CSAILs labs and engineering bays. Robert Katzschmann will present Soft Robotics and the teams creative approach to allowing robots to manipulate objects. Claudia Perez DArpinos presentation will demonstrate how robots can learn from a single demo and Andrew Spielberg will explain a novel process to create and fabricate robots.

Building Roboticists David Barrett, a professor of mechanical engineering at Olin College, Ryan Keenan, curriculum lead for Udacity, and Dr. Robert McMahan, President of Kettering University will lead a workshop discussing their views on the best way to train the next generation of roboticists. Each of these educators leads vastly different programs, but the aim is universal: to train the next generation of globally competitive engineers. Its important that these students learn through hands-on experience how to not only write code, but deploy code in a viable manner that results in a sustainable product.

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TC Sessions: Robotics to feature talks from Rod Brooks, DARPA and ... - TechCrunch

Hardware startup Misty Robotics has a daunting task ahead of it. The Boulder-based company is working on a robot aimed at mainstream consumers for employment in the home and office. But Misty certainly has a solid foundation, as a spinoff of robotic toy maker Sphero, coupled with an $11.5 million Series A led by Venrock and Foundry Group.

The new company employs about half a dozen former Sphero ex-pats, including co-founder Ian Bernstein, who will be Mistys Head of Product. Bernstein and team have been working on the seeds of Mistys first product under the Sphero banner for roughly a year and a half, ultimately opting to spin it off into a new company, given its vastly different and decidedly more ambitious goals.

At some point it just made sense for Sphero to focus on connected play, Bernstein tells TechCrunch. And it would make sense to spin off a company so we can raise more money and go bigger and faster on this idea of an autonomous robotic being in the home and office.

Founded as Orbotix in 2010, Sphero has seen rapid growth in the past several years as its transformed itself from a niche maker of a smartphone-controlled robotic ball into a full-fledged Disney co-conspirator. The company rocketed to success when its first product became the basis of the remote-controlled BB-8, a wildly successful Star Wars tie-in. Since then, the partnership has produced newCars and Spider-Man toys.

But Mistys offering is something else entirely. The company isnt ready to reveal much in the way of details at this early stage, except to say that its planting the seeds for more mainstream devices. Its understandable, of course, that its fairly modest in its projections. Countless companies have tried to bring consumer robotics to the home, but have largely failed through some combination of half-baked technologies and impossible-to-meet consumer expectations.

For a robot to succeed in the home, it has to be affordable, capable and serve some task that people either cant or simply dont want to perform. Only iRobots Roomba has come close. The product has found success, but even so, its one-note functionality feels underwhelming compared to the expectations science-fiction has been feeding us for decades. But products like it and Amazons Echo are slowly opening the door to more technology in the home. Though Misty tells me it believes a truly mainstream consumer robot is still several years away.

We dont believe its time for a mainstream robot, says CEO Tim Enwall, who also founded Google-owned home automation company Revolv. We dont believe there [is currently] a market for it. What we do believe is that there will be a robot in everyones home and office and there is a progression to that process. And that progression, like every other technology weve ever adopted as humans, doesnt start with a mainstream market. It starts with an innovator market.

Mistys first several products will be targeted at the hobbyist/maker market something more akin to where desktop 3D printing and drones have been for the past decade. From there, however, it hopes to build toward something more substantial, both through acceptance among early adopters and a fine-tuning of the multi-purpose robots functionality. But, adds Enwall, even the first-generation of product will embody the principles required for putting a robot in everyones home and office. Its just that this first version will be targeted at innovators.

The company has released the above promotional image, which highlights an early prototype. At the very least, it appears to point to something more biologically influenced that the Roombas hockey puck shape. Whether it takes the form of a humanoid robot, an animal or something else entirely, remains to be seen.

Though Mistys Sphero experience does point to a company that understands the value of imbuing a product with personality. Weve learned a lot, says Bernstein. From the progression of starting to add personality in Sphero 2.0, to the Disney deal, [weve learned] the power of creating a robot thatsmore of a character.

Mistys first product is set to hit the market next year.

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Sphero spinoff Misty Robotics gets $11.5 million to create a mainstream robot for the home - TechCrunch

Every tech and toy company, from Apple to Hasbro, has an educational coding offering these days. Sonys Koov kit has been kicking around Japan for a while now, and should be pretty familiar to anyone whos spent time with Legos educational initiatives its a set of blocks, sensors, motors and actuators that pair with a mobile app. Now Sony is ready to bring the kit to the U.S. albeit in a pretty measured way.

The company is the latest tech giant to use a crowdfunding platform to test the waters. In this case, Sony will essentially be using Indiegogo to gauge customer interest and hopefully gain some insight into the U.S. market as it works to shape the product for a new region. On the face of it, its a bit of an odd move from a company with global reach that has never been afraid to launch into a new category with guns blazing.

Sony certainly has the resources to do so here, but for one thing, the market is still a little shaky. There are plenty of different kits aimed at teaching kids to code and build robots. Apple recently partnered with a handful of hardware makersto help teach its Swift programming language to youngsters, and Legos new Boost line joins a number of others already produced by the company. And then there are the dozens of startups fighting for a piece of the pie. How much of that pie there actually is to go around is still a pretty open question.

Koov is also the first hardware product out of Sonys Global Education wing, a department a company rep told me is almost like a startup within Sony, which implies a certain sense of autonomy and probably goes a ways toward explaining the cautious approach. It really wants to get its first product right, and its certainly put a lot of thought into the hardware and software side of things.

The kits currency is little, brightly colored translucent blocks. The company likens them to three-dimensional pixels, which is an attempt to make the transition between the mobile app and the real world product easier to understand. Kids can use the app to build 23 different pre-determined designs or Robot Recipes with the 302 block Advanced Kit. Of course, the sky is the limit if they think outside the box.

To appease those who blaze their own paths, theres Robot Recipe Sharing, an online database of custom robots built by users. Uploads are vetted by the company for obvious reasons, given the products targeted 8 to 14 year old age range. Sony was super-psyched to show me one of the user-built robots created by a Japanese customer that was essentially a version of the companys hippo that plays custom MIDIs of J-Pop songs. At the moment, its really just show and tell, and Sony doesnt really have a good method for letting users create their own sharable robot building plans. Thats apparently in the works. All part of the aforementioned feedback process, I guess.

There are a few other roadblocks, as well. Price is the biggest red flag. Legos new Boost set starts at $160, while Koovs suggested retail price is $359 for the Starter Kit and $499 for Advanced. Thats a lot of money for a brand thats entirely untested in this space. Maybe the price will come down as the company scales up, though again, this is Sony were talking about here its not exactly a startup with limited supply chain access.

Then theres the matter of the name. I was actually sorry I asked about that one. Apparently an executive came up with the bright idea to name the system Koov, for reasons that arent worth paraphrasing, so Im going to paste the explanation here in its entirety, because its really something:

The logo imagery for KOOV calls to mind the 1s and 0s of binary code, or alternatively, I/O, the computer terminology for digital input/output. The logo is also inspired by the < and > symbols used in mathematics. In addition, the K and V that bookend the kits name stand for key and value, important concepts in the realm of computer science. But whereas key and value ordinarily form a unique, unambiguous pair as applied in computer science, they are connected by OO -representing the infinity symbol () -in the logo for KOOV. This is meant to suggest the infinite combinations possible with KOOV, limited only by the imagination. In a multitude of ways, KOOVs logo is symbolic of its blocks that are a product of the digital age, and that are therefore infinite in potential.

The other issue is one thats pretty prevalent among these devices. The coding and robotics skills that Koov teaches are pretty abstract. Unlike Apple, whose programs use the coding language used by iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, Sony developed its own language for the toy. Its built around the Scratch educational programming language, but the end goal here seems to more of building up that initial interest in coding, rather than developing concrete coding skills. Sonys kit mostly teaches kids to code for Sonys kit.

The same goes for the hardware, which is powered by a micro-controller based on Arduino. The potential for open-source learning is there, but in its current state, Sony seems to have the system pretty locked down. Perhaps thats the kind of thing the company will work toward, with the proper feedback through its Indiegogo campaign. At the moment, however, there doesnt seem to be a heck of a lot distinguishing Koov from a million other coding toys.

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Sony soft-launches an educational robotics coding kit on Indiegogo ... - TechCrunch

With crazy experiments, mystical creatures and robots on view, Bagley Hall at Northeastern State University has an unusual week ahead of it.

Students from the Cherokee County area are currently participating in NSU's Robotics Academy of Critical Engagement. The RACE academies offer kids of all ages an opportunity to explore and discover robotics, science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics - collectively known as STEAM.

There were a few academies students could choose from this week, one being "Wacky Science" for 4- and 5-year-olds. On the second day of Wacky Science, students have already used chemical reactions to create concoctions like silly putty, slime, artificial snow and more.

"I try to do chemical reactions that they would understand," said Karissa Pierson, junior at NSU. "So when we made lava lamps, I talked about the different densities between oil and water and how the food coloring stayed in the oil."

A byproduct of the Wacky Science experiments is a messy classroom, but Pierson said that's all part of the learning.

"I think it's very important for them to get messy and to actually be doing it themselves, so they will remember it and be interested," she said. "Because if we just read about chemical reactions or something, they definitely would not want to do it or remember it."

While the tiny scientists conduct their experiments throughout the week, witches and wizards will continue with their jobs, capturing mystical creatures. The Fantastical Mechanical Beasts class, for ages 6-8, offers students a chance to explore the world of Harry Potter. Not only have they been tasked with catching magical animals, they've also been challenged to create their own.

Teacher Dave Fuller said the children will have to design their creatures, draw them, and by the end of the week will have produced them via a 3D printer.

"We're kind of combining the movie ["Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them"] with the robotics program," he said. "Their beast has to be one that doesn't currently exist. They have to think how big it is, what color it is and what its weaknesses might be."

Most of the kids' ideas for their mystical beasts involve a mixture of several animals. One idea suggested Tuesday included a "Gryffindor Hodgepodge," which is cross between a tiger and a dragon. Another one was "gorilla gator," a combination of the two.

Not far from the witches and wizards, a group of young engineers will work throughout the week to build their own robots in the VEX VRC Robotics Academy.

"They're creating claw robots that will be able to complete the objective of the game, which is to lift cones onto different stands and things," said Shelby O'Neal, NSU student. "So they're working on their robots for the new In the Zone competition."

The VEX Robotics Competition is the largest one of its kind, each year creating an engineering challenge - presented in the form of a game - for students around the world to accomplish. The kids at NSU's RACE academies will look to complete the challenge on Friday.

"I think kids in general are more technologically advanced than we were when were younger, so it's a great way to kind of keep their brains moving throughout the summer," said O'Neal.

While some kids in the class admit that building a robot form the ground up can be challenging, 10-year-old John Ryan said it "really just takes a long time."

"It's pretty easy, if you ask me," he said. "After we build it, we can add on things like spikes for the wheels, extra claws, extra wheels -- pretty much anything."

Ryan said that he enjoyed the camp so much last year, his parents signed him up again for 2017.

"Getting to know other people from Tahlequah" was an another perk he liked about the class.

Check it out

For more information on NSU's Robotics Academy of Critical Engagement, call 918-444-3739.

More:

Students make creative messes at robotics academies - Tahlequah Daily Press

Forbes

Lily Robotics Auctions Off Assets, But Many Customers Are Still Waiting For Refunds Forbes Lily Robotics, a much-hyped San Francisco drone startup that crashed and burned last January, this week successfully auctioned off the remaining bits and pieces of the company for $750,000. The assets were split between two parties: an entity called LR ...

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Lily Robotics Auctions Off Assets, But Many Customers Are Still Waiting For Refunds - Forbes