Robotics Academy Blog  

The Robotics Academy is happy to announce the release of ROBOTC for Cortex 2.25.

We’ve made lots of changes in ROBOTC from 2.20 to 2.25. We’re continuing to improve ROBOTC with the Cortex system. This new version is fully compatible with the VEX Cortex and the VEX PIC systems, along with the VEXnet upgrade system for the VEX PIC.

Click here to download the latest version

Firmware Downloader Built-In: Firmware Download for ROBOTC Firmware, Cortex Master Firmware and VEXnet Joystick Firmware built into ROBOTC now!

Download Method Chooser: Easier to choose how you want to download your program. Always defaults to VEXnet and USB, but you can manually choose to disable VEXnet and download over USB only.

Quick Preferences: This allows you to set key preferences with only the click of a button. Make ROBOTC work the way you want it to!

Other New Features and Bug Fixes:

1. Build is able to program both PIC and Cortex platforms successfully.
2. “Auto save” before compile was broken.
3. “Previous Platform Type” was not being correctly saved into Windows Registry.
4. Add code to handle “Device Removal” and “Device Acquire” without long hangs of application.
5. Added a flag to Preferences -> Internal” to indicate whether firmware downloading should be read verified.
6. Fix “Priority” column in “Task Status” debugger pane. It was not properly displaying.
7. Move “Debug Stream” from Super-User to “Expert” menu.
8. Add a 250 millisecond delay after telling Cortex to enter download mode before attempting the autobaud sequence.
9. VEX Cortex Integrated Master Firmware Loader inside of ROBOTC.
10. Add support for run-time strings in the VEX LCD display routines.
11. Fix conlict between Digital pin 4 and 10. They both share the same external interrupt index and it was possible to hang the Cortex. Fix makes both pins work correctly — previously pin 10 was not working — for external interrupts. But the hardware prevents supporting sensors that require external interrupts on both pins at once.

One again, the Robotics Academy will hold training sessions for coaches and mentors of First Lego League teams at the National Robotics Engineering Center at 10 40^th Street in the Lawrenceville section of the city.

The first session, for new coaches and mentors only will be held on Tuesday, September 14 from 6:00 pm until about 7:30 pm.  This session will review the role of the coach and how to build team solidarity.  We will cover areas such as ‘How to prepare for a tournament’ and give you an idea of a time line for your team.  There will be a short tour of the NREC facility so that there will be no surprises for you or your team on the day of the tournament.  Powerpoint slideshows on robot building and use of sensors will be shown.

The second session is designed for all coaches and mentors.  There will be two days of training, both presenting the same program.  These sessions will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday, September 21 and 22, from 6:00 pm until about 7:30 pm, also at the NREC.  During these sessions, we will review the challenges and rules for this year’s competition.  We will have a competition board set up and will answer any questions you may have.

If you are planning on attending any of the sessions, please register with Norm Kerman, Education Coordinator at the Robotics Academy at nkerman@rec.ri.cmu.edu.  If you have any questions, he may be reached by phone at 412/681-8673.

Click here to visit the FIRE Project website

PITTSBURGH—A new four-year, $7 million educational initiative by Carnegie Mellon University will leverage students’ innate interest in robots and other forms of “hard fun” to increase U.S. enrollments in computer science and steer more young people into scientific and technological careers.

The initiative, called Fostering Innovation through Robotics Exploration (FIRE), is sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and designed to reverse a significant national decline in the number of college students majoring in computer science, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (CS-STEM).

FIRE will develop new tools that enable middle and high school students to expand upon their interest in robots, leading them from one CS-STEM activity to the next. Examples are programming tools that create game-like virtual worlds where robot programs can be tested, as well as computerized tutors that teach mathematics and computer science in the context of robotics.

The initiative will target robotic competitions such as FIRST, VEX and Robofest that already are popular among secondary school students, but also will create new competitions for autonomous, multi-robot teams and for computer animations that will attract a broader array of students and offer new challenges.

“The idea is that these programs must be rigorous, but fun — what we call ‘hard fun,’” said Robin Shoop, director of FIRE and of Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Academy, an international leader in the development of K-12 robotic education curriculum. “Robots provide a great teaching tool. Kids like robots and are innately curious about how they work and how they make decisions. Finding answers to their questions is fun, but technically challenging, and that makes robotics uniquely suited to teaching students computer science, engineering and mathematics.”

For more information and to register to receive updates for this project visit www.fire.cs.cmu.edu.

The number of U.S. college graduates with CS-STEM degrees is declining, raising concerns about national competitiveness. The trend is particularly pronounced in computer science, where the number of graduates dropped 43 percent from 2004 to 2007 and where women and minorities remain underrepresented.

“We have a significant decline in the number of students signing up for computer science, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors at the college level,” said Melanie Dumas, DARPA’s program manager for its CS-STEM Education Program. “The CS-STEM Education Program will help fill the talent pipeline and enable our nation to compete on the international stage.”

Since 2000, the Robotics Academy, part of Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute, has developed techniques and tools to help K-12 teachers use robots to teach science and mathematics and has trained thousands of teachers on how to incorporate robotics into their lessons. The academy will play a central role in FIRE, but the project also will draw on expertise from across Carnegie Mellon’s renowned School of Computer Science.

Ken Koedinger, Albert Corbett and their colleagues in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII), for instance, will develop automated tutoring systems for teaching Robotics Academy courses. “Cognitive tutors” developed at Carnegie Mellon already are used by hundreds of thousands of students each year to learn algebra and other traditional subjects. The computerized tutors present lessons and problem sets, provide step-by-step guidance with complex problem-solving and adjust the lessons to each student’s comprehension level.         FIRE’s cognitive tutors will assist teachers and mentors who coach in robot competitions but may lack the mathematics and programming background necessary to help students tackle increasingly harder challenges.

Likewise, Wanda Dann and her colleagues in HCII’s Alice Project will work with FIRE to create an Alice Animation Competition designed to increase the number of girls engaged in computer science.  Alice (www.alice.org) is a software environment that enables novices to create 3-D computer animations and, in the process, teaches basic programming principles. Animation contests that use Alice or other types of animation software can appeal to students of both sexes who might not be interested in robots.

The Alice team will collaborate with the Robotics Academy to add virtual worlds to ROBOTC, a programming language developed by the academy that works with many of the educational robotic platforms used in robot competitions. “This new ROBOTC capability will allow students to design and test robots in a virtual environment when it would be impractical to do so with a physical robot. We plan to add other programming languages as the project evolves,” Shoop said.

Manuela Veloso, professor of computer science and president-elect of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and Howie Choset, associate professor of robotics, will develop new teaching tools and a new competition for teams of robots working cooperatively. “In the future, robots will work in teams, not as single robots,” Veloso said. “If we want to drive future innovation, then we need to begin to challenge students to solve multi-robot problems today.”

To further expand the potential pool of CS-STEM students, Lori Levin, associate research professor in the Language Technologies Institute, will work with FIRE to increase participation in the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO), www.naclo.cs.cmu.edu/. The International Linguistics Olympiad is very popular in Europe; FIRE’s goal is to make it accessible to thousands of students across the U.S.

In addition to creating new competitions, FIRE will reach out to national organizations such as the Girl and Boy Scouts, 4H, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America to engage more students in activities that prepare them to be future innovators.

“Tens of thousands of students nationwide participate in robotic activities every year, but these activities do not always translate into increases in academic preparation or sustained engagement with CS-STEM,” Shoop said. “FIRE will provide the infrastructure, the tools, and the resources to significantly engage students for the long term.”

Christopher Schunn and his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research and Development Center will provide a key component for the project, evaluating the educational effectiveness of FIRE’s tools and methods and monitor outreach efforts to communities across the country.

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About Carnegie Mellon: Carnegie Mellon (www.cmu.edu) is a private, internationally ranked research university with programs in areas ranging from science, technology and business, to public policy, the humanities and the fine arts. More than 11,000 students in the university’s seven schools and colleges benefit from a small student-to-faculty ratio and an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. A global university, Carnegie Mellon’s main campus in the United States is in Pittsburgh, Pa. It has campuses in California’s Silicon Valley and Qatar, and programs in Asia, Australia, Europe and Mexico. The university is in the midst of a $1 billion fundraising campaign, titled “Inspire Innovation: The Campaign for Carnegie Mellon University,” which aims to build its endowment, support faculty, students and innovative research, and enhance the physical campus with equipment and facility improvements.

[All credit goes to jxh of eGFI. Source: http://students.egfi-k12.org/robot-soaks-up-the-sun-and-saves-lives-too/]

If you’re swimming in the surf this summer, don’t expect to see a lifeguard from Baywatch racing to save you from a riptide.

Instead, your rescuer may be EMILY: the 4 foot long robot lifeguard.

EMILY (EMergency Integrated Lifesaving lanYard) is a buoy that uses a sonar device to scan for underwater movements associated with swimmers in distress.

To reach drowning victims, the robot has an electric high-speed propeller that allows it to swim up to 28 mph, six times faster than a human lifeguard, and can overcome even the roughest water.

Not only that, but EMILY is outfitted with a camera and speakers so that the onshore lifeguard can calm the distraught swimmer and instruct him or her to hold onto the robotic buoy or wait for human help.  The robot can travel up to 80 miles on a single battery charge.

EMILY is currently patrolling Malibu’s dangerous Zuma Beach and by December will be guarding about 25 more.  The current version is operated by remote control, but the next model will be completely autonomous and save drowning victims without the aid of onshore lifeguards.

An increase in beach safety is certainly necessary: over 77,000 people were rescued by lifeguards at U.S. beaches in 2009.

Important update!

We have just released another update to ROBOTC for Cortex & PIC. This release is required to use Cortex motors 1 or 10. In earlier versions,  you may encounter a firmware bug that can cause the motor control circuits to overheat and burn out.

Click here to go to the download page – ROBOTC for Cortex & PIC

Enhancements in this release include:

1. Support for direct wired USB cable between PC and  VEX Cortex for downloading user programs and debugging added.
2. Support for Debugger “Debug Stream” window added. User programs can easily write (“print”) to a text window on the PC.
3. Faster firmware downloading. It now takes just 10 to 15 seconds. User programs download in just one or two seconds.
4. Fix control of H-bridges for motors 1 and 10 to prevent “shoot through” and the potential for internal short circuits.
5. A few minor bugs fixed in the compiler.

Greetings Educators!

The Robotics Academy has set some Online Teacher Training Dates for the Fall. The classes include the NXT-G Professional Development, ROBOTC for LEGO/TETRIX, and our brand new class: The ROBOTC for Cortex online class.

Here are the schedules for the Fall Online Teacher Training:

1. NXT-G Professional Development
   • Begins October 7th, 2010 – Every Thursday for 6 weeks
   • Click here for more details about NXT-G Professional Development
2. ROBOTC for LEGO/TETRIX
   • Begins October 6th, 2010 – Every Wednesday for 6 weeks
   • Click here for more details about ROBOTC for LEGO/TETRIX
3. ROBOTC for Cortex – NEW!
   • Begins October 5th, 2010 – Every Tuesday for 6 weeks
   • Click here for more details about ROBOTC for Cortex

Click here to take a look at all of the classes we have to offer!

[Source:  http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20007692-1.html]

I hate playing chess. I don’t hate the game; in fact it’s pure strategy, something I love. But despite years of practice, I still almost never win. And now, it would seem, I have further cause to be pessimistic about my chances of a victory, as even robots made out of Legos are here to beat me.

Observe the video below. That’s a huge, 156-square-foot chess board and pieces made entirely out of Lego Mindstorm parts–more than 100,000 of them. It’s called Monster Chess, and it’s awesome.

The battery-operated, Bluetooth-controlled pieces use downward-facing sensors to read grids built into the individual squares on the board. They then communicate with the controlling computer to keep track of their location in relation to other pieces. The computer tells each piece which direction to go, and how far, on its turn.

And the knights are animated. Watch the video and tell me that’s not cool.

It took a year for four people on Team Hassenplug, led by Steve Hassenplug, to put Monster Chess together at a cost of around $30,000. It can be played as human vs. computer, computer vs. computer, or human vs. human via the controlling computer. It uses international standardized rules from an enhanced version of the ChessBot software package. And no, sadly, you can’t buy one.

Also sadly, the pieces are a bit pokey, so watching a full match isn’t the most thrilling thing in the world, but still, this proves something I’ve held true for a while: Legos are for grown-ups as much as they are for kids.

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube Direct 

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube Direct 

[Source from LEGO Education]

Ah, June. The goal is the same as in previous summer break periods – to progress into the next school year striving to achieve the latest objectives.

The impetus is directed toward significant improvement in student outcomes, including making substantial gains in student achievement and teacher education, closing achievement gaps, improving high school graduation rates, and ensuring that students are prepared for success in college and careers.

The Race to the Top financial message has placed challenging opportunities before school leaders. If they are successful, the federal gratuity will buy a clambake of enormous proportions. For more information, go to http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html.

Without the windfall of federal monies, the private sector appears more appealing to those who feel economically neglected. Secor Strategies is heavily into STEM courses and the funds to secure them. Some of the grant deadlines have passed. However, several financial opportunities appear to be ongoing and are suitable for those with green objectives or a desire for connections with robotics.

In lieu of those possibilities, we have the following grant offerings that could ensure those who seek them will “Never Walk Alone.”

Braitmayer Foundation

This foundation supports curricular reform and professional development.

Chevron Foundation

Chevron provides grants for partnerships between K-12 schools and local scientific organizations (museums, aquariums) to provide scientific exploration and discovery programs.

Bechtel Foundation

The fund supports the notion that a nation’s strength is in the fields of engineering and science.

DuPont Community Outreach

DuPont supports an emphasis on developing strong science programs.

Halliburton Foundation

The Halliburton Foundation accepts grant proposals from U.S.-based nonprofit organizations that serve the following areas: education, health, and social services (health related).

Teacher’s Pet (grant tips geared specifically toward teachers’ smaller projects)

Office Depot Foundation

This foundation is pleased to work with organizations large and small to collaborate on programs and efforts that bring systemic change to the communities they serve. Grants range from $50 to $3,000.

For more information about how you can find underwriting for LEGO Education products, visit Grant Resources on our home page, www.LEGOeducation.us, or call 800-362-4308.

ROBOTC available as FREE download for training this summer

The teams have spoken!
Three out of four teams at the FTC national championships programmed their prize-winning robots with ROBOTC this year.

Thanks to its real-time debugger, optimized code, free online training materials, and large forum support community, ROBOTC is quickly becoming the language of choice for the robotics competition community.

The Robotics Academy supports teams competing in ROBOFEST, the National Robotics Challenge, FTC, and the VEX competition, just to name a few.  And, this summer only, you can train with it for FREE!

Go to ROBOTC for Mindstorms to register to receive a free copy of ROBOTC that you can load onto either your personal computer or a classroom set of computers for training teachers and students to program LEGO and TETRIX robots this summer.

Go to ROBOTC for IFI to register to receive a free copy of ROBOTC to prepare teachers and students to program with VEX and Cortex robots.

Feel free to pass these links on to students, teachers, and hobbyists!

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Teacher training at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Academy is filling fast!

Over the last five years over one thousand teachers from across the United States have come to Carnegie Mellon to receive training straight from the experts at the Robotics Academy. Remaining spots are filling fast!

To find out more about these classes, click here!

Can’t make it to Pittsburgh this year? Check out our online summer courses! Each course provides guided instruction with live instructors, using internet voice, video, and screen sharing technology to bring high-quality robotics instruction directly to your home, office, or classroom.

To learn more about our Online Training, click here!

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Use robotics to teach Science concepts

Have you considered using LEGO NXT robots to teach scientific principles like inquiry, or content like speed, heat, sound, and color? In Robot Science, students design and develop robotic prototypes that use powerful built-in data logging features of the NXT to collect experimental data and automatically generate graphs and tables for easy analysis.  Students use this data to generate and test hypotheses that lead not just to an understanding of these important scientific and technological concepts, but also the inquiry processes that drive science itself. Students even have a chance to apply their data gathering and interpretation skills in an engineering activity – the robot bridge inspection project.

Robot Science features five standards-based science and technology projects designed to teach scientific methodology and engineering process as students use sensors to investigate speed, heat, light, and sound. Each lesson includes:

• Step-by-step video guidance for students
• Worksheets and handouts
• Quizzes, answer keys, and sample solutions for teachers
• Lesson plans with classroom tips for each lesson

No prior NXT or programming experience is required. This product aligns with national math, science, and technology education standards. Unlock the scientific power of the NXT!

Check out ROBOT Science here

LEGO fans never cease to amaze me.

A YouTube user going by the name of horseattack created an amazing printer made out of LEGO and a felt-tip pen.

The project itself was coded by hand and does not use any MINDSTORMS at all.

Take a look at the video below:

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube Direct 

Video Description:

““Lego felt tip 110″ printer connected to an Apple Mac. This is not a kit you can buy and does not use mindstorms. I designed/built/coded it all from scratch including analog motor electronics, sensors and printer driver, the USB interface uses a “wiring” board.”

It may not be the fastest or most efficient printer in the world, but it sure is cool.

Well done, horseattack!