Robotics Academy Blog  

We are excited to announce that our official Robotics Summer of Learning page is live!

The 2013 Robotics Summer of Learning (RSOL) is sponsored by Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Academy and uses the Computer Science Student Network (CS2N) to host all trainings, with additional resources provided by Robomatter Inc. and other organizations. This summer, students and teachers will have the opportunity to develop programming skills, earn certifications, and win prizes. Software, training, certifications, and the competitions will all be hosted online for free through the Robotics Academy.

Check out all the great tools and features we will be offering through the Robotics Summer of Learning…

FREE Modified FTC and VEX Programming Games 

We have developed fun new “programming only” robotics games that take advantage of current VEX and FTC games. Multiple elements have been added to the game interface and field including; colored lines and tiles, IR beacons, walls, automatic loading zones, the ability to reset and reprogram your robot while still playing the match, and many more! The game’s time is tracked using the Robot Virtual Worlds’ Internal Timer. The games are played by placing objects into scoring positions as quickly as possible.

Earn Badges and a Certification

Carnegie Mellon has developed Digital Badges and Certifications designed to represent a student’s programming and robot problem solving accomplishments.  Each Badge contains information to help others understand what a student knows: who awarded it, who recognizes it, when they earned it, and links to example student code, their videos, their scores, the types of questions they answered, or other information designed to show off their accomplishments.

Free Training and Support

Training will be provided to all students and teachers through the Robotics Summer of Learning by the developers of the curriculum and software. Our team will also be available throughout the summer to take questions on all our social media sites.

 or using hashtag #RobotSummer on Twitter and Google +.

CS2N RVW Competitive Events

Each Robotics Summer of Learning Project competition is divided into three divisions: Junior High, High School, and Open Division.

Players can only compete in the appropriate division:

• Junior High – Students in 6th through 9th grade.
• High School – Rising 10th graders through rising 12th graders. (9th, 10th, 11th grade graduates)
• Open Division – High school graduate and above.

You can find further details about each competition at www.cs2n.org/competitions.

Prizes

There are over $10,000 in prizes available to participants, including free software, robot kits, and $100 and $500 College Scholarships.

The RVW challenge is broken into two parts:

• Part One – 2013 Robotics Summer of Learning Project, which ends Saturday, August 31st, 2013.
• Part Two – RVW CS2N Robot Programming Challenge, which begins September 1, 2013.

More information will be made available about the type and number of each type of prize at CS2N.org.

Important Dates:

• Today: Players can create a CS2N account and download the software.
• June 1: Official launch of the Summer of Learning courses and forums.
• June 17: The instructor led online course will begin the third week of June.
• August 31: RSOLP completed and prizes will be announced.
• September 1: RVW CS2N Robot Programming Challenge begins.
• September 6: RSOLP competition winners will be announced and first round prizes will be distributed.
• April 2014: The Official CS2N FTC and VEX Robot Virtual World winners will be announced.

We hope every one has an enjoyable summer learning how to program!!

 

We ran into Paul Utley from Pitsco at the 2013 FIRST Championship who designed a model of the Curiosity Rover with TETRIX parts, NXT brick, and programmed in ROBOTC! We were lucky enough to get a short interview with him about it. Check it out here …
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
If you are at the 2013 FIRST Championship in St. Louis, MO., make sure to stop by and check it out in person. For more information on Tetrix go to http://www.tetrixrobotics.com
 

We had so much fun at the 2013 VEX World Championships last week! We saw some great matches, met tons of fantastic people, and got a chance to share some big news with everyone throughout the week.  We will be posting more detailed information on our news next week, so keep an eye out for that. Thank you to every one who stopped by to say hi and congrats to EVERY team. You all did an amazing job. Also thank you to VEX Robotics and the REC Foundation for inviting us to be a part of such an awesome event. We look forward to next year!

Check out our short recap video:

 
 
 

And if you haven’t had a chance, head on over to our Facebook page to checkout our photo album – VEX Worlds 2013.

 
 
 

Hey everyone! Hope you had an awesome weekend. Just a friendly reminder that we’ll be having another fun Robot Virtual Worlds’ Google Hangout at 6pm EST tonight. We will be talking about the gaming environment within RVW and showing off Palm Island, Operation Reset, the Measurement Toolkit, badges, and a lot more!  We look forward to having you attend and join in on the discussion! Visit http://ROBOTC.net/hangouts to join us and watch the live video stream.

 
 

P.S. Robot Virtual Worlds website has been revamped and is now live! Check it out at http://www.robotvirtualworlds.com

We are very excited to announce that today is the first day of Spring and …. the first day of ROBOTC 3.60! ROBOTC is the premiere robotics programming language for educational robotics and competitions. ROBOTC is a C-Based Programming Language with an Easy-to-Use Development Environment. We are really proud of this release and can’t wait to hear what you think! Remember, we could not do this without your support and feedback. We hope you’ll continue to share your comments with us, either in the forums or on our Facebook or Twitter page.
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2011-2012 VEX Gateway Challenge Level Pack