RoboParty 2012 in Education

Robot Party

http://www.roboparty.org

Queres divertir-te ?
Gostas de tecnologia ?
Gostavas de te envolver em robótica ?
Então anda aprender connosco...

Este foi o mote para atrair centenas de jovens das escolas portuguesas à 6ª edição do RoboParty que está a decorrer desde ontem, dia 23 Fevereiro e se vai prolongar até amanhã dia 25 Fevereiro 2012, no pavilhão desportivo da Universidade do Minho, em Guimarães.

Organizado pela Universidade do Minho (Grupo de Automação Controlo e Robótica do Dep. de Electrónica Industrial, da Escola de Engenharia) e pela empresa SAR - Soluções de Automação e Robótica, Lda., que é uma Spin-Off da Universidade do Minho, este evento pedagógico ensina os mais jovens a construir robôs móveis autónomos de uma forma simples e muito animada, em equipas de 4 pessoas, e num ambiente de entreajuda e fair-play.

Robot Party

http://www.roboparty.org/

São mais de 400 jovens participantes, oriundos de escolas de norte a sul do país, que aprendem a construir robôs móveis e autónomos, de uma forma divertida e assistidos por profissionais com competência. 

Participam no RoboParty 2012 distribuídos por cem equipas. A faixa etária média dos inscritos ronda os 15 a 18 anos, tendo o participante mais novo 7 anos e o mais velho 62.

No último dia, as equipas terão de testar o desempenho do robô em várias provas divertidas, nomeadamente a prova de perseguição, a de obstáculos e, sobretudo, a prova de dança, agendada para as 14h. A RoboParty conta com 120 voluntários, na maioria membros do Núcleo Estudantil do IEEE da UMinho, para apoiar na formação dos participantes, no programa paralelo e na logística.

Poderá consultar o programa e actividades aqui.

Um evento de 3 dias e duas noites, non-stop, onde os jovens, trazendo um saco cama e um computador, passam o tempo a construir um robô com os suas próprias mãos. 

Robô Bot'n Roll/ Robot Party

http://www.roboparty.org

Durante o evento, os jovens estudantes têm formação básica em electrónica e programação. Depois constroem o seu robô Bot’n Roll cujas peças são fornecidas pela organização. Os jovens são acompanhados e apoiados por alunos de electrónica industrial, e no final participam em algumas provas de robótica extremamente divertidas. 

As provas deste ano são três: Prova de Obstáculos, Prova de Perseguição e Prova de Dança. 

Em paralelo com toda esta dinâmica de aquisição de conhecimento, decorrem várias actividades lúdicas e desportivas nas quais todos podem participar

RoboParty está aberto ao público (com entrada gratuita) entre as 9:00 e as 22:00 horas. 

Disponível eem vídeo streaming 24 horas por dia (da zona de trabalhos) no site oficial.

RoboParty 2012 também está no Facebook

Robot Party 2012

http://www.roboparty.org/

Want to have fun ?

Do you like technology ?

Would you like to be involved in robotics ?

Come and learn with us...

The 6th RoboParty takes place in Guimarães, Portugal, February 23-25, 2012 at the Pavilhão Desportivo (Sports Hall) of the University of Minho.

The RoboParty 2012 aims to immerse students from the 1st grade to university studies, as well among the general public in the exciting world of Science and Technology (Electronics, robot programming, and Mechanics).

"Get 3 friend interested in technology, bring a teacher of yours (or other grown-up)"

More than 400 students (100 teams) are participating (with their teachers), aged between 15-18. They learn to construct autonomous and mobile robots in a simple and entertaining way, supported by qualified tutors. 

Robot Bot'n Roll/ Robot Party

http://www.roboparty.org

"Initially, a short course is given to teach the first steps in electronics, robot programming and mechanical construction. Afterwards, a robotic kit developed by the company SAR - Soluções de Automação e Robótica and by Minho University is supplied to be assembled by the participants (mechanics, electronics and programming), belonging to the team in the end of the event.

The tutors will be following the team's work closely in all stages in order to assure that every robot works properly in the end.

There are three competions: Porsue competion, Obstacle competion and Dance competion

And of course "Robot construction competition" (quality of the robot's construction): Assessment made on Saturday evening.

Finally, Creativity Prize (robot aesthetics).

Please, visit the full program and activities here

RoboParty is on Facebook too.

The event has had an enormous growth since the 1st edition, both in the number of teams, participants and visitors. 

RoboParty 2012

http://www.roboparty.org/

Education:

"Use the motivational effects of robotics to excite students about science and technology." *

It's not the first time I write about the increasingly important role of Robotics in Education. For boys and girls, of course.

Robotics has aroused great curiosity among young people. There are more groups and robotics clubs throughout Portugal concentrated in universities, secondary schools and vocational schools.

Remember my posts Robotics in Education (April 12, 2011) about robot competition, or assistive robotics, whose goal was to aid gifted young students, improving the quality of their lives.

As practitioners, we know that in the same classroom, we have special needs students of both sides: one side, students we must motivate because they present some difficulties in learning, on the other side,  students we must captivate to go further or they will be bored in following a linear curriculum.


Let us teach whatever we have to (or like to), but using different educational tools and resources.

Robot Party

https://www.facebook.com/RoboParty/

And on Robotics in Education Seminar (January 12, 2011), whose aim was to promote Technology among young girls to increase gender equality in their future career.

"The majority of documented courses using robotics in an instrumental way while teaching other topics are at the college and university level, robots have been used at the K-12 level education as well.

Most of the activities at this level are a form of outreach program, aimed at raising interest in higher engineering education among selected group of (usually high-school) students, but there are also activities aimed at students from socially deprived areas, where the main objective is to attract those students to some form of education at all."

Dr Jacek Malec, Department of Computer Science

Lund University (Sweden)

As you see, Dr Malec talks about differerent groups of students too.

As teachers, we must do our best to reach all students using different pedagogical resources in order to captivate them.

I warmly recommend you to read the paper "Some thoughts on robotics for education" here

Now, watch the video below. Students and teachers speak about Robotics in the curriculum:

"All students are technologically literate, mathematically competent, and confident about their future."

Carnegie Mellon | Robotics Academy*

G-Souto

23.02.2012

Copyright © 2012G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

RoboParty 2012 in Education by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

References:

NASA | Robotics in Education
http://education.ssc.nasa.gov/robotics.asp

*Carnegie Mellon | Robotics Academy
http://www.education.rec.ri.cmu.edu/

Jacek Malec, 'Some thoughts on robotics for education', 
http://fileadmin.cs.lth.se/cs/Personal/Jacek_Malec/psfiles/aaai01rae.pdf