Sunday, August 17, 2014

Kentucky Academy of Technology Education at Murray State Brings NAO to Western Kentucky

Parts of this post are borrowed from the WKMS coverage of KATE's latest technology endeavor, the NAO programmable robot. I include portions of the interview to ensure continued coverage of innovative and STEM-related topics which promote local efforts to integrate emerging technologies in education and entrepreneurship.

Kate Lochte and WKMS sat down with Dr. Robert Lyons, Ginny Kelly, and Dwayne Buchanan to discuss the introduction of emerging technologies within Primary and Secondary Education. The newest technology promoted by KATE (Kentucky Academy of Technology Education) is the NAO robot. NAO is a French-made programmable robot developed specifically for educating young minds - and perhaps older minds, too - in the field of robotics and programming.

The NAO, designed and built by Aldebaran, is programmable using a collection of images to move the robot through a set of behaviors. NAO can also be customized by students by learning C++ and create their own set of custom behaviors.



"This is the second year the NAO robot is utilized in the Kentucky Academy of Technology Education program. A middle school in Bullitt County was the first to conduct a trial run. Students were selected to already had an interest in computer programming to try the software and the robot. They took their learning experience to a nearby elementary school for a demonstration. Because of the interest in robots, students who were not necessarily leaders in the classroom stepped forward and became leaders in the project. Feedback shows that 80% of the kids in the trial had gone on to take another programming class in STEM." (WKMS; http://wkms.org/post/how-murray-state-introducing-kids-emerging-world-robotics; August 15th, 2014)
Ginny, Robert, and Dwayne also did a great job of incorporating Make and D-I-Y activities into their discussion.

Please listen to the entire interview at WKMS here.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Nashville Mini Maker Faire

September 13th, 2014
Adventure Science Center
10 am to 5 pm

The second annual Nashville Mini Maker Faire is coming up soon! September 13 at the Adventure Science Center, over 30 exhibits and 3,000 people will take part in Nashville's Maker Movement.

This year's Crafter's Challenge theme is "cycle."When you hear “cycle”, what do you see? Recycle? Bicycle? Water cycle? Baseball cycle? Now put your vision into a crafted piece and enter the Nashville Mini Maker Faire Crafters’ Challenge. All types of creative crafted pieces are welcome, from sculptures to paintings to quilts to wearables to designs and more. Entries will be displayed at the Faire and winners will be chosen by celebrity judges and popular votes. Thousands of people will see your creation. There are only two simple rules:
Rule #1: Your artwork must incorporate your interpretation of the word “cycle”.
Rule #2: You must fill out a Maker application and indicate you are entering the Crafters’ Challenge.
(From MAKE Blog, 7/30/2014) 

The first annual Nashville Maker Faire featured the Full Scale Millennium Falcon Project, the Official R2-D2 Builders Club, and Master Builder Chris Lee.


Here is a YouTube video of Nashville's 2013 Maker Faire, every exhibit in 2 minutes:




For more information, click the graphic below, or visit NashvilleMakerFaire.com