LEGO® EDUCATION SPIKE™ PRIME, a new hands-on learning approach for classrooms

Adding to the LEGO®  Education portfolio of combined physical and digital learning experiences, SPIKE Prime has been unveiled today, along with new insights on students’ confidence in learning STEAM subjects.

Billund, Denmark (April 2, 2019) – Today, LEGO® Education announced LEGO® Education SPIKE™ Prime, the newest product in the LEGO Education hands-on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) learning portfolio. SPIKE Prime brings together LEGO bricks, a programmable, multi-port Hub, sensors and motors all powered by the engaging SPIKE app based on the Scratch coding language. The SPIKE app includes lessons aligned to certain standards and many being able to be completed within a 45-minute class, making it easy for teachers to take SPIKE Prime into the classroom.

SPIKE Prime is a completely new design from LEGO Education. It has been created to reach all levels of learners, to be an inclusive, intuitive and naturally adaptive physical and digital creative approach, and engage all middle schoolers in technology-enabled STEAM learning with confidence. According to results from a new Confidence in Learning Poll, fielded by Harris Insights & Analytics and released today, hands-on learning builds confidence. Eighty seven percent of students say they learn and remember topics more when the learning involved hands-on projects, and 93 percent of parents say hands-on learning helps children retain knowledge for the future. Additionally, while the importance of hands-on learning is clear, only 40 percent of teachers say their students usually or always get substantial time during the school day for hands-on lessons.

When it comes to STEAM learning specifically, teachers and parents agree that the number one way their students can build confidence in STEAM subjects is working on a hands-on project with others. The poll showed students who are confident in STEAM are more likely to be confident at school overall and enjoy learning new things. The entire LEGO Education portfolio, now including SPIKE Prime, was specifically designed to get students hands-on with lessons that challenge them to think critically and creatively, to problem solve and to communicate effectively with others.

To help build students’ confidence in learning and to support teachers who are interested in incorporating more STEAM learning into their classrooms, LEGO Education is providing a Confidence in Learning toolkit and workshops to schools around the world with its continuum of hands-on learning products, including SPIKE Prime. LEGO Education learning experts will help teachers incorporate hands-on STEAM learning into the classroom to engage all students and promote building their confidence in learning.    

Esben Stærk Jørgensen, president of LEGO Education, said: “We are seeing a challenge globally in middle school children, typically aged 11-14. At that age, children start losing their confidence in learning. The Confidence Poll data shows that most students say if they failed at something once, they don’t want to try again. With SPIKE Prime and the lessons featured in the SPIKE app, these children will be inspired to experiment with different solutions, try new things and ultimately become more confident learners. And for teachers, time is the ultimate barrier. The lesson plans, resources and models make it so easy for teachers to integrate SPIKE Prime into the classroom.”

“Our mission at LEGO Education is to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow, enabling every student to succeed – and that’s exactly what SPIKE Prime offers,” added Jørgensen.

SPIKE Prime joins the nearly 40 years of LEGO Education’s legacy of product development by an international team of designers, dedicated educators and leading technology experts. Each SPIKE Prime set has 523 pieces which can be used to build many different creations including corresponding STEAM lesson plans that were created by and for educators to help them bring more hands-on STEAM learning into their curriculum and get students more engaged and excited about STEAM subjects.

LEGO Education and the LEGO Group have also created 11 new innovative elements for the LEGO System in Play, which will be first seen with SPIKE Prime. These new elements include an innovative integrator brick, which allows for building together with both the LEGO Technic and the LEGO system platforms, further expanding systematic creativity and the building possibilities.

The new product will be ready for purchase in all markets in August 2019. SPIKE Prime is available today for pre-order in the US at the LEGO Education website.

About LEGO Education

LEGO® Education offers hands-on, playful STEAM learning experiences based on the LEGO® system of bricks, hardware, software and content for students and their teachers in early learning, primary, and secondary education as well as through after-school programs and competitions. These solutions create an environment for active, collaborative learning where students build skills for their future, a lifelong love for learning and confidence in their ability to learn and solve problems, setting them up for lifelong success.

LEGO, the LEGO logo, the Minifigure and the SPIKE logo are trademarks and/or copyrights of the LEGO Group. ©2019 The LEGO Group. All rights reserved.

Praxisorientiertes MINT-Lernen an weiterführenden Schulen – mit dem neuen Lernkonzept SPIKE™ Prime von LEGO® Education

SPIKE™ Prime ergänzt das LEGO® Education Lernkontinuum und wurde gestern zusammen mit einer neuen Studie zum Thema „Selbstvertrauen der Schüler aufbauen“ vorgestellt

BILLUND, Dänemark, 3. April 2019 – LEGO® Education stellte gestern SPIKE™ Prime vor, das neueste Lernkonzept im LEGO Education Portfolio für praxisorientiertes Lernen im MINT-Unterricht (Mathematik, Informatik, Naturwissenschaften und Technik). SPIKE Prime beinhaltet zahlreiche LEGO Elemente, verschiedene Sensoren und Motoren und einen programmierbaren Hub. Mit der SPIKE App, die auf der beliebten Programmiersprache Scratch basiert, kann der Hub gesteuert und so die selbstgebauten Modelle zum Leben erweckt werden. Zudem enthält die SPIKE App lehrplanbezogene Unterrichtseinheiten, die auf 45-minütige Schulstunden zugeschnitten sind. Die fertigen Einheiten machen es Lehrkräften leicht, SPIKE Prime in ihren Unterricht zu integrieren.

SPIKE Prime wurde für Schülerinnen und Schüler der 5. bis 8. Klasse entwickelt, unabhängig von deren individuellem Lernstand. Durch einen intuitiven, physischen, digitalen und kreativen Ansatz sollen Schüler motiviert werden, technologisch-basiertes Lernen in MINT-Fächern mit Selbstvertrauen anzugehen. Laut der Ergebnisse des aktuellen Confidence Reports, in dem das Thema Selbstvertrauen beim Lernen thematisiert wird, fördert praxisorientiertes Lernen von MINT-Themen das Selbstvertrauen von Schülern. Die internationale Umfrage wurde von dem Marktforschungsinstitut Harris Insights & Analytics durchgeführt und zeitgleich zum Produktlaunch veröffentlicht. Gemäß der Umfrage sagen 87 Prozent der Schüler, dass sie Themen eher lernen und sich besser merken können, wenn das Lernen praxisnahe Projekte einschließt. Auch 93 Prozent der Eltern geben an, dass praxisorientiertes Lernen Kindern hilft, das erlernte Wissen besser zu speichern. Lehrkräften ist die Relevanz interaktiver Lernmethoden bewusst, aber nur 40 Prozent geben an, dass ihre Schüler während des Schultages häufig oder immer Zeit für praxisnahe Übungen haben.

Lehrkräfte und Eltern sind sich einig, dass praxisorientierte Projekte und Gruppenarbeiten insbesondere im MINT-Bereich der beste Weg sind, um das Selbstvertrauen der Schüler zu stärken. Die Umfrage hat gezeigt, dass Schüler, die im MINT-Unterricht Selbstvertrauen zeigen, auch beim Erlernen neuer Themen selbstsicherer sind. Alle Lernkonzepte von LEGO Education wurden mit dem Ziel entwickelt, Schülern praxisnahe Unterrichtseinheiten zu bieten und sie dabei zu kritischem und kreativem Denken, zum Problemlösen und zur Zusammenarbeit anzuregen.

Um das Selbstvertrauen der Schüler zu stärken und Lehrkräfte bei der Integration praxisnaher Lernmethoden in ihren Unterricht zu unterstützen, bietet LEGO Education ein Toolkit sowie weltweite Fortbildungen für seine Lernkonzepte, einschließlich SPIKE Prime, an.

„Weltweit stehen Schüler in der 5. bis 8. Klasse vor einer Herausforderung: In diesem Alter verlieren sie häufig das Selbstvertrauen beim Lernen. Laut Umfrageergebnissen zum Thema Selbstvertrauen geben die meisten Schüler an, dass sie keinen erneuten Versuch machen möchten, wenn sie einmal versagt haben. Mit SPIKE Prime und den Lerneinheiten in der SPIKE App werden Kinder motiviert, neue Dinge auszuprobieren und solange zu experimentieren, bis sie die beste Lösung gefunden haben. Dadurch gewinnen sie Selbstvertrauen in ihre eigenen Fähigkeiten. Für Lehrer hingegen ist der Zeitaspekt eine große Hürde. Einfache Erste-Schritte-Übungen und die fertigen Unterrichtseinheiten ermöglichen es Lehrkräften, SPIKE Prime ohne große Vorbereitungszeit in ihren Unterricht zu integrieren“, sagt Esben Stærk Jørgensen, Präsident von LEGO Education.

„Unsere Mission bei LEGO Education ist es, die Entwickler, Ingenieure und Techniker von Morgen zu motivieren und auszubilden. SPIKE Prime unterstützt Schüler dabei, Erfolge zu erzielen“, ergänzt Jørgensen.

SPIKE Prime und die zugehörigen Lerneinheiten wurden in Zusammenarbeit mit Bildungsexperten und Pädagogen entwickelt – wie auch alle anderen Lernkonzepte in der fast 40-jährigen Erfolgsgeschichte von LEGO Education. So lässt sich praxisnahes Lernen in den Unterricht integrieren und hilft, Schüler stärker zu motivieren und sie für MINT-Themen zu begeistern.

LEGO Education und die LEGO Group haben zudem elf neue Elemente für das „LEGO System in Play“ kreiert, die zum ersten Mal mit SPIKE Prime vorgestellt werden. Zu diesen neuen Elementen gehört ein innovativer Baustein, der das Kombinieren der bekannten LEGO Bausteine mit den LEGO Technic Elementen noch einfacher macht und so grenzenlose Möglichkeiten für kreatives Bauen bietet.

SPIKE Prime wird im August 2019 in allen Märkten erhältlich sein.

Über LEGO Education

LEGO® Education bietet eine fortlaufende Reihe an praxisorientierten MINT-Lernkonzepten an – vom Kindergarten über die Grundschule bis hin zu den weiterführenden Schulen. Alle Lernkonzepte sind auf die jeweiligen Bildungs- bzw. Lehrpläne abgestimmt und individuell anpassbar, damit sie von Kindern jeden Alters unabhängig vom Lernfortschritt genutzt werden können. Die Lernkonzepte von LEGO Education fördern nicht nur die Kreativität, die Zusammenarbeit und das kritische Denken. Sie stärken das Selbstvertrauen und bereiten Kinder spielerisch auf ihre berufliche Zukunft vor.

LEGO, das LEGO-Logo, das Minifiguren- und SPIKE-Logo sind Marken und/oder Copyrights der LEGO Group. ©2019 The LEGO Group. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Maker Faire Eindhoven 2018

Free VEX Coding Studio Youtube Webinars

Ready to transition your coding skills to VEX Coding Studio? Carnegie Mellon University is hosting a free, four week webinar series detailing everything you’ll need to know to transition from RobotC!

Be sure to tune in to Carnegie Mellon’s YouTube stream (almost) every Thursday, from September 13th to October 11th for your introduction to VEX Coding Studio. We’ll cover topics such as updating firmware, configuring motors and sensors, and programming with VEX C++ and Modkit. If you have any additional topics that you want covered on-air, be sure to ask beforehand on Twitter @CMUCMRA !

To set your YouTube reminders or to see a detailed weekly outine of these webinars, visit the Carnegie Mellon University Website.

The Duckietown Foundation announces the AI Driving Olympics (AI-DO), a self-driving car competition to debut at NIPS 2018

The Duckietown Foundation is excited to announce the The AI Driving Olympics, a new competition focused around AI for self-driving cars. The first edition of the AI Driving Olympics 2018 will take place December 7, 2018, at Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), the premiere machine learning conference, in Montréal. This is the first competition with real robots that will take place at a machine learning conference.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/163162211/duckietown-a-playful-road-to-learning-robotics-and?ref=dwrnb2

The competition will use the Duckietown platform, a miniature self-driving car platform used for autonomy education and research. The Duckietown project originated at MIT in 2016 and is now used by many institutions worldwide.

The AI Driving Olympics is presented in collaboration with 6 academic institutions: ETH Zürich (Switzerland), Université de Montréal (Canada), National Chiao Tung University (Taiwan), Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago (USA), Tsinghua University (China) and Georgia Tech (USA), as well as two industry co-organizers: nuTonomy (a self-driving car company) and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

About the competition: The competition comprises 4 challenges of increasing complexity: 1) Road following on an empty road; 2) Road following with obstacles; 3) Point to point navigation in a city network with other vehicles; and 4) Fleet planning for a full autonomous mobility on demand system.

Competitors will have access to a suite of professional development tools (simulators, logs, baseline implementations). Real environments called “Robotariums” will be remotely accessible for evaluation. The highest scoring entries in the robotariums will be run during the live event at NIPS 2018 to determine the overall winners.

Scientific goals: The competition aims at directing academic research towards the hard problems of embodied AI, such as modularity of learning processes, and learning in simulation while deploying in reality.  

Social goals: The competition also promotes the democratization of AI and robotics research by using an inexpensive platform, and offering a common infrastructure available through the use of remote testing facilities. Competitors can also build or acquire their own testing facility (Duckiebots and a Duckietowns), through either open-source DIY instructions, or as rewards obtained in our kickstarter campaign (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/163162211/duckietown-a-playful-road-to-learning-robotics-and?ref=dwrnb2)

 

Transform your classroom with VEX EDR

Careers in STEM are on the rise!
Give your students the tools they need to succeed:
With more schools adopting robotics as a platform to enhance STEM and Computer Science courses, teachers need a solution to seamlessly integrate curriculum, programming software, and hardware into the classroom.

STEM Labs
Our scaffolded, standards-matched STEM Labs
can be adapted to fit any classroom
STEM Labs are hands-on activities, which include diverse builds, games, and competitions, that align with education standards while also showing real-world applications of concepts.

These activities give students the opportunity to communicate and collaborate with their classmates. Every STEM Lab has multiple approaches to solving a problem, allowing students to experiment with creative design solutions.

For many teachers, figuring out how to implement concepts into maths, design & technology, engineering and computer science subjects can be difficult. Our STEM Labs allow for easy implementation with minimal preparation time. Each STEM Lab can be used on multiple platforms and includes easy-to-follow build instructions.

Go to the STEM Labs Portal: https://education.vex.com/

Smartibot launches the world’s first A.I. enabled cardboard robot

London, England – June 26th 2018 The Crafty Robot today launches its new robot kit Smartibot which is aimed at letting users get hands-on experience with A.I. and get creative through building their own robot out of anything, even a potato. Created by product designer Ross Atkin, who is part of a team of inventors in the BBC’s flagship technology program ‘The Big Life Fix’, Smartobots are available for pre-order on Kickstarter from £30 ($40).

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/460355237/338515758?ref=1k04h4&token=994114b3

Smartibot takes The Crafty Robot’s ‘build a robot out of anything’ ethos and adds the latest A.I. technology and smartphone connectivity. This allows you to build robots that can recognise and respond to objects they can see such as people, animals and vehicles, or be driven around the home and office using your smartphone as a remote control.

Smartibot comes with cleverly designed cardboard parts, and can be re-used to easily create new robots out of almost anything from porcelain to parsnips. The first three cardboard robot designs include;

  • A.I. Bot: The fun robot that can chase you, your pets or toy vehicles around the room.
  • Teabot: Which can carry two full drinks around the room, giving you a fun way to deliver your favourite person their beverage of choice.
  • Unicorn: It’s a freakin’ Unicorn!

Working with two groups of London-based craftspeople who use traditional processes, Smartibot has grown from a simple robot to something more. Artists at Turning Earth Studios have been able to craft robots using various clay and ceramic techniques whilst regulars at Wild and Woolly Yarn Shop have found knitting a series of robots was more their style. In an East London Makerspace, Machines Room, Smartibot robots have been made using the less traditional materials including potatoes and other vegetables in order to pit them against each other in a race and arena combat in the inaugural ‘Botato Wars’.

“I build technology for a living and I know that the best way to avoid being replaced by a robot is to be the person making the robot” explained Ross Atkin. “We believe building your own robot should be affordable, easy to understand and exciting for everyone. Because of this we created Smartibot in order to allow everyone the opportunity to experiment with the latest A.I. technology in a fun and inventive way.”

Unlike most education technology products, Smartibot allows you to learn all of the disciplines required to create new inventions, from coding and machine learning, to mechanical design and development through iteration.

Akram Hussein, Smartibot software lead, said  “What I love about Smartibot is it allows me share my love of technology and machine learning with my young nephews in a way that is both fun but educational. I’m hopefully they will be excited to pursue STEM careers and believe Smartibot is just the right level to get them started in learning how robots and programming work.”

About The Crafty Robot

The Crafty Robot is a technology education brand, founded by Ross Atkin that has manufactured and sold cardboard robots since 2015 when it was successfully Kickstarted and delivered to over 1,600 backers.

Ross, a London based designer and engineer specialising in internet of things and smart city products, and is part of a team of eight inventors who create one off pieces of technology to solve problems for disabled individuals in the primetime BBC2 TV program ‘The Big Life Fix’.

The Crafty Robot is focused on allowing people to get creative with technology in the most fun and accessible ways possible.

Finally – never again step barefoot on a LEGO® brick in the night! Leguino is now on Kickstarter.

BELFAST, UK – March 2018 –  Leguino launches on Kickstarter and creates the opportunity to anyone to invent. Leguino has built a Sweeper Bot which collects all the lost LEGO® bricks from your floor. The Leguino team made it possible by using the brick shaped Leguino electronics and designed the software for this unique robot with Leguino Visuino, the visual drag and drop software development environment.
By removing the barriers between the worlds of LEGO® and Arduino™, Raspberry Pi and the endless range of electronics – Leguino is a unique marriage to break barriers and overrides limitations: It opens the door for building your next level Lego® project. Leguino parts deliver the bridge. Finally!

Imagine the typical LEGO® projects: Most of them are locked in the LEGO® environment and the really hot and interesting electronic modules which are available for Arduino™ or Raspberry Pi and other compatible components cannot be integrated properly. They do not fit. By using Leguino parts these obstacles are removed: Revert to the endless Arduino™ solutions and add them to your new breathtaking LEGO® projects. Make your prototypes with LEGO® and integrate unique Leguino devices with crazy functions: Microphones, infrared data transfer, OLED displays, humidity sensors or why not try out a real webserver? Connect your LEGO® project to the Internet and override all limitations.

Inventing software with Leguino Visuino is as easy as connecting LEGO® bricks. For those people who are not skilled in writing software, developing programs has never been easier. Instead of writing hundreds of lines of programming code – Leguino Visuino, the visual drag and drop software development environment does all the hard work for you. Just focus on what you will build with bricks, wire them together and see it running in minutes!

The Leguino Vision

The Leguino Vision started with a very straight forward approach: Merging simple tools together to empower people to overcome obstacles while inventing. The Leguino belief is that by lowering barriers more and more people can develop their dream projects and follow their own ideas and inspirations. Ones‘ age or manual skills may not restrict anymore.

Leguino – you are the inventor!

Leguino fills the gap between LEGO® and Arduino™ and Raspberry Pi – now presented on Kickstarter

BELFAST, UK – March 2018 – Leguino is debuting on Kickstarter to fill the gap between two worlds of creation: LEGO® and Arduino™. The Leguino parts contain Arduino™ and Raspberry Pi compatible electronics and houses them into LEGO® compatible brick cases. Leguino delivers standard brick compatible cases for common Arduino and Raspberry Pi electronic components to enhance LEGO® projects and opens them to endless possibilities.

Imagine the typical LEGO® projects: Most of them are locked in the LEGO® environment and the really hot and interesting electronic modules which are available for Arduino™ or Raspberry Pi and other compatible components cannot be integrated properly. They do not fit. By using Leguino parts these obstacles are removed: Revert to the endless Arduino™ solutions and add them to your new breathtaking LEGO® projects. Make your prototypes with LEGO® and integrate unique Leguino devices with crazy functions: Microphones, infrared data transfer, OLED displays, humidity sensors or why not try out a real webserver? Connect your LEGO® project to the Internet and override all limitations.

Inventing software with Leguino Visuino is as easy as connecting LEGO® bricks. For those people who are not skilled in writing software, developing programs has never been easier. Instead of writing hundreds of lines of programming code – Leguino Visuino, the visual drag and drop software development environment does all the hard work for you. Just focus on what you will build with bricks, wire them together and see it running in minutes!

The Leguino Vision

The Leguino Vision started with a very straight forward approach: Merging simple tools together to empower people to overcome obstacles while inventing. The Leguino belief is that by lowering barriers more and more people can develop their dream projects and follow their own ideas and inspirations. Ones‘ age or manual skills may not restrict anymore.

Leguino – you are the inventor!

The Founder of Leguino

The Leguino founder Urs Markus Ernst Streidl has a demonstrated track record for successfully founding companys over 25 years. He has a degree in computer sciences and economics and has (co-)founded 8 tech companys. He is the winner of the German nation-wide Start-Up competition in 2006. He lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland where he cofounded one of his last ventures, BrainWaveBank LTD (one of the hottest Startups in Ireland). This venture has secured in excess of $1.5M in seed capital and R&D funding to date.
Leguino is the first project which integrates the knowledge of his own children (ages 7 and 9). They are the pros and enthusiasts at Leguino.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/leguinofan/leguino-merging-lego-with-arduinotm-you-are-the-in

Robby: A French evolutive robot enhancing curiosity

Lille – France – February 14, 2018 – Robby, the first robot entirely hackable and adaptable, with Plug & Play extensions to awake your creativity, has now reached more than 55% of its goal on Kickstarter (http://kickstarter.mr-robotics.com). Robby is the spark of curiosity everyone need to learn and create. Our evolutive robot is simple enough for beginners to learn step-by-step programming & robotics and powerful in order for the most advanced ones to create, prototype and use it as an open-source working base.

How?

Curious innovators or students just have to follow the three easy steps below to create, learn and prototype:

choose the architecture: build the robot step-by-step starting by choosing its architecture according to its locomotion: holonomic (with three omni-directional wheels) or differential (with two classic wheels) training;
Add and remove Plug & Play extensions easily to the rhythm of your projects to achieve original constructions and more or less complex robots;
Program the robot with an intuitive Arduino library, lots of examples, tutorials, and a visual programming editor. For the most advanced one, you can participate to the open-source library and add your own functions.

For who?

Our goal is to stimulate the curiosity of everyone. We believe that learning complex disciplines can be achieved intuitively and with fun. Based on modularity and simple programming, our robots are designed to familiarize you with robotics, introduce you to programming and realize the most ambitious technological. But beginners aren’t the only one who will enjoy Robby. Based on an ARM Cortex-M4F 32 bit 120 MHz microcontroller, with a 12V extra long life Lipo 3S battery, DC-12V precise motors and incremental encoders, advanced ones will be able to program quickly a powerful platform that will be completed with DIY modules (breadboard sensors and extensions).

From the simple proximity sensor to the multi-articulated arm or the DIY sensor, several dozens of different configurations are possible and available to you! So don’t wait any longer to imagine and conceive! Robby can be used as a slaved robot, in order for everyone to discover, prototype, learn and create.

Mr. Robotics has worked for over one year to bring Robby to market. After dozens of prototypes and R&D testing, we have validated and tested our robot. The time has come to move forward with making Robby available to everyone, and that is why we launched a crowdfunding campaign. Find out more about the crowdfunding campaign at Kickstarter or on our website.

 

About Mr. Robotics:

We are three French students, who have launched the project one year ago. Olivier is currently doing an Engineer School at ENS Paris Saclay and working on the hardware and software. Guillaume, an alumni of Supmeca Engineer School, is currently focusing on the design and the production of the robot, in order to deliver everyone in time. Mathieu is at EDHEC Business School in Lille and manages the Marketing and Sales part.