President Obama recently stopped by Silicon Valley to talk innovation. The message centered on a subject he’s championed in the past, namely, the support of education programs focused on science and math:
I always hear stories about how we can’t find engineers, and that’s why we’re emphasizing Math and Science … We want to start making Science cool. I want people to feel about the next big energy breakthrough and the next big Internet breakthrough the same way they felt about the moonwalk.
We’re big proponents of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education here at the blog. Large swaths of the job market are shifting to an online model, but education in corresponding areas hasn’t quite caught up.
Check out our previous posts on technical education by browsing the STEM and Robots categories, and check out the full report of Obama’s talk at techcrunch.com.
It’s the year 2250—computers have learned to impersonate people so well, we can no longer tell human from cyborg. Both are grumpy and irritable. Both talk about their cats way too much. This is where the road to high technology has led us. . .
A professor of applied mathematics at Harvard University just won the A.M. Turing award for, well … just read it:
His work on computational learning theory, including a method called “Probably Approximately Correct,” which, despite its name, is an exacting way to analyze how a machine learns. He also contributed fundamental insights into parallel computing, which has become a standard way to increase machine calculation power, and ventured into neuroscience with a proposal for a mathematical model of the mind.
Congratulations to Leslie G. Valiant for his achievement and for making my life seem comparably uninspired.
Check out our STEM blog category for information on careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
You may or may not know that last month was National HerWorld month. This initiative is one that is held annually by DeVry University to educate high-school girls about STEM careers (science, technology, engineering and math) and provide them with inspiring women role models.
Last month, the featured woman was Danica McKellar, the mathematician who might be better known as the actress who played Winnie in “The Wonder Years.” (I would be lying if I said that I didn’t have a crush on her as an adolescent.)
While we patiently await the inevitable zombie apocalypse, a new threat to the human race has cropped up in a sleepy little town called New York City. . .
In about a month Warsaw, Poland, will be hosting the eighth annual Imagine Cup, an international technology competition that showcases innovative software designed by students. From uwirepr.com:
This year’s competition started with more than 325,000 high school and university students registering from more than 100 countries and regions, and it will culminate at the Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals from July 3–8. Only the top 400 students have made it to the Worldwide Finals for their original solutions, which range from a multitouch tutoring system for physically challenged students to a mobile phone application that can test for hearing loss.
This particular segment of the competition is decided by you, if you’d like to vote, and other visitors to the Imagine Cup voting page. Each team has produced a video describing the software program’s concept and practical application; the one I’ll embed below (I’m just going to post a link; the video keeps crashing and Microsoft Silverlight is hot trash) is a complex and innovative piece of baby monitoring software that makes it easy to forget it was designed by students. The video is also worth watching for its hyper-dramatic intro, hilarious French to English translations and the dramatization at 9:33. Enjoy, and I hope your computer is more tenacious than mine.
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Further Reading: Our post on gladiator robots also showcased a program dedicated to fostering innovation in students through creative competition.
Robot update: California’s hardware and open source software collective Willow Garage just graduated 11 robots, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Most will go on to colleges and universities to be personal assistants. For their shining moment they danced to “Mr. Roboto.”
Could there be a better blog post subject for the Friday heading into a holiday weekend?
Friday bonus stat: “Of the 30 jobs projected to grow at the fastest rate over the next decade in the United States, only seven typically require a bachelor’s degree, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” via The New York Times.
*** Related reading: This blog looked at how gladiator robots help foster high-school students’ interest in science, technology, engineering and math here.
From the Educated Nation Blog: How do you motivate high school students to become interested in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)? The answer, which seems obvious in hindsight, is robot battles.
Joey Daoud has put together what promises to be a fascinating documentary on the tech-savvy high school students competing in the BOTSIQ National Tournament. The tournament consists of high school and college teams that design and construct competitive battle robots. The robots are designed according to very specific guidelines (PDF), with the goal of immobilizing (or destroying) an opposing robot.
The robots can be gas or electrically powered, are allowed weapons and are judged on aggression, control, damage and strategy. The rules even deem projectile weapons and strong electro-magnets fair game (with restrictions, but still). Check out the film’s trailer for an idea of what these battles look like:
The idea is to get high school students interested in pursing an engineering or technology-related degree in college, and it’s worked according to Mr. Daoud:
My goal with the film is to be entertaining to all, yet motivational to students to get them involved in science and engineering (STEM) programs and for educators to see these alternate teaching methods. A lot of the teams featured are all girls teams! I think it’d be very interesting down the line to see what careers these girls go into. 3 were accepted into MIT, the first to do so from their school in 20 something years.
There is a fundraising effort to support the production and distribution of Bots High; you can donate directly to the site here.
There is a second tournament class that involves robot manipulation to move blocks and balls within an area to score points. Similar robot competitions exist, such as the international VEX Robotics Competition, with the shared goal of sparking students’ interest in science and engineering. These tournaments are introducing a new generation of students to possible careers at NASA, or other engineering-related fields. This is all made possible by a few creative students and their quest to build the most violent and destructive automated machines conceivable. It’s inspiring, and we wish them well.
