Monthly Archives: August 2009

Some interesting Robotics videos from TED

Posted on by herbcle

There are some very interesting robotics related videos from the TED site. Might be good to show some of them to students.

http://www.ted.com/talks/rodney_brooks_on_robots.html – Rodney Brooks says robots will invade our lives

http://www.ted.com/talks/charles_elachi_on_the_mars_rovers.html – Charles Elachi shares stories from NASA’s legendary Jet Propulsion Lab — including tales and video from the Mars Rover project.

http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html – This demo — from Pattie Maes’ lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry — was the buzz of TED. It’s a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment.

“MoonBots” Challenges Parent-Child Teams to Conduct Google Lunar X PRIZE Missions with LEGO Robots

Posted on by herbcle

http://www.moonbots.org/

An interesting robotics contest backed by some real heavyweights!

The X PRIZE Foundation, Google Inc., LEGO Systems, National Instruments, and Wired’s GeekDad will announce “MoonBots: A Google Lunar X PRIZE LEGO® MINDSTORMS® Challenge” today at National Instruments NIWeek 2009. The new contest will challenge small teams comprised of children and adults to design, program, and construct robots that perform simulated lunar missions similar to those required to win the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE, a private race to the Moon designed to enable commercial exploration of space while engaging the global public. To further this purpose, the X PRIZE Foundation and Google have now joined forces with three other well known technology companies to offer a competition that will stimulate learning of robotics and team building while exciting students and their families about their potential roles in the new Moon race.