CNN (12/12, Sullivan) reports that a “fully electric commercial plane has completed a test flight in Canada in what operators have called a ‘world first’ for the aviation industry.” Harbour Air Seaplane CEO Greg McDougall said, “Today, we made history” while also highlighting Harbour’s “innovation.” The project was conducted in conjunction with magniX, an Australian electric motor manufacturer. In a statement, magniX CEO Roei Ganzarski called the aviation industry “ripe for disruption” – observing the flight was both “low-cost” and “environmentally friendly.” (Full Story)
The AP (12/10) reports the New Hampshire Department of Education announced on Tuesday that “grants from a robotics education fund have been awarded to 101 New Hampshire schools so far up from 57 last year. … The grants totaling $522,000 fund the purchase of robotics kits, stipends for coaches, and competition expenses.” The program is intended “to motivate students to pursue educational and career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, while building critical life and work-related skills. Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut said robotics tournaments combine teambuilding, problem solving, and hands-on high-tech experience.”
Complete story at https://manchesterinklink.com/101-new-hampshire-robotics-teams-receive-522k-in-state-grants/
From IEEE Spectrum
We’ve been writing about robots here at IEEE Spectrum for a long, long time. Erico started covering robotics for Spectrum in 2007, about the same time that Evan started BotJunkie.com. We joined forces in 2011, and have published thousands of articles since then, chronicling as many aspects of the field as we could. Autonomous cars, humanoids, legged robots, drones, robots in space—the last decade in robotics has been incredible.
To kick off 2020, we’re taking a look back at our most popular posts of the last 10 years. In order, listed below are the 100 articles with the highest total page views, providing a cross-section of what was the most interesting in robotics from 2010 until now.
Also, sometime in the next several weeks, we plan to post a selection of our favorite stories, focusing on what we think were the biggest developments in robotics of the past decade (including a few things that, surprisingly, did not make the list below). If you have suggestions of important robot stories we should include, let us know. Thank you for reading!
Continue readingAimed at 4th and 5th graders, this 20 page book shows how the members of the Razzle-Dazzle Robot Club build a robot to clean up their workshop, but it doesn’t work as expected. When they visit their local university, they discover an exciting new approach based on AI and robot learning. The book conveys how girls and under-represented students can excel and have fun in science and engineering.
(with support from NSF and UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science)
Free download: http://j.mp/How-To-Train-Your-Robot-Nov-2019
Hard copy of Book: For free hardcopies of the full-color book for
educational use, please send a short description of the student group
(ages, school or program, class/club, teacher), number of copies
requested, and your full mailing address to:
Lawrence Hall of Science: Kalie Sacco <kaliesacco@berkeley.edu>
from IEEE Spectrum
Nov 28, 2019
by Erico Guizzo and Evan Ackerman
Welcome to the eighth edition of IEEE Spectrum’s Robot Gift Guide!
This year we’re featuring 15 robotic products that we think will make fantastic holiday gifts. As always, we tried to include a broad range of robot types and prices, focusing mostly on items released this year. (A reminder: While we provide links to places where you can buy these items, we’re not endorsing any in particular, and a little bit of research may result in better deals.)
If you need even more robot gift ideas, take a look at our past guides: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, and 2012. Some of those robots are still great choices and might be way cheaper now than when we first posted about them. And if you have suggestions that you’d like to share, post a comment below to help the rest of us find the perfect robot gift.
Continue reading