Robots and Physical Computing

I will start with a confession, I only had about 2 1/2 hours at BETT 2017  due to external time pressures so to say I didn't yet a chance for a good (or even a bad) look around is an understatement; so I am not reviewing the show just a few notes on what I did manage to see. STEAM Village First and mostly, it was great to talk to so many people, only few I had met face to face previously, about robots, micro:bits, Raspberry Pis and coding. Most of this happen in the relatively small (compared to the event space) STEAM village and nearby stalls. It was great to see the strong presence of both Raspberry Pi and Micro:Bit Foundation, along the variety of different activities and example usage of both, with Code Club (I know it is part of Raspberry Pi Foundation) there was well. This was all alongside some other companies Four of these stuck in my mind. 1. DFRobot ( https://www.dfrobot.com/ ) with their range of Arduino-based robots and non-programmable kits....

I  managed to do something I have want to do for a long time, show off social robots; (now I have three goes at it) thanks to the recent purchase of NAO robots by the University of Northampton.  Session 1 In an in-reach STEAM activity day I have had the opportunity to show the robots in action to a group of 8 years olds. As well presenting a short presentation on social robots. Meeting our robots at our #science day for girls pic.twitter.com/0XwllXL40s — Chris Fidler (@Chris_UNPR) March 3, 2016 Meet Smurf and Red at Girls S.T.E.A.M. @UniNorthants @scottturneruon @Changemaker_Hub @nick_petford pic.twitter.com/ZMt07ZrSVh — STEM at UN (@STEMatUN) March 3, 2016 Social robots meet red and smurf from Scott Turner I would be interested to hear how others are using NAOs via comments. Session 2 and 3 I have managed to include a physical example of Social Robots into my teaching. The aim of the session was to teach about social AI, revolving aroun...