Arjen | OpenSTEM Pty Ltd

Swiss Professor starts Cybathlon

The Cybathlon will challenge assistive device developers to create technologies that thrive in day-to-day activities.

The prosthetic arm from the M.A.S.S. Impact team. (Credit: ETH Zurich)

While working as a professor in the sensory-motor systems lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH), Robert Riener noticed a need for assistive devices that would better meet the challenge of helping people with daily life. He knew there were solutions, but that it would require motivating developers to rise to the challenge.

So, Riener created Cybathlon, the first cyborg Olympics where teams from all over the world will participate in races on Oct. 8 in Zurich that will test how well their devices perform routine tasks. Teams will compete in six different categories that will push their assistive devices to the limit on courses developed carefully over three years by physicians, developers and the people who use the technology. Eighty teams have signed up so far.

Riener wants the event to emphasize how important it is for man and machine to work together—so participants will be called pilots rather than athletes, reflecting the role of the assistive technology.

“The goal is to push the development in the direction of technology that is capable of performing day-to-day tasks. And that way, there will an improvement in the future life of the person using the device,” says Riener.

and CYBATHLON: Championship for Athletes with Disabilities

Use your Electoral Right to Vote

Did you know…

In 1863, the state of Victoria allowed everyone on the municipal rolls to vote, which included women; who voted in the 1864 general election. This was regarded as a mistake by the men in government, and the law was changed to exclude women in 1865. It then took another 40 years before women got the vote again – first federally, then in each of the states individually.

People fought for these and other rights. You now have the power to choose for what you believe is right.

Please use your electoral right to vote. It’s important.

Celebrating explorers!

We continue publishing resources on explorers, a very diverse range from around the world and throughout time. Of course James Cook was an interesting person, but isn’t it great to also offer students an opportunity to investigate some other people that they hadn’t yet heard the name of? It is good to show the diversity and how it wasn’t just Europeans who explored.

And did you spot our selection of women explorers? Unfortunately there aren’t that many, but they did awesome work. Nellie Bly is my personal favourite (pictured on the right). Such fabulous initiative.

As small introductory gift this month for those who haven’t yet got a subscription, use this special link to our Explorers category page to get 50% off the price of one explorer resource PDF, some will then be only $1. If you have come to the site via the link, the discount will automatically be applied to your cart on checkout, to the most expensive item from the Explorer category.Alternatively you can use coupon code NL1606EXPL. This offer is only valid until end June 2016.

Which one will you choose? You can write a comment on this post: tell us which explorer, and why!

PDF previews

Our PDFs (from base resources to teacher handbooks and student workbooks) now each have one or two preview pages visible on their product page. All have page 1, and those with four pages or more also have page 4 available for preview from your browser. The example below is just a thumbnail, the actual pages are decently scaled and readable.

EnglandAgeDiscovery-1 — Page 1 preview from the resource: England in the ‘Age of Discovery’

There is one exception, and that’s the PDFs containing the model answers for the student workbooks. We only make those available to clients. Those PDFs are part of the teacher sets, which each have plenty of PDF previews anyhow.

This is in addition to our free curriculum samples where you can download a number of complete resources, teacher handbooks and student workbooks, so you can see how we work and judge the quality for yourself!

As always, if you have any feedback or questions, please let us know!

OpenSTEM 3D Printing and Robotics @ Kilcoy Show

Last Friday and Saturday we had a great time at the Kilcoy Show (that’s a few hours North of Brisbane), showing visitors 3D printing in action and answering lots of questions on that topic – we actually printed some HO-scale train gear and miniature sheep for our model railway neighbours at the show!

We also let kids have a good play with the Mirobot drawing turtle robots and enjoying our cute robotic caterpillar.

OpenSTEM booth at Kilcoy Show 2016 — The OpenSTEM booth, next to Andrew Triggs of Mt Kilcoy State School

We saw a fair amount of interest from parents and visiting teachers for our work with schools, from the workshops to our resources and complete classroom programs, of which we had some sample materials that people could browse and ask us about.

On Friday we had the opportunity to meet briefly with Deb Frecklington, QLD state MP for Nanango (Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry), and talked about the meaning and importance of STEM. Naturally STEM is critical for our agriculture as well!

Trevor Wessling (Kilcoy Show), Deb Frecklington (Nanango MP), Arjen (OpenSTEM)

Our other neighbours at the show were Mt Kilcoy State School, where teacher Andrew Triggs showed off QUT LEGO robotics. Kids enjoyed watching the Rubik cube solver – I competed with it a few times, and was done well before it was 😉

The event has inspired me to build a few more things for kids to interact with and to show how awesome electronics and robotics can be explored without requiring costly gear.

Launch of OpenSTEM Digital Technologies Program

As promised, we delivered the OpenSTEM Digital Technologies Program for Primary Schools (F-6) to schools and individual teachers who already signed up: initial units for each year level, resource PDFs and activities, free software, a board game, optional incursions and workshops and other useful resources.

“Our goal is to make sure our students are at the cutting edge of innovation through the development of skills to become the technology architects of the digital age,” Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said, “This will include an assessment of coding and computer science, as well as early stage robotics, something I firmly believe should be a part of our education system.”

— ‘Advance Queensland’ package announcement (July 2015)

Appreciating the very full schedule that teachers have, we have gone beyond regular integration with the initial materials for Digital Technologies (Australian Curriculum v8.1). Instead, the base fits directly within existing curricula, particularly Maths and English. So, doing the basics doesn’t cost any extra time!

That said, we also have some catching up to do. It’s no good tossing older students (or their teachers!) at more complicated problems when they don’t yet have the base level understanding or skills covered in the earlier years. So we have a catch up plan integral to our initial units.

Today’s students have been immersed in the stream of new technologies since they were born. They have much to learn, but they regard the technology itself as an entirely normal part of life and society.

To be able to guide the students, all educators now also need to go beyond using specific technologies to understanding how things work on a broader scale, and how it all fits together. So uniquely, the journey is very much a joint one and in some parts the teachers are learning along with (slightly ahead of) the students.

The more I see our teachers and students work with the programs, the more convinced I am that we have a great partnership and are doing the right thing by the kids.
— Cheryl Rowe, Principal

OpenSTEM’s related Robotics Program was recently featured on Channel TEN @ Schools coverage in Brisbane.

With schools already signed up and implementing this program in 2016, you can start any time and in a form that suits you (school wide, or individual teachers or year levels). Contact us for more details, and any questions you might have.

Feel free to ask us for a reference (teacher or principal of a school we’ve worked with).