Arjen | OpenSTEM Pty Ltd

RCA Old Technology Video (1983)

It’s cool to look at past visions of the future, particularly those from companies in a sales/marketing context because they contain all the fabulous buzzwords from the time.

Entitled RCA Video Monitors: The Future Is Now (1983), the below is a segment from an extremely rare CED videodisc sent to dealers telling them about the then new concept in TV design: the inclusion of multiple A/V inputs and outputs for connecting multiple devices!

The intermittent skipping you see on the video was “normal” for that videodisc technology. Mind that videodisc wasn’t DVD, videodisks were quite big.

Note that, oddly, DVDs also exhibit a brief skip when (they switch from one layer to another on dual-layer disks). Technically it’d be so easy to avoid this visual annoyance!.

Compact Cassette — (image by GrahamUK, Wikipedia)

The Compact Disk (CD) was invented by Philips and launched around 1984. DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) is from 1995. Philips actually has a history of these broad innovations, in 1953 they launched the Compact Cassette.

Philips somehow misfired with video recorders (VCRs), adopting the technically superior Video 2000 format (1979), and as we now know VHS became the global standard. The VCR format saga is an interesting historical example of where factors other than purely technical superiority played a role in defining the winner. Among other factors, they came in late – but there was more to it. Anyhow, we know that even Betamax was regarded as superior in quality to VHS, Betamax remained in use for professional recording equipment for a very long time.

OpenSTEM robots visit Hobart primary school

On our last day in Tasmania (after the OSDC conference, about which I’ll do other posts shortly), Claire and I visited the wonderful Lauderdale Primary School in Hobart, where I did a version of our free Robotics Incursion with two year 5/6 classes, having a chat about robots, robotics, and more – and having our autonomous caterpillar and hexapod robots stroll around the sports hall….

The students were really engaged, they had thoughtful questions and great ideas – and the feedback from the kids as well as the teachers was that the session was fun as well as educational. Good!

We often do this incursion as a neat way for schools, teachers and students to get to know us before undertaking a bigger program such as the Robotics & Programming one. But, when we’re travelling somewhere with the robots anyway, it’s great to visit a local school. All our facilitators hold a current “working with children” card, so getting something like this organised is really quite straightforward.

George Boole Bicentenary Celebrations

Today is George Boole‘s 200th birthday. He lived from 2 November 1815 to 8 December 1864, so he was only 49 when he died!

In 2015, University College Cork (Ireland) celebrates the bicentenary of George Boole’s birth. Born in Lincoln, Boole was a mathematical genius who was largely self-taught. His appointment as the first Professor of Mathematics at the college in 1849 provided the opportunity to develop his most important work, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought.

Boole is a pivotal figure who can be described as the ‘father of the information age’. His invention of Boolean algebra and symbolic logic pioneered a new mathematics. His legacy surrounds us everywhere, in the computers, information storage and retrieval, electronic circuits and controls that support life, learning and communications in the 21st century.

Check out the georgeboole.com site for video and lots more information about George Boole and his wonderful achievements!

Mirobot v2 Robotics Kits and Soldering Kits Available

The Mirobot v2 logo turtle robotics kits will be here shortly. These are the updated version of the kits we have been using at primary schools (year 4-6) this year in our Robotics and Programming workshops. The new model doesn’t require little pegs any more, the structure now holds itself together with a beautiful designed slot mechanism. Kudos to Ben Pirt for an awesome design!

The robot frames are made of lasercut MDF, and the circuit board is Arduino controlled. All aspects of the design is open and available. The robot can be used to draw, but now also comes with bump sensors and line following capabilities. Communication is through wifi over a raw or web socket. There are a number of programming and control options, from Scratch-style visual systems to a brand new Python library!

By default the v2 comes with a pre-soldered circuit board, but especially for OpenSTEM Ben is offering a non-soldered PCB so we can continue doing the soldering part with classes also. We have found this to be both a great enabler for students, as well as teach that people can build things almost from scratch. But you choose… we keep both the soldered and un-soldered kits. Either way, this is a great project to do with your kids at home, quite a few parents of students that do our workshops also continue in this way.

If you order now, we’ll still be able to include you in the first shipment!

Now for Electronics Soldering! If you or your children want to also do some soldering but don’t have the necessary tools yet, we now have sets available. We assemble our own classroom soldering kits ourselves from a number of sources, as sets found in shops have flimsy or awkward stands. We use a solid steel stand, that also features a wire cleaning ball – this works much better than a wet sponge and it is much easier to maintain. We also include a number of other useful items.

You can order the soldering kit together with a Mirobot kit, or on its own.

Shipping of orders including Mirobots will be in November. This is likely to be our final Mirobot order this side of Christmas, so we do recommend you order now if you want to have the kit available over the holidays.

How to Help Your Child Become a Maker | MakerKids

http://www.makerkids.com/#!How-To-Help-Your-Child-Become-a-Maker/dcsov/562094010cf2c3a4a7109d92

Let’s say your child is currently a classic consumer – they love watching TV, reading books, but they don’t really enjoy making things themselves. Or maybe they are making some things but it’s not really technological. We think any kind of making is awesome, but one of our favourite kinds is the kind where kids realize that they can build and influence the world around them. There’s an awesome Steve Jobs quote that I love, which says:

“When you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and you’re life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it…

Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

Imagine if you can figure this out as a child.

School for the Right Reason

A beautiful and insightful song. I don’t quite agree with the phrasing of the notes at the end, but I think I understand the obvious expression of frustration behind it.

The things we learn at school, from maths and science to history, are useful – but they often get taught lacking context, and in a way that doesn’t connect with students. This makes for disjointed snippets of information, which consequently can’t really be regarded as knowledge.

Thus, I think the issue is not directly about “proving” that there is a practical use for what is getting taught. When we teach differently, its meaning, context and relevance becomes apparent. We see this in practice all the time. When students understand the why, they immediately become much more engaged.