This article describes a teaching unit that used Lego Robotics to address state science standards for teaching basic principles of evolution in two middle school life science classes. All but two of 29 students in these classes were native Spanish speakers from Mexico. Both classes were taught using Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol…

Anthropomorphism describes the tendency to imbue the real or imagined behavior of nonhuman agents with humanlike characteristics, motivations, intentions, or emotions. Although surprisingly common, anthropomorphism is not invariant. This article describes a theory to explain when people are likely to anthropomorphize and when they are not, focused…

This paper reports the results of a study of the relationship of robotics activity to the use of science literacy skills and the development of systems understanding in middle school students. Twenty-six 11-12-year-olds (22 males and 4 females) attending an intensive robotics course offered at a summer camp for academically advanced students…

Inventors design new products because there is a strong need for them. Understanding this and discussing it in the classroom will show students how technology, math and science are used to improve everyone's standard of living and strengthen the economy. There are numerous connections to history, social studies and literacy--making the study of…

The grounding of symbols in computational models of linguistic abilities is one of the fundamental properties of psychologically plausible cognitive models. In this article, we present an embodied model for the grounding of language in action based on epigenetic robots. Epigenetic robotics is one of the new cognitive modeling approaches to…

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a multinational, not-for-profit organization that aspires to transform culture-making science, math, engineering, and technology as cool for kids as sports are today. FIRST has an exciting new program in the works--the VEX Challenge, which the author describes in this article.…

Discusses the need for training and education in new skill areas. Points out that the right people often do not get the right training. Too often engineers and skilled workers are trained to the exclusion of supervisors and operators. (JOW)

Discusses employment opportunities in robotics. (JOW)

Describes the robots used to aid in rescue and recovery at Ground Zero after the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. The robots were developed as a result of national Science Foundation Quick Response Research Awards. Describes several awards that were made following the attack. (JOW)

A robotics contest encouraged research into robotics and gave students an opportunity to share their work and to build a robot with practical application for use in the home. (JOW)

Research on neural networks and hippocampal function demonstrating how mammals construct mental maps and develop navigation strategies is being used to create Intelligent Autonomous Mobile Robots (IAMRs). Such robots are able to recognize landmarks and navigate without "vision." (SK)

This article presents a formal theory of robot perception as a form of abduction. The theory pins down the process whereby low-level sensor data is transformed into a symbolic representation of the external world, drawing together aspects such as incompleteness, top-down information flow, active perception, attention, and sensor fusion in a…

Robots provide teachers with opportunities to teach multidimensional thinking and critical thinking skills. In this article, the author presents a classroom activity wherein students are required to design a firefighting robot. This activity aims to demonstrate the complexity and interdisciplinary nature of the robotics technology.

Enrollment in undergraduate computer-science programs has dipped all over the country, and among women it has almost vanished, dropping 70 percent between 2000 and 2005. Observers cite different reasons for the drop, including the dot-com bust a few years ago is one, but universities are beginning to agree on one cause that is within their…

In this article we describe an approach to the design of learning objects (LOs) suitable to support learning in complex domains. We briefly discuss, from an educational point of view, the methodological choices underlying the design of LOs to be used as didactical materials in a distributed Web-based environment, presently under development,…