Looks at some of the realities of life with robots: robots aren't replacing entire shifts of workers; a robot is just a tool; regular plant personnel maintain robots; and job category and seniority dictate who is trained to maintain robots. (CT)

Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) are described as a marriage of all of the latest technologies--robotics, numerical control, CAD/CAM (computer-assisted design/computer-assisted manufacturing), etc.--into a cost-efficient, optimized production process yielding the greatest flexibility in making various parts. A typical curriculum to teach FMS…

Whimsically adopting the first-person viewpoint of a robot, this article describes a four-phase program integrating robotics into the school curriculum in Coffeyville, Kansas: (1) Awareness, (2) Simple Programming, (3) Advanced Programming, and (4) Application of Robotics in Society. (TE)

"VICA Skills USA Championships" (Bamford) describes the competitions and events of the 1995 National Vocational Industrial Clubs of America Leadership and Skills Conference. "Student Robotics Contest" (Vandenberg) describes an annual competition that invites students to demonstrate their creativity and knowledge of robotics.…

Provides insight into the exciting future of robotics. Includes a student quiz and possible student outcomes. (JOW)

Provides an overview of robots that retrieve World Wide Web documents and index data and then store it in a database. Nine robot-generated databases are described, including record content, services, search features, and sample search results; and sidebars discuss the controversy about Web robots and other resource discovery tools. (LRW)

In this article we describe a programming framework called Pyro, which provides a set of abstractions that allows students to write platform-independent robot programs. This project is unique because of its focus on the pedagogical implications of teaching mobile robotics via a top-down approach. We describe the background of the project, its…

Robots make a wonderful context for teaching students about many concepts important to technological literacy. They can provide an authentic context and produce high levels of motivation. According to Standards for Technological Literacy: Content for the Study of Technology (STL) (ITEA, 2000, 2002), there are six core concepts that should be…

"Where does the Sun go at night?" or "Why don't the Australians fall off?" are typical of the innocent questions that children ask. A new "Earth and Beyond" primary science learning programme from the University of Bradford is piloting some exciting ways to engage children with these questions and providing…

Chantilly High School Academy Robotics Team Number 612 from Chantilly, Virginia, is an award-winning team of high school students actively involved with FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a multinational nonprofit organization that inspires students to transform culture--making science, math, engineering and…

"Alabama Education News" is published monthly except for June, July, and December by the Alabama Department of Education. This publication, authorized by Section 16-2-4 of the "Code of Alabama", as recompiled in 1975, is a public service of the Alabama Department of Education designed to inform citizens and educators about…

The 23rd EUROCALL conference was held in Cyprus from the 24th to the 27th of August 2016. The theme of the conference this year was "CALL Communities and Culture." It offered a unique opportunity to hear from real-world CALL practitioners on how they practice CALL in their communities, and how the CALL culture has developed in local and…

Provides an introduction to robotic technology, and describes current robot models. Three ways of using robots in education are discussed--as exemplars of other processes, as objects of instruction, and as prosthetic aids--and selection criteria are outlined. (17 references) (CLB)

Because of the impetus on how to improve productivity in companies, the demand for graduating industrial engineers continues to be strong from a variety of sources. Starting salary offers for graduates have been averaging $26,784. Enrollments in industrial engineering programs are increasing (with 3,923 graduates in 1984). (JN)

Despite falling prices and more varied applications, the diffusion of industrial robots is taking place at a slower pace than expected. There are not only technical snags but also social barriers to be overcome--displacement of workers, deskilling of certain operations, and changes in work methods. (Author/CT)