4 Robots That Teach Children Science and Math in Engaging Ways

 

Modular, programmable automatons make STEM learning fun

May 1, 2014 |By David Geer

Robots are proving to be valuable educational tools from the lower grades all the way up to graduate school.
Credit: Play-i Images

Robots can capture a child’s imagination like no other tool by creating a fun, physical learning process. With robots, kids learn programming via interactive play by moving a robot in various sequences and using intuitive, visual programming on a computer screen. The children also learn STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) by watching and interacting with robots that demonstrate the practical results of the day’s lesson. “Kids recognize when they are learning something themselves—robots give them that,” says Larry Johnson, CEO of the New Media Consortium, a research organization that specializes in educational technology. Robots are proving to be valuable educational tools from the lower grades all the way up to graduate school. “Building and programming these devices is part of becoming a creative science and engineering kind of person,” he adds.
Furthermore, by interacting with robots, kids learn a component of programming known as computational thinking—without even realizing it. This programming may be visual at first but over time it transitions to the kind of character-based coding that enables machines to execute more complex missions.
Educational automatons take many forms—including mini humanoids, boxes on wheels and multirotor flying drones. Scientific American highlights four platforms that demonstrate a robot’s educational prowess.

20 License Plates To Die For

 

One of the last vehicles on which you would expect to see a vanity license plate is the trusty old hearse — a form of transportation originally built with one purpose in mind: to carefully, and without smirk more often than not, carry the dead from A to B. Over the years however, many hundreds (if not thousands) of the older generation of hearse have been bought/salvaged by members of the general public, and have subsequently become an everyday vehicle for that small section of society with a penchant for these oddly compelling cars.

Of course, as happens with some owners of more traditional cars, a number of hearse owners have further personalised their body-carriers with amusing license plates. Below are 20 of the best.

T DIE 4
Image Source: John Williams

NDERTKR
Image Source: AutoBlog

VI 6 SIX
Image Source: Barry Yanowitz

DIRTNAP
Image Source: Walkabout Wolf

2MORBID
Image Source: eraserhappy

COMIN 4U
Image Source: Nerd Groupie

LST RDE
Image Source: stevenbr549

ITSOVER
Image Source: thisisrobert

DIGMUP
Image Source: Sumlin

CORPSES
Image Source: evaxebra

MISERY
Image Source: mollyeh11

1 DUGUP
Image Source: rosathorns

GRIM
Image Source: Jill B.

DRAGULA 1
Image Source: Georgette

X RIP
Image Source: MR38

HAUL U
Image Source: Lisa Rogak

EXPIRED
Image Source: KCA

UR NEXT
Image Source: POPHANGOVER

UNHOLY 1
Image Source: Monica Dahl

666 DBF
Image Source: Electron Mike