Making Learning Fun

ID Tech Camps offer award-winning summer technology programs at top universities in the U.S, where kids can gain skills that last long after summer camp ends.

In response to the concern of low numbers of girls involved in STEM,  ID Tech Camps is introducing a brand new course that combines hot industry software with digital media design concepts: Graphic Design for Advertising.  This course targets students ages 10 to 17.

A 2010 study by the American Association of University Women researched the factors that contribute to this imbalance, and chief among them are (1) girls’ low self-assessment of their STEM aptitude, and (2) a lack of engaging STEM coursework at a young age.  The new ID Tech Camps course addresses both issues, encouraging students to branch out and develop core technology skills while showing them the hands-on, real-life applications of their skills.   Designed to appeal to all creative types, the Graphic Design for Advertising curriculum explores the inventive side of technology and reveals the artistic applications of STEM skills.

To find locations in your area check http://www.internaldrive.com/locations/

Were you aware that there is a human-like robot (ROBONAUT) getting ready to be launched into space and to live in the International Space Station?

ROBONAUT

Created by NASA and General Motors, the work on the first Robonaut began in 1997. The idea was to build a humanoid robot that could assist astronauts on tasks in which another pair of hands would be helpful or to venture forth to perform jobs either too dangerous for crew members to risk or too mundane for them to spend time on. The result was R1, a human-like prototype of a robot that could perform maintenance tasks or be mounted on a set of wheels to explore the surface of the moon or Mars. Through 2006, R1 performed in numerous experiments in a variety of laboratory and field test environments, proving that the concept of a robotic assistant was valid. The same year, General Motors expressed an interest in hearing about the project. They had been developing their own dexterous robots, and after seeing what NASA had already accomplished, GM proposed teaming up.

A Space Act Agreement was signed in 2007 to allow GM and NASA to pool resources and work together on the next generation Robonaut. In February 2010, R2 was unveiled – a faster, more dexterous, more technologically advanced humanoid robot than had ever been seen before. Its potential was quickly recognized, and space was made on one of the few remaining shuttle missions to provide it a ride to the space station. There it will make both history, as the first humanoid robot in space, and progress as engineers get their first look at how a humanoid robot actually performs in the absence of gravity.

Watch a 2-minute video at http://news.discovery.com/videos/space-robonaut-2-your-future-coworker.html

Download his fact sheet at 469616main_Robonaut2_factsheet

Read more details at http://robonaut.jsc.nasa.gov/default.asp.  

Or even cooler, interact directly with Robonaut on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/NASArobonaut. My kids have had a a lot of  fun asking questions and getting answers from him.

Vampire Flying Frog. Jodi J L Rowley © Jodi J L Rowley/Australian Museum

Straight from the jungles of Vietnam!! a new frog has been discovered. This unusual frog has adapted for life in trees, using webbed fingers and toes for moving from great heights and gliding, hence the ‘flying frog’ name. But it’s the strange black ‘fangs’ the species’ tadpoles display which have earned it a place in the vampire world…              

The new species is known only to inhabit a high-elevation area of forest in southern Vietnam, breeding in holes in trees.

Can you imagine the surprise in a child’s face when playing with tadpoles in a pond and seeing they have black fangs? Very scary indeed!

Getting kids to enjoy science is not always an easy task. However I have personally found that using fun facts gets my kids interested. The fact that the Hubble telescope has taken a picture of a large green blob in space, is a great opportunity to talk about how stars are born. This bizarre glowing blob in particular, is giving birth to new stars, some only a couple million years old, in remote areas of the universe where stars don’t normally form.             

This handout photo provided by NASA, taken April 12, 2010 by the Hubble Space Telescope, shows an unusual, ghostly green blob of gas that appears to float near a normal-looking spiral galaxy. (AP Photo/Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute)

Parts of the green blob are collapsing and the resulting pressure from that is creating the stars. The stellar nurseries are outside of a normal galaxy, which is usually where stars live. That makes these “very lonely newborn stars” that are “in the middle of nowhere,” said Bill Keel, the University of Alabama astronomer who examined the blob.

The blob is the size of our own Milky Way galaxy and it is 650 million light years away. Each light year is about 6 trillion miles. The blob is mostly hydrogen gas swirling from a close encounter of two galaxies and it glows because it is illuminated by a quasar in one of the galaxies. A quasar is a bright object full of energy powered by a black hole.

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