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HEMET: Summer camp teaches kids to build robots
Many kids go to summer camps and learn how to fish, swim, ride horses and more. Campers at the Western Science Center in Hemet spent a week learning how to build, program and operate robots.
Two sessions of camp provided more than 20 kids the opportunity to spend three hours each morning working with plastic gears, wheels, tracks, tires and motors to create creatures or vehicles that battled each other in friendly competitions.
Greg Fuller teaches seventh-grade social studies and eighth-grade robotics at the Western Science Academy. Before entering the education field nine years ago, he spent many years working with high-tech computer software.
“The camp kids used the Lego NXT Mindstorms (robots). It’s a good platform to learn basic programming and for understanding how robots work,” Fuller said.
Each kit contains more than 600 elements, including an NXT micro-computer that acts as the robot’s brain, touch sensors to help it feel, ultrasonic sensor so it can detect motion and more.
“I teach more hands-on applications and less theory,” said Fuller, of Menifee. “We’re really here to guide them and provide suggestions. They can just take off and do what they want.”
Open to students entering third through fifth grades, the “Robotics — Jump In!” camp had kids building and programming robots from Day One and creating a custom-built robot to show off to relatives who were invited to an open house after the final class.
“On the programming side, the computer shows them how to do it step by step, using pictures,” Fuller said.
Fuller formed a FIRST Robotics Club at the specialized Hemet school in February. Meeting once a week after school, the club had 30 seventh- and eighth-graders plus a waiting list. Several club members returned this summer to serve as lab assistants to the younger campers.
“I like teaching younger kids about robots,” said Jacob Montgomery, who was helping Zubin Carvalho. “I’ve always had an interest in electronics and how it can help in our daily life.”
The club started off with Lego’s NXT robot kits and graduated to the TETRIX robot platform in tournaments. Members belong to the FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge) league, which includes aluminum frames and controllers.
“Part of being in the Robotics Club is learning to be generous and help others and to be a good sport,” said Jacob, 13.
Sidonia Carrillo, 10, is looking forward to being a student at the academy, partly so she can learn even more about robots.
“I’m interested in robots and Legos, and this camp is all about Lego robots so it’s kind of perfect for me,” Sidonia said. She is one of a handful of girls who joined the camp.
Thad Powers was intent on programming his robot to perform the way he wanted before taking it to “battle.”
“I play computer games and that has helped me a little here,” said Thad, 8.
Source: http://www.pe.com/local-news/riverside-county/hemet/hemet-headlines-index/20120703-hemet-summer-camp-teaches-kids-to-build-robots.ece
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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