Daily Archives: March 21, 2017

Making poetry their own: The evolution of poetry education – The Conversation US

Posted: March 21, 2017 at 11:57 am

The American poet William Stafford was often asked by friends, readers, students and colleagues: When did you become a poet? The response he regularly offered was: The question isnt when I became a poet; the question is when other people stopped.

Stafford was articulating what many poets believe: that the roots of poetry (rhythm, form, sound) go far back both personally and culturally to the crib and to the fire in front of the cave.

No surprise, then, that children delight in the pleasures of lullabies, nursery rhymes, chants and jingles. They bounce, clap, dance responding in ways that involve their whole bodies. Yet as they get older, their delight in poetry often fades. Their pleasure in language and form lessens. In Staffords words, they stop being poets.

How have schools been part of this evolution, and what can they do to bring back delight?

Historically, poetry has played an important role in the curriculum of U.S. schools. Early American textbooks such as The New England Primer and the McGuffey Readers taught children to read with a combination of poetry and prose. In this way, poetry was used to teach morals, patriotism and nationalism, along with subject areas like geography and mathematics.

In 19th- and early 20th-century classrooms, schoolroom poetry was memorized and performed as a way to promote citizenship, to create a shared sense of community, to develop an American identity and to assist with language acquisition particularly among immigrants. Because they were meant to be learned by heart, the poems taught usually rhymed, had regular meter and used language that was easy to understand, remember and repeat.

This ease of form and content was not, however, matched by historical accuracy. Writers sometimes rewrote history into poems that celebrated American values. Take, for example, Paul Reveres Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, published in 1860. The narrative is compelling for memorization and performance, and portrays an admirable version of American heroism; however, it contains little documented historical truth.

Learned by heart and shared with an audience, these poetic retellings of Americas past had significant cultural impact: Both the performer and those listening internalized a story that promoted a specific version of nationalism.

In the mid-20th century, it became less important for schools to make citizens or teach English language through memorized lines. Instead, poetry in schools separated into two strands: serious poetry and verse. Serious poetry was studied; it was officially sanctioned, used to teach literary elements like iambic pentameter, rhymed couplets, metaphor and alliteration. Verse, on the other hand, was unsanctioned playful, irreverent and sometimes offensive. It was embraced by children for the sake of pleasure and delight.

By the late 20th century, classrooms and curricula began to value the sciences over literary expression and information and technology over art. The study of any poetry serious or not became marginalized, seldom occurring except in AP courses preparing students for college literature study.

Though the late 20th century saw a decline in the study of poetry in schools, recent decades have seen an upsurge in poetry that is more relevant and more accessible to young people.

For instance, if in the past, schoolchildren learned poems written almost exclusively by white men glorifying a sanitized version of American history, recently students have begun to read poems by poets who represent racial, ethnic, cultural or religious diversity as part of their heritage. This represents a major development in the world of poetry for children.

Poets in recent years have introduced English-speaking children to a range of cross-cultural poetic forms: Japanese haiku, Korean sijo and the Middle Eastern ghazal. Poets have published collections of poetry (often multilingual) from around the world, conveying the experiences of culturally diverse national and international groups.

As well, children have access to poetry by groups that have historically been marginalized and silenced in American schools: Native Americans, Hispanic/Latino Americans, Pacific Islanders, Asian-Americans and African-Americans, as well as LGBTQ poets, poets with disabilities and poets from a range of religious backgrounds.

Many young people are also writing poems themselves both inside and outside the classroom. There are a number of recent collections of poetry that contain the voices of young writers: Things I Have to Tell You: Poems and Writing by Teenage Girls, Paint Me Like I Am: Teen Poems from WritersCorp, When The Rain Sings: Poems By Young Native Americans, Salting the Ocean: 100 Poems by Young People and The Palm of my Heart: Poems by African American Children. These collections are often used in classrooms to teach poetry as a vehicle for self expression.

In addition to writing poetry in their classes, todays young writers are appearing on numerous poetry websites and are circulating poems their own and those of others through social media.

The most exciting development in the world of poetry for young people is in the arena of performance. There is a widespread renewed interest in spoken poetry for and by young people. Its growth is signaled by the emergence of hip-hop, rap, poetry slams and spoken-word poetry events.

The roots of poetry are in speaking and listening. Poetry events for young people once again allow students to perform for an audience those poems they have committed to memory and learned by heart. If, in the past, poems were memorized as a way to indoctrinate students into a way of being American, todays young poets are using their words and voices to express their own cultural and political convictions and commitments.

As a poet, educator and scholar, I am heartened by the current reinvigoration of the field. In myriad forms by diverse writers in a variety of venues, poems for children are happening.

Young people are growing their own voices, falling in love with words, writing and performing their own poems.

In and out of schools, they are reclaiming the poet selves that Stafford believes they were born with through a powerful and continuing relationship with the rhythms, forms and sounds that are poems.

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Making poetry their own: The evolution of poetry education - The Conversation US

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Change happens best through evolution, not revolution – Cincinnati.com

Posted: at 11:57 am

Terry Sexton Segerberg 10:27 a.m. ET March 20, 2017

Terry Sexton Segerberg(Photo: Provided)

Terry Sexton Segerberg is the chief executive officer of Cincinnati-based Mesa Industries.

As a young woman, I worked for a major fine china manufacturer. At first, I wanted to be valued as both a person and a woman. I took great pride when I accomplished something that was unusual for a woman. Over time my attitude or perhaps my approach changed. I no longer wanted to have my gender a part of my strategic thinking. I wanted to be judged for what I contributed. When I walked the production floor it was no longer important to me to be viewed as a female. I had earned my place.

Now when I hear the word feminist I cringe. I feel a huge disconnect. I was a feminist. I wasnt angry or aggressive. I simply chose to prove to each person and challenge that as a woman I was capable. Yes, I took on roles and challenges that women didnt traditionally do. I was one of the first women to be allowed to join the Rotary club and later one of the first female club presidents. Yes, it was hard sometimes to be the only woman in meetings. Sometimes men walked out of meetings because I was there. But I was determined to prove the doubters wrong through the quality of my work. I never used anger. I never asked for an opportunity that I wasnt qualified for.

There were quite a few inappropriate remarks and efforts to minimalize me. Oddly, some of the loudest offending voices were women. Some were hyper critical of me and often resisted sharing information with me because I was a female manager in a male role. Nonetheless at 20 years old, if someone attempted to disrespect me, I stood my ground. Privately I shook but never where I could be seen. Big girls dont cry.

Some young women today have changed the dialog. They have lost their direction. They are angry because they think womens equal rights are essentially non-existent. I say the issue has become more complex as sexual harassment and maternity leave became unforeseen factors. I agree that altering the workplace to accommodate for these issues is a challenge that must be addressed. Nonetheless, we arent owed anything simply because we are female. It is incredibly easier because of women like my mother and me. Where we faced opportunities completely blocked to us; these same opportunities today are nothing special.

Those angry voices want to change the rules. They feel that they must play like the boys. I have seen an increase in crudeness in language and behavior from women. In doing this they quit being women.

The female perspective is different from the male. We all know this. By dampening that voice because a woman feels like she needs to behave like a man, she has devalued her contributions. And far worse, she has devalued herself.

Proof of the value of the female perspective are the vast opportunities for women today. Just slightly over half of American workers are women. Almost 52 percenthold professional-level jobs. While they dont hold an equally impressive number of upper echelon positions that number is improving. Change happens best through evolution, not revolution.

Men are used to having working spouses. Therefore; they are more accepting of working side by side with female co-workers. Daycares are plentiful. Companies have begun to realize the importance of offering benefit programs that support families as a huge plus in attracting top talent.

Yes, there are still disparities. As a female CEO in a male-dominated industry, I am often the only woman at professional events. Yes, there is strong evidence that women dont get paid at the same rate for the same job. Yes, it is amazingly challenging to be both a mother and a full-time employee.

And yet we have made progress at becoming equals in every aspect of life. Our mere presence as a majority in the workforce has required the rules to change.

So perhaps, I have come full circle. Today I am proud to be a woman who has accomplished things other women havent. I have seen the world change. Is it perfect and equal? No. But because of how far we have come, the rest of the path is clear.

Going forward women can set the agenda. We can take the topic of reproductive issues out of the discussions. We are far more than a pair of ovaries. It is up to each of us to set our reproductive rights. Not politicians and not our employers. We are smart, educated people who can contribute highly intuitive and valuable skills and talent to todays workforce. We must not be distracted by those angry voices but rather encouraged by those have succeeded. Candace McGraw CEO of Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport. Shakila Ahmad President of the Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati. These are accomplished women!

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Change happens best through evolution, not revolution - Cincinnati.com

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The Intersection of My Big Plans and Evolution – Finextra (blog)

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Strategic planning, maps to future features, and other long-term structured thoughts are great ways to set clear goals and visions on what is our future product. However, planning too much might take away from free-thinking associated with the natural evolution of our product. So, what is the right intersection of planning and evolution?

Technologically, we are right at the tipping point of another burst in scientific advancements; AI, the internet of things (IoT), and the integration of biology with electronic circuitry are just three examples of advancements that might surpass Moore's law of technological advancements. However, until these are fully implemented into our daily lives, we continue to suffer from a limitation on Moore's law. Since we have seen the growth of the computer age, it seems that our latest inventions are mostly gradual improvements of how we pre-form tasks and what technology we use to pre-form it. Fin-tech firms especially have only suggested new improved methods of pre-forming human tasks. Such technologies as RPA, P2P payments and insurance, and Robo Advising are great for incremental advancements but have yet to come up with a revolutionary product.

In my opinion, this stasis is mainly due to the mundane nature of our financial world. Not since the invention of the first derivative instrument in old agricultural weighted France has any real meaningful financial advancement occurred. Money being transferred from one place to another, new loan types, and globalization have advanced our financial systems, but they basically still pre-form the same tasks and move funds from one entity to another.

So, should we plan or not? Should we trust that the future will raise new ideas from customer feedback, or should we plan to what we think the market needs? In my opinion, it should be a combination of both. The creation of a long-term vision is crucial for the advancement of a product, but should be balanced with allowing our Eco-System to define an evolutionary path for our plan goals. This method will allow our brilliant employees to vet all proposed paths to our truePTS solution, even those that were not thought of at first.

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The Intersection of My Big Plans and Evolution - Finextra (blog)

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Parasitic fish offer evolutionary insights – Phys.Org

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March 20, 2017 by Lori Dajose A side view of the lamprey gut, showing many large serotonergic neurons (green) sitting on the side of the gut. These gut neurons are matured and developed. Credit: Bronner laboratory

Lamprey are slimy, parasitic eel-like fish, one of only two existing species of vertebrates that have no jaw. While many would be repulsed by these creatures, lamprey are exciting to biologists because they are so primitive, retaining many characteristics similar to their ancient ancestors and thus offering answers to some of life's biggest evolutionary questions. Now, by studying the lamprey, Caltech researchers have discovered an unexpected mechanism for the evolution of the neurons of the peripheral nervous systemnerves outside of the brain and spinal cord.

The work was done in the laboratory of Marianne Bronner, the Albert Billings Ruddock Professor of Biology at Caltech, and appears in a paper in the March 20 online issue of Nature.

For over a decade, the Bronner group has studied lamprey because of the unique insights they offer into the evolution of vertebrates, and particularly the evolution of new structures like jaws. Her laboratory at Caltech maintains one of the very few laboratory populations of lamprey in the world.

Bronner was especially interested in how the lamprey compares with other vertebrates in the evolution of its gut neurons. These neurons control the movement of muscles for digestion and manage other aspects of gut physiology, such as secretion and water balance.

"We were interested in the origins of lamprey gut neurons because in other vertebrates they arise from a particular embryonic cell type, called neural crest cells," says Stephen Green, postdoctoral scholar in biology and biological engineering and co-first author on the paper. "We knew that lamprey have many kinds of neural crest cells, but we knew little about which cells give rise to gut neurons."

Neural crest cells are a type of stem cell; during vertebrate embryonic development, they eventually differentiate into specialized cells such as those that make facial skeleton cells or those that create pigment cells. In particular, a population called vagal neural crest cells are known to become the gut neurons. But Bronner and her team noticed that while mature lamprey have gut neurons like other vertebrates, lamprey embryos lack these vagal cells.

"Adult lamprey have gut neurons, but we were unable to find the vagal precursor cells," says Bronner. "So, where do the gut neurons come from?"

To find out, the team drew inspiration from studies of mice that, due to a mutation, lack vagal neural crest cells. The mice do, however, have a small number of gut neurons from an unexpected sourcecells called Schwann cell precursors (SCPs). SCPs exist along nerves that run from the spine to various parts of the body. These cells are known to develop into Schwann cells, which form a protective barrier around the nerves.

Bronner and her team fluorescently tagged these cells in lamprey embryos and found that, during development, the cells migrated from the spine toward the gut. Sure enough, some of these SCPs developed into gut neurons.

"Our findings suggest that gut neurons in ancient vertebrates may have come predominantly from SCPs, and that these original gut neurons were later outnumbered by neurons that arose from vagal neural crest cells," says Green. "Lamprey have relatively simple guts, with no looping and few total neurons. We speculate that vagal neural crest cells might be essential for the more complicated guts of higher vertebrates like mice and humans."

The paper is titled "Ancient evolutionary origin of vertebrate enteric neurons from trunk-derived neural crest."

Explore further: Possible link to evolutionary development of the neural crest found in sea squirt tadpole

More information: Stephen A. Green et al, Ancient evolutionary origin of vertebrate enteric neurons from trunk-derived neural crest, Nature (2017). DOI: 10.1038/nature21679

(Phys.org)A team of researchers affiliated with New York and Dalhousie Universities, in the U.S. and Canada respectively, has found a possible intermediate cell type that might help understand the evolutionary process ...

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A promising vaccine target for the most deadly type of malaria has had its molecular structure solved by Institute researchers, helping in the quest to develop new antimalarial therapies.

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Have Human Beings Stopped Evolving? – Huffington Post

Posted: at 11:56 am

No idea has become baked into the social fabric than Darwinism, and yet Darwin himself never meant this to happen. In his mind, he was scientifically describing "the descent of species," a specific notion of how life forms changed over time. Evolution was a rebuttal of the prevailing concept that species were fixed--if honeybees, ferns, and pandas exist, they always had. The momentous discovery of fossils, among other things, offered irrefutable evidence that species could vanish, and more importantly, that current species had ancestors.

But the term "evolution" turned into a loose metaphor, quickly escaping the rules of science. And the most dangerous application of the metaphor was to human society, where certain ideas about everyday life became falsely linked with Darwinism. Here are the main distortions that enormous numbers of people believe in without thinking.

1. Nature is all about survival of the fittest; therefore, so is society.

2. Evolution works through bloody competition that weeds out the weak and favors the strong. This applies to human competition and makes violence amoral--Nature is working through us, the ultimate excuse for the powerful dominating the weak.

3. If you are weak, you deserve to fail. Nature demands that survival be ruthless in order to strengthen a species.

4. Poverty is a sign of weakness in the evolutionary scheme.

5. Lower species evolve physically, but once evolution reached the level of early humans, evolution began to apply to psychology, emotions, and social behavior.

There are other offshoots of this main mistakes, but let's stay with them. The most pernicious application of the evolution metaphor crops up as a justification for inequality. Racism dictates that some races are superior and others inferior. Sexism dictates that men are powerful and women comparatively weak. Free market fanatics push the notion that money shouldn't be wasted on the poor, aged, or sick because it is the obligation of such groups to fend for themselves in open competition. Pushed to such limits, the doctrine of social Darwinism, as it came to be called in the nineteenth century, can justify almost any kind of power grab or ruthless competition. As we've learned in this country quite recently, the appeal of social Darwinism remains both widespread and powerful. Millions of people feel the attraction of a white male portraying himself as a strong man who is a winner instead of a loser--all are masked Darwinian terms.

The irony is that Homo sapiens long ago left "the state of nature," the naked arena where physical evolution takes place. In the state of nature, two things determine if a species survives: the ability to compete for food and to mate. Food is the most basic need for survival; mating passes on genes that would otherwise disappear from the gene pool. For thousands of years human beings have consciously departed from these two driving forces.

1. We care for our sick, weak, and old rather than letting nature takes its course.

2. We resort to medicine to wipe out and control fatal diseases that would thin the population if left untreated.

3. We have economies that spread food to every corner of the globe. People can buy the food they otherwise couldn't raise.

4. Concepts of justice punish those who use violence to harm others or steal what they want.

5. We override who is physically strong or weak with weapons and bullets, allowing us to harm and kill at a distance.

These are only a few of the ways human beings escaped the arena where survival of the fittest rules (not that Darwin ever used that phrase, or espoused it). Some of humanity's post-evolutionary traits are negative to the point of being horrifying, like the development of weapons of mass destruction, suicide bombers, and even suicide itself. Where evolution promotes physical survival, our ability to willingly end life has been a curse that people volunteer to place on themselves through war, crime, and violence of every stripe. Other post-evolutionary traits like charities and hospitals exist as symbols of the benefits of escaping the state of nature.

There are evolutionists who continue to maintain that Darwinism applies to human beings, particularly in the two related fields of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology, but those applications have their own skeptics. Let's set them both aside. Because post-evolution has brought good and ill effects to humanity, and because the metaphor of evolution is still powerful, the crucial question is whether we still want to evolve and if so, how? In its crudest form, the evolutionary metaphor is still about survival, so future evolution depends on such survival issues as the ecology, global climate change, and nuclear weapons.

In less crude form, the evolutionary metaphor is synonymous with progress, and almost everyone in modern society wants progress to continue, despite pull-backs by radical jihadists who yearn for a return to the illusion of religious purity, white supremacists who yearn for equally illusory racial purity, and xenophobes who push ultra-nationalism following a third illusion, that a single nation can isolate itself from the tide of globalism.

Yet the most compelling reason to seize the evolutionary metaphor is to promote post-evolution, to win even more freedom from the state of nature. This largely happens individually as the evolution of consciousness, a notion that was ridiculed fifty years ago, but which now drives the aspirations of millions of spiritual seekers. Having abandoned formal religion, these people have turned inward to find their own path to higher consciousness, and if that term is too elevated or alien, there is the search for inner peace, love, creativity, joy, and fulfillment. Long ago, human beings made the most radical evolutionary leap in history, turning away from physical evolution to mental evolution--hence the amazingly rapid development of the higher brain (cerebral cortex) from which all language, morality, and rational thought emerged.

There is no reason to assume that our consciousness can't keep evolving, but there is no evidence that the brain needs new structures physically. The brain has enough flexibility already to set us free by our own choice. We choose to evolve or not, to explore new domains of the mind or retreat into old, outmoded ones. In the end, the reason that Darwinism is the best of theories and the worst of theories comes down to how the theory is used. We are no longer Darwinian creatures, but as a metaphor evolution traces a path that applies to the best and worst possibilities in us.

Deepak Chopra MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation and co-founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, Clinical Professor UCSD Medical School, researcher, Neurology and Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. The World Post and The Huffington Post global internet survey ranked Chopra #17 influential thinker in the world and #1 in Medicine. Chopra is the author of more than 85 books translated into over 43 languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His latest books are You Are the Universe co-authored with Menas Kafatos, PhD, and Quantum Healing (Revised and Updated): Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine. discoveringyourcosmicself.com

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Have Human Beings Stopped Evolving? - Huffington Post

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Realion Robotics Introduces Reliable, Capable, High Value Robots for Military Use – Yahoo Finance

Posted: at 11:56 am

MCLEAN, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Military, police forces, and other government agencies have used unmanned ground robots for many years to go into harsh environments that may be unsafe for humans. Unfortunately, many of these robots, while essential, have proven to be expensive and to have long-term reliability issues. To address this challenge, Realion Robotics was formed to deliver proven, reliable technology with greater value than has been offered by others to address evolving threats and the needs of military operators.

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Realion Robotics is a joint venture that combines the expertise of Alion Science and Technology, a U.S.-based engineering and technology firm with an 80-year history supporting warfighters, and Reamda, Ltd. of Ireland, which brings decades of experience delivering unmanned ground robotic systems for use in the most difficult conditions.

Used to investigate threats, find and disarm explosive ordnance or perform lifting and carrying tasks, robots extend the reach of ground forces, explained Doug King, Program Manager, of Realion Robotics. While no one disputes the usefulness of military robots, the DoD has traditionally bought many more than they need, because they expect to see a lot of breakdowns in the field. So the cost of ownership can be very high. Realion Robotics is changing that value equation, King said. Out robots have been proven to be more reliable and capable than what many users have come to expect, and we can deliver them more affordably, as well.

Realion Robotics will be showcasing its robotics solutions at the NDIA Ground Robotics Capabilities Conference, March 21-23, 2017 in Springfield, Virginia, booth 307.

About Realion Robotics

Realion Robotics unites the extensive capabilities of two companies at the vanguard of defense engineering: Alion Science and Technology and Reamda, Ltd. of Ireland.

Alions agile engineering, systems integration and operational support expertise stems from an 80-year history supporting the most intensive needs of warfighters. Reamda has decades of robotics engineering and development experience, producing robotic systems used daily by EOD teams in Ireland and by other customers worldwide. For details about Realion Robotics extensive line of robotic systems, visit http://www.realionrobotics.com.

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Robotics team awarded for community outreach – Bristol Press

Posted: at 11:56 am

Operation PEACCE Robotics

Operation PEACCE Robotics, of Bristol, with their robot Hailstorm.

Posted: Monday, March 20, 2017 10:41 pm | Updated: 10:53 pm, Mon Mar 20, 2017.

Robotics team awarded for community outreach

BRISTOL Operation PEACCE Robotics recently won the Engineering Inspiration Award when they brought their robot, Hailstorm, to a First Robotics competition in Massachusetts.

The award celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a teams school and community.

In order to win this award, a team had to make significant strides in getting the First Robotics message out to the community by developing and running youth teams, engaging in community events and reaching out to the public, explained Elaine Pelizzari, team mentor. Our aggressive recruiting efforts and growth as a team seemed to win the judges over and our kids are enormously proud of their accomplishment. They are wearing their medals all over town.

Winning this award was overwhelming to be honest, said Carol Pelizzari, chief of sponsor relations and Elaine Pelizzaris daughter. It was the first time our team won an award related to something other than the robot.

The team reached out to the community at a variety of events last year in Hartford and Litchfield Counties, including the Northwest CT Chamber of Commerce Family Festival at Goshen Fair Grounds, the Rockwell Park Summer Festival Aug. 20 in Bristol, the Watertown Fall Festival at Veterans Memorial Park in Watertown Sept. 17, the Bristol Mum Festival Sept. 23 and 24 on Memorial Boulevard, the Harwinton Fair Sept. 30 through Oct. 20 and finally the Wild About Animals program at Imagine Nation Museum Oct. 29.

Operation PEACCEs robot for this years competition is named Hailstorm because it can rapidly fire balls that it picks up into a hopper as part of this years Steampunk (a retro-future science fiction genre and clothing style) themed robotics competition. The robot was also designed to be versatile, able to climb into a mock airship as another way to score points.

It is interesting to see the issues that teams faced at the competition, said Johnny Chea, another team member. It was a chance to see the importance of completing one task to get points over another. We actually found that shooting balls into the hopper wasnt as important so we had to scrap our aiming system to make the robot better at picking up gears. We will be given six hours to make adjustments to our robot before the next competition. With that, we will design a better climber.

The team, which includes 37 students from Bristol and the surrounding community, about 40 percent of which are home schooled, also redesigned their teams logo to include gears and a top hat with goggles to fit the Steampunk theme. Some of the students wear Steampunk themed costumes at the events, some of which include hand-made robot angel wings.

Its all about showing our team spirit, said Chea.

Brian M. Johnson can be reached at 860-973-1806 or bjohnson@bristolpress.com.

Posted in Bristol Press, News, Bristol on Monday, March 20, 2017 10:41 pm. Updated: 10:53 pm.

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Robotics team awarded for community outreach - Bristol Press

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Living and working with robots: European Robotics Forum to focus on robotics markets and future of work – Robohub

Posted: at 11:56 am

Over 800 leading scientists, companies, and policymakers working in robotics will convene at the European Robotics Forum(#ERF2017) in Edinburgh, 22-24 March. This years theme is Living and Working With Robots with a focus on applications in manufacturing, disaster relief, agriculture, healthcare, assistive living, education, and mining.

The 3-day programme features keynotes, panel discussions, workshops, and plenty of robots roaming the exhibit floor. Visitors may encounter a humanoid from Pal Robotics, a bartender robot from KUKA, Shadows human-like hands, or the latest state-of-the-art robots from European research. Success stories from Horizon 2020, the European Unions framework programme for research and innovation, and FP7 European projects will be on display.

DrCcile Huet Deputy Head of European Commission Robotics & Artificial Intelligence Unit, said, A set of EU projects will demonstrate the broad impact of the EU funding programme in robotics: from progress in foundational research in robot learning, to in touch sensing for a new dimension in intuitive Human-Robot cooperation, to inspection in theoil-and-gas industry, security, care, manufacturing for SMEs, or the vast applications enabled by the progress in drones autonomous navigation.

Reinhard Lafrenz, Secretary General of euRobotics said, A rise in sales in robotics is driving the industry forward, and its not just benefiting companies who sell robots, but also SMEs and larger industries that use robots to increase their productivity and adopt new ways of thinking about their business. Around 80 robotics start-ups were created last year in Europe, which is truly remarkable. At euRobotics, we nurture the robotics industry ecosystem in Europe; keep an eye out for the Tech Transfer award and the Entrepreneurship award well be giving out at ERF.

Projects presented will include:

The increased use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in robotics will be highlighted in two keynote presentations. Raia Hadsell, Senior Research Scientist at DeepMind will focus on deep learning, and strategies to make robots that can continuously learn and improve over time. Stan Boland, CEO of FiveAI, will talk about his companys aim to accelerate the arrival of fully autonomous vehicles.

Professor David Lane, ERF2017 General Chair and Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, said, Were delighted this year to have two invited keynotes of outstanding quality and relevance from the UK, representing both research and disruptive industrial application of robotics and artificial intelligence. EURobotics and its members are committed to the innovation that translates technology from research to new products and services. New industries are being created, with robotics providing the essential arms, legs and sensors that bring big data and artificial intelligence out of the laboratory and into the real world.

Throughout ERF2017, emphasis will be given to the impact of robots on society and the economy. Keith BrownMSP, Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Jobs and Fair Work,will open the event, said, The European Robotics Forum provides an opportunity for Scotland to showcase our world-leading research and expertise in robotics, artificial intelligence and human-robot interaction. This event will shine a light on some of the outstanding developments being pioneered and demonstrates Scotlands vital role in this globally significant area.

In discussing robots and society, Dr Patricia A. Vargas, ERF2017 General Chair and Director of the Robotics Laboratory at Heriot-Watt University, said, As robots gradually move to our homes and workplace, we must make sure they are fully ethical. A potential morality code for robots should include human responsibilities, and take into account how humans can interact with robots in a safe way. The European Robotics Forum is the ideal place to drive these discussions.

Ultimately, the forum aims to understand how robots can benefit small and medium-sized businesses, and how links between industry and academia can be improved to better exploit the strength of European robotics and AI research.As robots start leaving the lab to enter our home and work environments, it becomes increasingly important to understand how they will best work alongside human co-workers and users. Issues of policy, the law, and ethics will be debated during dedicated workshops.

Dr Katrin Lohan, General Chair and Deputy Director of the Robotics Laboratory at Heriot-Watt University said, It is important how to integrate robotics into the workflow so that it support and not disrupt the human workers. The potential of natural interaction interfaces and non-verbal communication cues needs to be further explored. The synergies of robots and human workers could make all the difference for small and medium-sized businesses to discuss this the European Robotics Forum is the ideal place as it joins industry and academia community.

______________________

Confirmed keynote speakers include: Keith Brown, Cabinet Secretary for the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work, Member of the Scottish Parliament Raia Hadsell, Senior Research Scientist at DeepMind Stan Boland, CEO of FiveAI

The full programme can be found here.

Dates: 22 24 March Venue: EICC, The Exchange, 150 Morrison St., EH3 8EE Edinburgh, Scotland Participants: 800+ participants expected Website: http://www.erf2017.eu/

Press Passes: Journalists may request free press badges, or support with interviews, by emailing publicity.chairs@erf2017.eu. Please see the website for additional information.

OrganisersThe European Robotics Forum is organised by euRobotics under SPARC, the Public-Private partnership for Robotics in Europe. This years conference is hosted by the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics.

About euRobotics and SPARC euRobotics is a non-profit organisation based in Brussels with the objective to make robotics beneficial for Europes economy and society. With more than 250 member organisations, euRobotics also provides the European Robotics Community with a legal entity to engage in a public/private partnership with the European Commission, named SPARC.

SPARC, the public-private partnership (PPP) between the European Commission and euRobotics, is a European initiative to maintain and extend Europes leadership in civilian robotics. Its aim is to strategically position European robotics in the world thereby securing major benefits for the European economy and the society at large.

SPARC is the largest research and innovation programme in civilian robotics in the world, with 700 million euro in funding from the European Commission between 2014 to 2020, which is tripled by European industry to yield a total investment of 2.1 billion euro. SPARC will stimulate an ever more vibrant and effective robotics community that collaborates in the successful development of technical transfer and commercial exploitation.

http://www.eu-robotics.net http://www.eu-robotics.net/sparc

Press contact details:

Sabine Hauert, Robohub President Sabine.Hauert@robohub.org

OR

Kassie Perlongo, Managing Editor Kassie.Perlongo@robohub.org

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Living and working with robots: European Robotics Forum to focus on robotics markets and future of work - Robohub

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Local robotics team advances to regional competition – Daily Record-News

Posted: at 11:56 am

If Chesna Kern had to describe her robotics team in one word it would be unique. Out of seven team members, five of them are girls.

And that is so rare here, Kern said.

The 17-year-old team captain navigated her team, Team 4495 or Haywire, through the weekend of FIRST Robotics Pacific Northwest Competition at Central Washington University. The Kittitas County team, and more than 1,000 high school students from Portland to Spokane, participated in qualifying rounds where robots performed tasks to gain points over the weekend.

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While Haywire did not advance past a quarterfinal round, the teams season was unforgettable. The local students left the competition ranked 15th out of 145 teams in the Pacific Northwest District.

The team also brought home the Engineering Inspiration Award, advancing them to a regional competition next month in Cheney. The award celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a teams school and community.

The award was given to the team because of Parker and Greta Mayers work with Nerdy Girls, a robotics nonprofit aimed at getting more girls into tech, and because of the teams work on setting up an after-school robotics program for middle schoolers at Thorp Schools.

The steampunk theme of the competition required robots to deliver gears to an airship for its rotors, picking up and shooting wiffle balls for fuel, and as a finishing move the robots had to pull themselves up on a rope for liftoff. Teams were in sets of threes, called alliances, allowing different teams and their robots to specialize in a specific task.

Breakthrough season

The team was unique for its composition of girls, but also because of its small size and its limited access to resources and funding.

The difference was obvious in the pits, where teams set up pop-up shops to work on their robots. Teams surrounding Haywire easily had more than 30 team members, all equipped with state-of-the-art tools and mentors fresh out of the technology sectors on the West Side.

Haywire is still growing in size; last year they only had four members. They began expanding the business side and community outreach aspect of their team this season with the help of retired Boeing project manager Synneva Wang.

This has seriously been the year of breakthroughs for our team, said Parker Mayer, the teams programmer.

Before Wangs arrival, the team spent most of its time working on the robot. Since then, the team has introduced a middle school coding class and after school robotics program at Thorp Schools, a summer robotics program where they recruit from, and Mayer has broken ground on a nonprofit called Nerdy Girls aimed at getting more girls into robotics.

Wang came in, Mayer said, got the team organized with a plan on how they would offer robotics to other kids in the area. She even brought over a programming mentor from the Issaquah Robotics Society, her previous team, to teach them new coding. And its worked.

Were really proud of ourselves, last year being a defensive bot we had to get pulled along by other people, but this year were scoring ourselves, and weve just made really big strides, Kern said.

Their new mentor, who spent 30 years working for Boeing, met the team last season while mentoring for the Issaquah team. Wang said the Haywire team was humble and eager to learn. She drives over from Bellevue at least once a week for the teams meet ups.

Its a beautiful drive across the mountains, its just 90 minutes, and theyre a great team that really want to learn and thats what its all about, being a mentor and helping kids learn, she said.

Wang hopes the team receives the recognition it deserves in the community and eventually grows to a sustainable level.

New members

Faith Cooper, 12, is a new member and a product of a successful robotics summer program. Cooper, who is also part of Mayers Nerdy Girls program, was helping on the field as a human player. She was on the airship in charge of gathering gears.

Its amazing, I love it so much, she said about her first season.

A pair of siblings also joined the team for the season. Sophomore Taliesin Tenerelli, 14, fed gears to the robots via a chute. He had previous experience in a younger league called the FIRST LEGO League.

The competition, he said, was a lot more casual than he thought itd be.

Its really fun, he said.

His older sister, Raine, was in charge of putting together an engineering handbook that outlines the rules of the game and explains what their robot can do. She had joined the team as a freshman, and took a break to focus on Running Start classes at Central, and then rejoined for her junior year.

This season is the last one for Kern, who will be graduating and hopefully heading off to Gonzaga University for mechanical engineering, something she said she would have never been interested in without the FIRST program.

Its kind of bittersweet because Im going to be going to college and thats going to be a whole new experience, and Im not going to have the stress of this but then at the same time Im going to really miss talking to the other teams, she said. Theres nothing like this, so Ill probably end up volunteering.

Kern has been on the team for four years, volunteering when she was in the eighth grade.

I think people dont realize just how many opportunities there are in this program. It looks like its just building and designing a robot, but its really not. Theres so much more to it, she said.

Team members are involved in design, programming, public speaking, business plans and community outreach. And with a team as small as Haywire, everyone gets their hands on a little piece of the process, which is good news for Mayer.

Whats really cool about this year is that were really small so everybody is getting a ton of experience, which is going to help us next year with training newbies and getting a bunch of more kids on the team, Mayer said. I just think next year is going to be bigger and better. Im super excited.

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Local robotics team advances to regional competition - Daily Record-News

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‘Go back to Mexico’: Children who won elementary school robotics … – The Independent

Posted: at 11:56 am

A group of schoolchildren who won a robotics competitionwere subjected to a barrage of racist abuse from some rival pupils and their parents who shouted: Go back to Mexico.

It was the first time that pupils from Pleasant Run Elementary School had entered the robotics challenge. Their victory over the youngsters from other Indianapolis schools, put them a step closer to the state championship.

Yet as the children, aged nine and ten, left the event and walked out to the parking area, some of the children they had just beaten, along with their parents, unleashed racist comments.

They were pointing at us and saying that Oh my God, they are champions of the city all because they are Mexican. They are Mexican and they are ruining our country, Diocelina Herrera, the mother of student Angel Herrera-Sanchez, told the Indianapolis Star.

The incident in the parking area had reportedly been preceded by racist comments that were being whispered inside the gymnasium at Plainfield High School.

The team from Pleasant Run Elementary School, Indiana, included three youngsters who are Latino and two who are African American. The children in the other 20 teams taking part in February contest were largely white.

John Oliver makes fun of Donald Trump refusing to shake Angela Merkel's hand

For the most part, the robotics world is kind of a white world, said Lisa Hopper, the teams coach. Theyre just not used to seeing a team like our kids. And they see us and they think were not going to be competition. Then were in first place the whole day and they cant take it.

In the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump, teachers from schools across the country reported an increase in incidents of racist abuse. They said they children from immigrant families were often told to 'go home'.

Sabrina Kapp, director of communications for Plainfield Community School Corporation, said: We dont condone that behaviour; we dont tolerate it in our schools. We talk a lot about community values here. That is simply not something that anybody associated with Plainfield schools would put up with.

The newspaper reported that the children Pleasant Run Elementary School responded in the best way possible - by going on to win the prize for best robot design and engineering at the state championships. Their win means they are going to participate in the Vex IQ World Championship next month in Louisville, Kentucky.

They yelled out rude comments, and I think that they can talk all they want because at the end were still going to worlds, 10-year-old team leader Elijah Goodwin, told the newspaper.

Its not going to affect us at all. Im not surprised because Im used to this kind of behaviour. When you have a really good team, people will treat you this way. And we do have a pretty good team.

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'Go back to Mexico': Children who won elementary school robotics ... - The Independent

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