Tag Archives: STEM

‘If You Were An Engineer, What Would You Do?’

22 Monday May 2023

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Over the past couple of weeks I have been supporting Primary Engineer with some judging panels of entries to their competition “If You Were An Engineer, What Would You Do?”.

The competition was open to all primary and secondary schools in the UK and this is its 10th year of running.

Judging the entries was a great experience, taking part in three of the panels in the North West. It was interesting to see the unconstrained thinking of the Young People and as the entry levels grew in ages, the more constraints that could be seen and number of entries.

There were some excellent entries looking at innovative solutions to real world problems, but I cant mention any due to the competition rules.

Its great that these types of competitions exist and would encourage schools to get involved with Primary Engineer and their competitions.

Looking forward to seeing their next competitions and activities. Primary Engineer have a Micro:bit set of activities coming and schools can register.

STEM – Hypothetical Big Questions – Robots

01 Tuesday Sep 2020

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Back in June I wrote some hypothetical questions for an online STEM event. These are meant to provoke discussion.

Setting the Scene

In todays world there are lots of advancements in the technologies in areas such as 3D Printing, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence helping to solve problems. Examples are the use of robots to build cars more efficiently and quickly, to now being able to 3D print the parts needed to make the car and now being built with the ability to drive themselves. Robots are not always mechanical things, software can also be a robotic process that automates something.

Hypothetical Big Questions

Will Robots eventually take over everyone’s jobs?

How would you feel if robots did all the work and what would you do all day?

How would you earn money to live?

My View

I have previously discussed this in a past post in the form of a short story “I Lost my Job to a Robot“. Whats your view?

Orignial Tweet

STEM Activity 2018-19

28 Tuesday Jan 2020

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STEM-Ambassadors-30-hoursHaving just received my STEM Badge for 2018/19, I was very pleased to be awarded a “30 Hours of Engagement” badge.

Over the year I have visited schools, events and other youth organisations such as Scouts to promote STEM, run and take part in activities and show why STEM subjects are important for young people to learn in School, College and University.

Being a STEM Ambassador is an important role and and its not just the young people that gain from sessions but teachers as well learning how businesses are using these skills for students in their possible future careers.

Here are a couple of videos and pictures from some of the events I have helped with.

Stemettes Hack Chorley with DXC and Stemettes

Chorley Hack with Chorley Council

 

Coding with Scouts for their Digital Badges

 

Cardboard & Electronics Education

30 Monday Apr 2018

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cardboardCardboard has been a part of childhood learning for a very long time, however its use has evolved from building things, making dens or sliding down grassy hills on it. The evolution on how this material is being used in learning is changing at a fast rate.

Google have been leading the way with the Google Cardboard Viewer that you can put your phone in and experience Virtual Reality at a low cost (phone excluded). There is now an increase of  cardboard kits available and coming on to the market, especially with kits like the Raspberry PI.

Here are some of the kits:

Google Cardboard

A cardboard viewer that allows you to use your mobile phone as a VR device.

https://vr.google.com/cardboard/

Google Voice

A cardboard kit incorporating a Raspberry PI and speaker that uses Google Home as a Voice Assistant. The kit contains a Google Bonnet board that provides functionality to the Raspberry PI and components.

https://aiyprojects.withgoogle.com/voice/

Google Vision

A cardboard kit incorporating a Raspberry PI and camera that uses Machine Learning to recognise objects. The kit contains a Google Bonnet board that provides functionality to the Raspberry PI and components.

https://aiyprojects.withgoogle.com/vision

IBM TJ Bot

A cardboard robot that you can build and incorporate a Raspberry PI to experience AI using IBM Watson.

https://www.ibm.com/ibm/responsibility/initiatives/activitykits/tjbot/

Nintendo Labo

A set of cardboard modules that can be used with a Nintendo Switch

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Nintendo-Labo/Nintendo-Labo-1328637.html

These kits provide a great platform to build on existing skills and learn new skills using reasonably priced components.

Move over Plastics – Cardboard is here (again) !!!

Do you know of any other cardboard kits not listed above?

Discussing STEM subjects in the Classroom

19 Monday Mar 2018

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STEM in the Classroom

Its been a while since I last blogged (apologies for that), but  I have had a lot on recently. So here is a catch up on one of the activities I have been doing.

Recently I have had an opportunity with two colleagues, to attend a school and take 4 classes (1 hour each class) and talk to them about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math’s) and what is happening in business around Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality. I also took some headsets along for the pupils to try (HTC Vive, Hololens, Gear VR and RealWear) as well as a hand held scanner for taking scans of real world objects to put in to the virtual world.

I ran 20-30 mins of discussion followed by the rest of the time with the pupils trying out the items I had taken along for them to look at how they can be used and to inspire them in looking at STEM subjects in their subject choices.

It was a great experience to take 4 classes and effectively being a teacher for them and it was certainly different to be called “Sir” instead of “Max” and took a bit of getting used to.

I used a mobile phone as a basis to explain why STEM subjects are important as all the pupils had one and went through how Science, Technology, Engineering and Math’s subjects/skills are used in the creation of the device and why they are important.

The pupils certainly enjoyed their experience trying the different types of realities and using some voice controls instead of keyboards to invoke applications and tasks. I hope that I have helped inspire some to take the subjects going forward and wish them all well with their choices, exams and future careers.

 

Technology Couch Podcast – Episode 2

01 Thursday Feb 2018

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Technology Couch Podcast

Episode 2

In this episode I am joined by Miranda Webb (https://twitter.com/mirandakaywebb1) and discuss Women in IT and Leadership, gender pay gap and STEM.

The podcast is also available in iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/technology-couch-podcast

Podcast References:

Suggested Reading from Miranda:

Attending GitHub Satellite 2017

23 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by in Development, Open Source, Programming, Raspberry Pi, STEM, Tools

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Yesterday I attended GitHub Satellite 2017 in LondonGithub

https://github.com/blog/2313-join-us-for-github-satellite-2017-may-22-23-in-london-uk

The event was well attended and there was a good buzz around the conference. GitHub Marketplace was launched at the conference and some of the initial vendors in the Marketplace demonstrated how their applications can be used in the lifecycle of coding. You could watch demos and chat to the companies at their vendor stalls to gain further information.

Below are my notes from the conference and Key Note opening speeches

Opening

The opening lead by Chris Wanstrath (Co-Founder & CEO, GitHub) and Kyle Daigle (Senior Engineering Manager, GitHub)

  • GitHub has 21 Million Developers
  • 59 Million Projects using the platform.
  • Expanding into gaming with Githib for Unity
  • Extentions for Visual Studio

ATOM

  • Help guide the approach with ATOM
  • 2.1 million active users of ATOM

Electron

  • GitHub desktop GUI new version based on electron. Open Source to allow it to be developed by community.
  • Electron platform for building desktop apps. Runs cross platforms.
  • Companies using electron to build internal apps.
  • Seeing big fortune 500 companies using electron for web, mobile and desktop apps.

GitHub as a platorm

  • Now 9 years old.
  • Today more API traffic than UI traffic
  • 5+ million users use integration
  • OAuth growing doubling each year
  • API ‘s have not been developed and remained static….. 9 years old.

World moving to a new world of API’s. Moving on from SOAP to REST to what’s next.What is the future of API’s:

GraphQL

  • Build queries on data you need.
    • Powering new features of GitHub
    • Suggested reviewers
    • Projects
    • Topics
  • 125 million GraphSQL internal queries a day.
  • GraphQL is open source.

GitHub Apps

  • Fine grain permissions
  • Choose how you want to give access to repositories
  • Using bots in Integrations

GitHub Marketplace (Launching today)

  • Find tools that meet your workflows best.
  • Pricing plans in marketplace
  • Marketplace has option to join and apply to be part of Marketplace.

Build and Grow Sessions

There were a number of sessions held in either the Build or Grow track which attendees could join.

I went to sessions in both tracks including the session on Building Interconnected Workflows which featured companies in the newly launched Market Place. Heard from these companies on how their products could be used in conjunction for a full code project lifecycle, which was interesting and good to hear.

Vitor Monteiro, GitHub
Andrew Homeyer, Waffle.io
Danielle Tomlinson, CircleCI
Jaime Jorge, Codacy
Cory Virok, Rollbar

There was a good session on Women in IT from Amy Dickens from the University of Nottingham which also covered topics of diversity and how workplaces and attitudes can change to make a difference.

Closing Session

The closing session was run by Marc Scott from the Raspberry PI Foundation who gave an overview of the Foundation, what it does and how the community can help review projects and sumbit projects for others to practice, learn from and enjoy. Also helping by joining local coding groups to pass on knowledge.

Sessions were streamed and Im hoping that replays are availble to catch up with the sessions I couldnt get to.

Unfortunately I could not get to todays workshop sessions but again hoping for streams of these following the event.

Taking your coding to the next level – Scratch to Python

15 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by in Programming, STEM

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code2Following on from my last blog post “How you can begin to Code“, by now you should have been getting to grips with a good level of basic coding using games to help you learn to code.

So where do you go from here? Most of the initial links I listed used a scratch type of game to help you learn, but how can you transition over to another language such as Python.

At a STEM event I met up with the author of a programme called “edublocks” and got chatting to their team. I was impressed by this application and its capabilities that allow you to move from Scratch to Python easily using a block method similar to scratch.  This helps with the Python Syntax by presenting it as a set of drag and drop blocks.

edublocks can be found at edublocks.org and allaboutcode.co.uk

This makes the transition from Scratch to Python easier to understand and opens up the opportunity to start coding in Python quicker than using the standard Python language. This is achieved by dragging blocks from the Toolbar to the workspace to create the code. You can look at the code behind the blocks to see what the real Python code is and then run the code to see the project you have created.

You can follow the latest developments on the edublocks/allaboutcode twitter feeds:

If you want to continue to learn using the gaming method then CodeCombat will present you with a next set of challenges, coding you way through various levels of dungeons using Python, JavaScript, CoffeeScript or Lua (Game Scripting Language). Choosing a hero and coding them through various scenarios and engaging with several monsters on the way.

Learning to code doesn’t have to be entirely game based. You can work through various online courses and videos that also have the benefit of forums an tutor help. Coursera run several courses from basic Python to using Python for Data Science:

https://www.coursera.org/courses?languages=en&query=python

The main thing to remember is that your not alone in trying to learn a language. There are lots of great places for help and reference available. If your stuck then there is always your favorite search engine. Entering in an error code or syntax question, should point you to an answer through the online manuals, or someone having that issue or requirement before.

One good source of information to book mark is “Stack Overflow” which is a site where programmers ask questions and help each other out. It contains a great search engine, so always remember to search a question before you ask one.

Keep practicing and coding. Set yourself simple challenges to code and then move to more complex challenges. The more you code, the more you learn.

 

 

Building a Quadruped

07 Friday Apr 2017

Posted by in Arduino, Open Source, Programming, Robotics, STEM

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Robot3I decided to have a go at building a robot for a STEM session last weekend, to show the power of code and how it can be used to control something.  A moving robot is a great visualisation to demonstrate this.

After some searching I settled on a quadruped shown on thingverse (a 3d printing site). This is a build based on a robot called Chopstick Junior by Lumi.

Parts being printed, I set about thinking about the controls and motors. The parts are compatible with an SG90 servo. I needed 8 of these, for the knee and hip joints of the quadruped.

The assembly of the parts was a bit of a challenge as in the instructions it said you needed 3mm x 6mm screw/nuts to connect the shoulders together. You really need 3mm x 8mm screw/nuts as I have to countersink the holes a bit more to get the nuts to attach to the 6mm screw length.

Inserting the servos into the holes in the hips and legs required the unscrewing of the 4 small screws in each servo and temporarily removing the gear top. Once inserted this can be replaced and screwed down.

Once the servos were in place I centered the servos the best I could to allow backwards and forwards movement in each joint. I knew that later adjustment may be needed! This can easily be achieved removing the servo arm and hip/leg, then re-positioning and attaching the arm again.

The power is provided by 4 x AA batteries in a square battery holder. This was glued down onto the frame and fitted well into the build.

The power bus is provided by a small piece of circuit board. I used two lines for -v and +v. Each servo was then wired into the lines and the control wire to an Arduino Nano which is used as the brains of the robot.

The following pins were used on the Digital I/O on the Arduino Nano:

  • D2 – Hip 1
  • D3 – Knee1
  • D4 – Hip 2
  • D5 – Knee 2
  • D6 – Hip 3
  • D7 – Knee 3
  • D8 – Hip 4
  • D9 – Knee 4

I also wired in a sensor on the front of the robot to D10 and D11.

Wiring is grouped together to allow movement, but cut to a length that reduces excess that could get in the way of the legs.

A toggle switch provides an on/off for the power fixed to the rear of the robot. Remember to break the lines on the circuit board so it does not join any of the lines.

Once assembled I then got round to coding. I decided to use the opensource code for the Chopstick Junior as a base and make alterations. The quadruped responded well to the code and several physical servo adjustments were needed. Its now in a reasonable state, however balance is an issue in terms of walking steadily, so need to work more on this.  I have not yet coded movement to respond to the sensors yet, this will be done later.

The code is available via my Github:  https://github.com/Cloudmage/Robots

The robot went down well at the STEM session. Now to tweek that code……

Top view

Robot2

Side View

Robot3

Front View

Robot1

How you can begin to Code

06 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by in Programming, STEM, Tools

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code1With all the recent STEM activities I have been involved with and blogged about, I have been asked to write some posts around how someone can start learning to code.

The school curriculum covers an element of coding with some subjects and pupils may be lucky to get a BBC Micro:bit or Raspberry Pi, however you don’t have to wait until school before learning any coding.

You don’t have to be young to start coding either. Using the same methods and tools anyone can learn to code.

The phrase “Learning to code” may strike fear and thoughts of hundreds of lines text and numbers, but it doesn’t need to. There are lots of websites available to help people start to code and present a fresh way of learning to code.

So where to start…….. If your reading this blog then you have access to a computing device. All you need to get started is a computing device with a web browser and access to the internet.

At this stage, its not worth getting hung up on the choices of the many different languages out there such as Python, Java, C etc, but concentrating on some fundamentals of coding.

Depending if you like Minecraft, Star Wars, Dr Who or Frozen, you can learn basic commands through gaming and interaction. These games teach you some basics of coding and commands by getting you to move a character on a screen to complete a number of tasks. Each of the games work in a similar way, using someones favorite characters to help them learn. These also help keep focus and attention.

The first code that you will learn is through blocks.

Minecraft – https://code.org/minecraft

Dr Who – http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/games/doctor-who-game

Frozen – https://studio.code.org/s/frozen/stage/1/puzzle/1

Star Wars – https://code.org/starwars

Moana – http://partners.disney.com/hour-of-code

Once you have completed the tasks in blocks, you could then also try using a different language with some of the games such as Java if you wish. Its a great way of experiencing some of the differences in the languages.

 

 

The main program behind blocks is Scratch. To see more on the block programming method have a look at Scratch itself.

https://scratch.mit.edu/

At the scratch site there are learning tools and lessons to help you learn as well as access to the full programming language. The Scratch site also hosts a lot of other peoples programs which you can run/play and look at how they have constructed their code.

Scratch is a free visual programming language developed by the MIT(Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Media Lab.[1] Scratch is used by students, scholars, teachers,and parents to easily create animations, games, etc. It provides a stepping stone to the more advanced world of computer programming. It can also be used for a range of educational and entertainment constructionist purposes from math and science projects, including simulations and visualizations of experiments, recording lectures with animated presentations, to social sciences animated stories, and interactive art and music.[2] Viewing the existing projects available on the Scratch website, or modifying and testing any modification without saving it requires no online registration.

Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch_(programming_language)

Scratch allows users to use event-driven programming with multiple active objects called sprites.[1] Sprites can be drawn, as vector or bitmap graphics, from scratch in a simple editor that is part of Scratch, or can be imported from external sources, including webcams.

Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch_(programming_language)

All you need now is to dedicate some time each week to learn to code.