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09/27/10 |
   
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NewsRobotics Students Win Silver MedalRobotics students Matt Hayes (level 2) and Ben Smith (level 1) achieved second place at the national UK Skills Mobile Robotics competition. The silver medal was achieved by beating last year’s champions from UWE. This is an intensive two day event on 11-12 June 2009 and the students have to program a Festo Robotino robot to achieve tasks using its advanced sensors. The task set this year was to program the robot to build multi-level structures. “The students worked really hard, and actually had a more intelligent algorithm controlling the robot than the winners. In my mind, they were the real winners” said Sam Wane, Senior Lecturer in Robotics and trainer for our Staffordshire team. Other universities competing were Middlesex and University of West England. UK Skills, a not for profit organisation, manages the delivery of innovative, high profile competitions and awards which showcase excellence and demonstrate how exceptional performance improves individual and organisational success. Established in 1990, UK Skills works to raise the profile of skills in the UK and oversee the UK’s premier set of skills competitions, WorldSkills UK. UK Skills also manages the UK team entry to WorldSkills, the biggest skills competition in the world. Most recently UK Skills spearheaded the bid to bring WorldSkills to London in 2011. WorldSkills London 2011 will be a truly global showcase for skills and young people from across the world.
Pictured are Matt Hayes (left) and Ben Smith
Engineering the curriculum
http://www.staffs.ac.uk/faculties/comp_eng_tech/news_and_events/EngCurr.jsp Sam Wane, the Faculty's Senior Lecturer in Robotics, is one of three robotics specialist contributors to the a new teaching DVD for schools, called 'Engineering the Curriculum' . Sam discusses mechatronics and robotics and demonstrates the faculty's robots. Also on the DVD are the 'Walking with Robots' project and Noel Sharky of robot wars fame. The disc is free to all schools in the UK and has been sent to about 800 schools so far. The DVD is also going to be built into this year's training for after school science and maths clubs. It is being showcased at the ASE (Association for Science Education – the main meeting point for science teachers) conferences and the National Science Learning Centre is building it into a careers conference in June and all engineering courses there this year. The DVD was shown on Teachers’ TV just after its launch.
This site was last updated 09/27/10 |
