Short science articles

The website Popular Science has a section called Short Science Articles, which can be very useful as reading texts for lower level students. Each article is short enough to be less than one page on the screen, and range over many science topics (medicine, health, technology, physics, etc.).

http://www.popsci.com/category/tags/short-science-articles

Curiously, although other news articles on this website are current, the articles in the Short Science Articles section are dated from 2009. However, most of them are still newsworthy. Example headlines:

• "A squirt of stem cells gel heals brain injuries"
• "Website yields unexpected results in the business of artifacts"

and - my favorite - (headed "Science confirms the obvious"):

• "Parents and adult children: mutually irritating"

 In fact, there are other short articles headed "Science confirms the obvious," which could lead to some amusing ideas from the students for other articles in this series.

Combining robotics and teleconferencing

The AVA 500 is a video conferencing robot from the company iRobot, created with Cisco Systems, that allows a user to attend meetings, check up on colleagues, participate in projects, etc. from anywhere in the world. The website of iRobot says: "The robot blends together iRobot's autonomous navigation with Cisco's TelePresence to enable people working off-site to participate in meetings and presentations where movement and location spontaneity are important."

The section of iRobot's website with information about AVA 500 includes a promotional video:
http://www.irobot.com/us/learn/commercial/ava500.aspx

The video is 5:07 minutes long and explains and shows how the robot works. The narrator speaks slowly and clearly, so the video should be understandable to students at low-intermediate level and above.

The website includes information that could be used to have students describe the robot.

Applications: http://www.irobot.com/us/learn/commercial/ava500/Applications/Remote_Team_Collaboration.aspx

Features: http://www.irobot.com/us/learn/commercial/ava500/Features.aspx

For a longer text (to focus on textual language features), use iRobot's press release:

http://www.irobot.com/us/Company/Press_Center/Press_Releases/Press_Release.aspx?n=061013

The future of virtual instrumentation

From August 5-8, 2013, National Instruments held their annual Worldwide Graphical System Design Conference, NIWeek 2013, in Austin, Texas. The conference is described on the National Instruments website as delivering "technical networking and instruction with interactive sessions by NI R&D engineers and guest lecturers; targeted industry summits; hands-on workshops; exhibitions on the latest advancements in design, research, and test; and keynote presentations from leading technology thought leaders."

The keynote presentations are of particular interest because they are uploaded as videos, and are not too long for students to listen to (between 5 and 20 minutes).

http://www.ni.com/niweek/keynote-videos

The introduction keynote speech (time 19:29) was presented by Dr. James Truchard, President and CEO of National Instruments. The title is Expanding the Vision of Graphical System Design. Dr. Truchard talks about current and future products, after giving a brief overview of the evolution of instrumentation. He speaks clearly at a relaxed tempo, and there is a large projection screen behind him with the key words of his talk (including definitions of key concepts). This helps with understanding.

But if 20 minutes is too long for your students to listen to a speech, then you can focus specifically on a section of approximately 5 minutes in which he talks about "looking to the future" (from 10:49 to 15:21). He refers to the current state of technology as Industry 4.0 - the 4th Industrial Revolution, and reviews the developments of the first three revolutions. It would be interesting to have students brainstorm what they identify as these 3 revolutions (and when). Dr. Truchard describes them as:

1. (end of 18th century): Water and steam powered mechanical production;
2. (start of 20th century): Electric power and mass production;
3. (start of the 1970s): Electronics and IT automation;
4. (Today): Cyber-physical systems.

He says that cyber-physical systems "will transform industry" and describes their emerging infrastructures (eg., Intelligent Systems, Smart Factory, M2M, Big Analog Data(TM) Solutions, etc.). He then gives examples of cyber-physical systems across industries and applications:

• tumor treatment
• 6x6 MIMO OFDM Testbed
• advanced smart grid
• large telescope mirror control
• virtual test trains
• robotic rehabilitation
• rapid control prototyping

 He refers to these examples as "enabling the next generation of technology." This is where the recommended section ends (at 15:21).

This talk is not only interesting and informative, but it gives students practice in listening comprehension and could lead to further discussion about the impact of the future technology mentioned. These technology areas could include our students' future professional fields!

Robot helps firefighters

The website Design News has a short article about a semi-autonomous robot that was developed at the University of California at San Diego to help firefighters. The article includes a short video about the robot.

http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=265071&itc=dn_analysis_element& 

The robot, called Firefighting Robot (FFR), rolls on two wheels like a Segway, and enters burning buildings to take temperature readings and map out the area before firefighters enter.

This is another interesting example of robots being used for search and rescue work. Fortunately I have the summer off, but next semester I plan to use the information about various robots for a lesson on innovation in our lives. Maybe my students will be creative enough to come up with more ideas about how robots can be used in this way. We can also compare the robots that have been developed for various types of rescue work and discuss their advantages and disadvantages.