Last week I posted about the Google Lego Engineering and the Lego Engineering initiative at Tufts University. Although not strictly Legos, Stanford has an undergraduate robotics course which is worth a look for your advanced First Lego League student. The course is offered via Stanford's Engineering Anywhere initiative. I also added the robotics course to my Lego Robotics Educational Search Engine.
I've been quiet with respect to Legos for much to long! However, as anyone who is involved with First Lego League knows, it's tournament time! It seems strange after all these years of coaching S.N.I.P (Super Nerds In Pink) to be a spectator on the sidelines ... however my boys are all off to engineering colleges around the USA. Thus, I decided it was time to do a few updates to my Google Custom Lego Educational Search Engine. After a few queries, I discovered that Google itself has finally caught the Lego bug. Here are the latest additions:
The Lego Engineering lecture was given by the folks at Tufts University, who first defined this domain. To learn and see more with respect to Lego Education, link to my special section of my Engineering Learning Wiki, or just try the custom Google Lego Search Engine which I created last year.
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I've been remiss in not posting upon one of my favorite subjects, Legos! After all ... it all began with Legos. As the former six year veteran coach of Super Nerds In Pink, I understand just how important Legos have been and will be to the future of America (and the world). My boys (not just my own children, but the team) have spread out to some of this country's top schools; most of them are majoring in engineering!
I can remember the days when my own children were between the ages of three and five. Dad and children would be down in the floor playing with Duplos. My son Carl and I built some great ferry boats. Karen introduced me to Legos and Barbie. Erik as he moved on in elementary school introduced me to Lego Mindstorms.
This relationship is now reviewed by a MIT professor, Sherry Turkle. She has written the book, "Falling for Science" (download a sample chapter). In the book she reviews what caused many of her former MIT students to becoame interested in science. While Legos are not the only reason her students got interested in science, it is a common theme. Take just a couple of minutes and listen to the National Public Radio Falling for Science Discussion. It's a fun discussion and makes you realize how important is the subject of intelligent play.
Just so you don't think that this topic is only being discussed on one side of the Atlantic Ocean. In February, the top engineering society in the United Kingdom had a similar discussion. Here is a link to my favorite article.
What got you interested in science? Post a comment and let the other readers know. There is no wrong answer to this question. In my own case, it involved my Legos, a Marble Machine Computer which calculated in Base 2, and Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.
This post is an excellent way to ease into the new work year. If you want to keep current on the world of technology, subscribe via RSS to Google Tech Talks. However, for those of you with kids involved with First Lego League (or the big kid in you who still loves to program and create robots), link to this recent Google seminar:
Google TechTalks are already indexed in my engineering seminar search engine, and you may browse /search via the Engineering Learning Wiki.
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