Monthly Archives: September 2018

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ROBOTS ARE CHANGING THE FIELDS OF ELDERLY CARE AND EDUCATION

Japan has become the world’s senior citizen due to decades of improving life expectancies matched with falling birth rates. An aging population can have dire implications, such as a shrinking labor pool. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is introducing new remedies to address these challenges, including a “robot revolution,” a plan to quadruple the size of the robotics industry by encouraging automation in everything from manufacturing plants to education to care for the elderly. Below you can read about three recently introduced Japanese robots.

A Robear might sound like a new toy from Hasbro, but, it’s the creation of Japanese researchers from the Robot Sensor Systems Research Team at the Riken-SRK Collaboration Center for Human-Interactive Robot Research, led by Toshiharu Mukai. Using advanced technology to power its intelligent vision, flexible movement, and giant arms, these robots are designed with the vision of helping make elderly care much easier in the future. With Japan facing a swiftly shrinking population at a time when the demand for elderly will only grow in the decades to come, these researchers believe that the answer to elderly care might lie with robotic assistive technology.

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THE A.V. SYMINGTON TEEN CENTER AT RUST LIBRARY

Get ready to tinker, create, build and innovate!

Rust Library has the distinction of housing the A.V. Symington Teen Center with its recently opened Makerspace. The space has been designed for and by middle and high school students. There you will find thousands of books, 24 computers, gaming systems with wide-screen TVs, 2 Macs and board games. The Teen Center is meant to be a place for teens to gather and be creative, play games, hang out, study and read.

The Makerspace extends the opportunities for fun and creativity and exploring at the Teen Center. It’s open during regular hours and can be used for free. Some small fees may apply for supplies or printing. The Makerspace now features:

  • 3D printer
  • 3D carving machine
  • sewing machines (also serger and embroidery)
  • coding gadgets (Mindstorm, Sphero, Arduino, Raspberry Pi)
  • digitization equipment (VHS-to-DVD)
  • heat press
  • microscope

The Teen Center kindly offered to bring here to the Academies of Loudoun for two days this week some items from their Maker Space, and the students enjoyed the opportunity to play and create.

Besides the Makerspace activities, there are other reasons that might draw you to visit Rust Library. The Teen Center also has a number of programs aimed at teens that focus on creativity, academic enrichment, arts and culture and STEM, including:

  • Book Club
  • Writing Club
  • Teen Advisory Board
  • Anime Club
  • Movie events
  • “It’s All Write” short story contest
  • Summer Reading
  • Film Festival
  • AnimeCon
  • Teen Read Week
  • Teen Tech Week
  • Photography class
  • Dance workshops
  • Habits of Successful College Students
  • Gamer’s Union for Teens with Asperger’s

 

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STATS OF THE MOST FREQUENTLY CHALLENGED AND BANNED BOOKS

11,300

Number of books that have been challenged since 1982, according to the American Library Association

5

Number of Judy Blume books that appear of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom’s (OIF) list of 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books: 1990 – 1999. They are, ranked: Forever … (7); Blubber (30); Deenie (42); Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret (60); and Tiger Eyes (89).

11

Number of Academy Award nominations that The Color Purple (1985), the film adaptation of Alice Walker’s often-challenged book of the same name, received. The film took home zero Oscars and is tied with another for most nominations without a win.

20 million

Number of copies Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has sold worldwide. The book was first published in the US in February 1885, and by the following month, the town library in Concord, Massachusetts, became the first to ban the novel for being “trash of the veriest sort.”

5 – 4

Ruling by the Supreme Court decided in Island Trees School District Board of Education v. Pico (1982) that a school board’s discretionary power is secondary to the First Amendment and the board could not ban books from its libraries simply because its members disagree with the content.

Source: Dantowski, T (2015, October 1). By the Numbers: Banned Books Week. Retrieved from https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/blogs/the-scoop/by-the-numbers-banned-books-week/
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ROBO BEES WITH A MISSION

What do you think would happen if bees were to suddenly disappear from our planet? You might then have to give up some of your favorite foods for bees are responsible for pollinating about three-quarters of global crop species, including strawberries, apples, almonds and grapes. Unfortunately, land clearing, climate change and the use of pesticides are already impacting the bee population and causing problems for farmers.

Docker, L. (Photographer). (2011). Pollination of a bee [digital image]. Retrieved from  https://www.flickr.com/photos/aussiegall/6105263663

Researchers have come along at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University to create robotic bees. A RoboBee is only half the size of a paperclip and weighs less than one-tenth of a gram. These bee-size robots have the ability to lift off the ground and hover midair when attached to a power supply. These RoboBees have been designed to perform myriad roles in agriculture or disaster relief.

Courtesy: National Science Foundation

Walmart has already taken steps to manufacture and use their own robotic bees, known as “pollination drones,” to pollinate crops autonomously. These robotic bees use sensors and cameras to help them navigate among the crops and potentially will be able to pollinate as effectively as real bees.

NASA is also getting in on the act. As part of a project known as Marsbees, NASA is planning to use tiny robotic bees to explore the surface of Mars because they will be able to obtain and relay information faster and more easily than the Mars rover can. The robotic bees will be able to cover more land space at a fraction of the cost, and will now use the Mars rovers as charging stations.

The potential decrease or even elimination of the bee population in our ecosystem almost certainly would have had devastating consequences. We have the researchers and roboticists in the field and their incredible ingenuity to thank for the robotic version coming to our rescue!

(2018, Summer/Fall). The next essential robot: RoboBees. STEAM, pp. 14-15
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Have you heard of the physics phenom who is becoming known as the “New Einstein”?

Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski set her sights high from an early age, even building her own plane at the age of twelve and later piloting it herself, flying it above the shoreline of Lake Michigan. Now, at 22, Pasterski is being hailed by her peers as the “New Einstein.” As the first female in decades to graduate at the top of her undergraduate physics program at MIT with a 5.0 grade point average, she is currently pursuing her doctorate in theoretical high energy physics at the Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature at Harvard.

Pasterski has done research in black holes, spacetime and quantum gravity, and her work has been cited by Stephen Hawking and her own Harvard advisor Andrew Strominger, among others. She’s been granted thousands of dollars in support of her research, including a $250,000 Hertz Foundation fellowship and a $150,000 National Science Foundation fellowship. Forbes named her to its 30 Under 30 All-Star list.

This is all pretty heady stuff, but Pasterski seems to be quite down-to-earth. She claims never to have had a sip of alcohol or tried a cigarette, and she steers clear of most social media. She does, however, maintain a website called PhysicsGirl where she lists her appearances in the press and at international conferences and her impressive accomplishments to date.

 

 

Kim, L. (2016, February 8). 17 surprising facts about millennial physics phenom Sabrina Pasterski. Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/larry-kim/17-surprising-facts-about-millennial-physics-phenom-sabrina-pasterski.html
Halme, F. (2016, January 12). This millennial might be the new Einstein. Retrieved from https://www.www.yahoo.com/news/millennial-might-einstein-0800000.html?nf=1

Banning Books, Silencing Stories – Celebrate Freedom to Read Week!

 

DID YOU KNOW …

  • 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982, according to the American Library Association (ALA).
  • The Banned Books Week campaign was launched that same year, in response to the large uptick in challenges to books in schools, bookstores, and libraries across the country.
  • Usually these challenges are targeted at books, but they can also include DVDs, databases, displays, and art exhibits.

 What is challenged book? It’s one that has been sought to be removed or otherwise restricted from public access, typically from a library or a school curriculum.

According to research by the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, of the 416 books challenged or banned in 2017, here are the 10 most challenged books of 2017:

Resources

Artwork courtesy of the American Library Association, ala.org/bbooks/NLW-Top10

One big censorship story occurred in 2017 when The Hate U Give was removed from all school libraries in the Katy Independent School District (Texas). A 15-year-old student collected 3,700 signatures on an online petition, spoke out at a school board meeting, and started a book club about the YA author. Angie Thomas called the student “the real Starr Carter” after the heroine of her novel. The Hate U Give would ultimately be returned to the school library, but students can only check it out with parental approval.

On a side note – this librarian is super excited for the movie release this October…

Dankowski, T. (2015, October 1). By the numbers: Banned Books Week. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/NLW-Top 10

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Academies of Loudoun Pioneers ‘Hip’ School Lunch Model

The programs housed at the new Academies of Loudoun pride themselves in being on the cutting edge of technology and education. They boast a greenhouse that can run seven climate settings simultaneously, an auditorium designed with robotics competitions in mind, and professional-level auto mechanic garages and kitchens that serve as hands-on classrooms.

Well, the school’s cafeteria isn’t about to be left behind.

Well, the school’s cafeteria isn’t about to be left behind.The Academies of Loudoun opened just four weeks ago as the new home to three magnet programs: the Academy of Science, the Monroe Advanced Technical Academy, and the Academy of Engineering and Technology. Visit the campus around noon on any weekday, and you’ll see 1,200 high school students jetting from labs, makerspaces and high-tech classrooms to one of several spots in the 300,000-square-foot building serving lunch. With wraps, salads, and other sustenance in hand, the students settle in for the 45-minute lunch period all throughout the building—in outdoor courtyards, on comfy couches, in classrooms, and on bar stools in the Innovation Commons.

“We’ve rethought school lunch—suddenly, it’s cool and hip,” said Stefanie Dove, coordinator of Marketing and Community Outreach for the Department of School Nutrition Services. “We’ve literally knocked down the walls of the cafeteria and knocked down the stigma of the typical cafeteria experience. Look at this—it’s so inviting.”

To access the full article from LoudounNow, click here