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CONTACT: Virginia Gold
IMMEDIATE
New York, NY, January 27, 2004 -- Robots have fascinated the scientific world for decades. Now, through a world-wide initiative funded in part by ACM, robots are offering infinite opportunities for project-oriented, team-based education for children and young adults. The project, called RoboCupJunior (www.robocupjunior.org), sponsors robotic events for young students. A spin-off of the Robot World Cup Initiative known as RoboCup (www.robocup.org), RoboCupJunior holds cooperative and competitive events at selected locations, where students build and operate autonomous mobile robots. Using challenges involving soccer, dance and rescue projects, RoboCupJunior motivates children and young adults with varying needs, and offers a new way to develop technical abilities through hands-on experience with electronics, hardware and software. Dr. Elizabeth Sklar has been a champion of RoboCupJunior since 2000. An assistant professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, Dr. Sklar is the international chair of RoboCupJunior. Its first demonstration event was in 1998, in Paris. By June 2003, RoboCupJunior expanded to field 75 teams in Padova, Italy, from many countries around the world, up from 59 teams the previous year in Japan. In June 2004, the Fifth International RoboCupJunior event is scheduled for Lisbon, Portugal, and organizers expect continuing growth in participation and popularity. "These events provide students with an opportunity to interact with technology and with each other. They learn how to cooperate on challenging problems and achieve a common goal," said Dr. Sklar, who is co-chair of the steering committee for ACM's JETT (Java Engagement for Teacher Training) program (jett.acm.org). "Through the robotic medium, we can teach about artificial life, evolutionary computation, hardware-software interaction, distributed systems, electronics and communication," she added. Dr. Sklar predicted that in coming years, progress in technology will demand that informatics migrate from applications which are exclusively computer-based, to developing common objects like household appliances and cars that contain "intelligence." "These objects will use "adaptive" software, and must continuously interact with a changing world," she noted. "To construct and operate such objects, IT professionals will need not just the ability to build and work with computers and software applications. They will also need to know construction and programming, physics and mechanical engineering, mathematics and artificial intelligence." Dr. Sklar is particularly proud of RoboCupJunior's ability to draw girls and young women into these fields. In 2003, some 31 percent of participants in the dance event were female. "Girls are attracted to the dance challenge, but they're catching up with boys in the rescue activities," she noted. RoboCupJunior's challenges include:
ACM is providing funding for RoboCupJunior as part of its investment in technology-related education. These events are designed to appeal to primary and secondary school children as well as undergraduates, giving them with a variety of interests and abilities an opportunity to pick their own challenges while contributing to the progress of the whole. About ACM The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a major force in advancing the skills of information technology professionals and students. ACM serves its global membership by delivering cutting edge technical information and transferring ideas from theory to practice. ACM hosts the computing industry's leading Portal to Computing Literature. With its world-class journals and magazines, dynamic special interest groups, numerous conferences, workshops and electronic forums, ACM is a primary resource for the information technology field. For additional information about ACM, visit our web site at www.acm.org. |
