If you love Robots, Battlebots, Programming and Design, you’ll love what San Diego Makers Guild (SDMG) have in store for you. This group of makers ensures everyone can have an affordable robot, and they are making strides.
The project created a huge splash at the recent Maker Faire Bay Area this May and now they’re back in their hometown of San Diego, exhibiting at North County Mini Maker Faire. The project doesn’t yet have a formal name or brand — all that will come in time — the SDMG has started calling it The Cardboard Combat Bots (CCB). This bot and its minimalist design attracted a lot of attention at the Bay Area Faire for its ease of use, price point, accessibility and potential for application in the classroom.

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The shortage of Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) skills in the UK should be treated as a national crisis, according to experts in the field.
If the UK is to grow its space industry to the proposed £40 billion by 2030, a national effort has to be put into recruiting teachers trained in STEM subjects. Young people also need to be encouraged to study them, pro-vice chancellor/director of the Leicester Institute of Space and Earth Observation, Martin Barstrow said this week.

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The school curriculum is in for a shakeup, with the Government proposing to shift education into a "digitally oriented system".
Education Minister Nikki Kaye announced on Wednesday that the Government would spend $40 million on raising teachers' skills to deliver the new curriculum, which will involve all pupils from years one to 10 taking part in digital technologies education.

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When I ask people to picture a coder, they usually imagine someone like Mark Zuckerberg: a hoodied college dropout who builds an app in a feverish 72-hour programming jag—with the goal of getting insanely rich and, as they say, “changing the world.”
But this Silicon Valley stereotype isn’t even geographically accurate. The Valley employs only 8 percent of the nation’s coders. All the other millions? They’re more like Devon, a programmer I met who helps maintain a ­security-software service in Portland, Oregon. He isn’t going to get fabulously rich, but his job is stable and rewarding: It’s 40 hours a week, well paid, and intellectually challenging. “My dad was a blue-­collar guy,” he tells me—and in many ways, Devon is too.

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Senior lecturer in educational technology Dr Michael Cowling warns that technology must support learning to be effective. Otherwise, it is a waste of time. 
The Central Queensland University lecturer says pedagogy must come before technology. 
"The technology we introduce must serve a purpose and that purpose must be to enhance learning through improving pedagogy."
Cowling is not an enemy of technology, in fact he has a background in technology and a love of computers. He says there just needs to be a focus on technology improving learning, not simply learning new technologies. 
"My students love technology, but even in my classes I've realised that technology for technology's sake is a waste of time.
"Asking students to use a laptop without scaffolding doesn't work, but if you gather them around an iPad and ask them to collaborate on a diagram, then you are serving both pedagogy and their love of technology."

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Vespa, best known for its stylish scooters, is trying something new.The Italian company is opening a Boston-based division, called Piaggio Fast Forward, to focus on the future of mobility. Its first creation is Gita, a robot designed to carry cargo, such as groceries, and follow around a pedestrian or cyclist.
The vision is that Gita will be able to do mundane chores for owners. Standing at about two feet tall and with the ability to carry 40 pounds of stuff, the robot has a lid that opens to reveal the cargo bin. It can travel at a top speed of 22 mph.
There's no timeline for when a consumer can get their hands on one, and price has not yet been disclosed. But Piaggio Fast Forward said it will conduct pilot tests with businesses this year.

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We’re getting really close to completely automated deliveries.
Ocado Technology, the research division of Ocado, a large UK online grocery delivery company, today showed off a robot concept that it has been working on with a range of European universities and Disney Research’s Zurich office. The robot is essentially a soft, malleable hand attached to a relatively standard industrial robotic arm that can be used to grip produce without damaging it.

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