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Talents Newsletter

Hello!Weʼve been working really hard this summer to bring you some new and exciting courses for all ages. Checkout our website and register online on www.talents.edu.

New Courses at Talents Center

We have several new courses weʼve been working on at Talents Center, and registration is now open! For more information about these courses please visit our website: www.talents.edu

Computer Science – CS001 (6-8 year old)Computer Science – CS002 (6-8 year old)Computer Science - CS102 (9-12 year old),Computer Science - CS110 (9-12 year old),Computer Science - CS201 (13-16 year old),Electrical Engineering – EE201 (13-16 year old)Mechanical Engineering - ME201 (13-16 year old)

September 2010, Issue 5

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Mathletics

This is one way of bringing the passion back to mathematics. Mathletics is an online community to help kids from KG to 12th grade develop and improve their math skills.Children get to do math exercises and compete with other children online in games of skill and speed helping them enjoy math more and also achieve outstanding results. It is also completely safe because their is no communication between the kids at all, so parents donʼt have to worry.

Mathletics is also designed to respond to each childʼs individual needs and pace, and kids and parents will know that they are on the right track. This is done with the help of online animated support, and weekly reports that are emailed to parents.

Children from all over the world are captivated by Mathletics, and testimonials from the website state that kids just canʼt get enough of it. In my opinion, itʼs well worth a try!

To give it a shot and learn more about the curriculum at each level, checkout their website: http://www.mathletics.com/

Irresistible Cyton Robots

Theyʼre powerful, affordable, and easy to use!

Starting at under $3,000, Robai Cyton robot arms are perfect for automating light duty tasks. They combine versatile mechanical designs with graphical robot tasking software developed for high-end robots by Energid Technologies. The result is an easy-to-use robotic manipulator for industry, home, entertainment, and research.

“Kinetically Redundant” robots, robots with more than six axes like Robai Cyton robots with seven axes, work just like the human arm. This extra degree of freedom allows for better accuracy and the ability to reach around obstacles. Cyton arms come with a graphical control software that makes it easy to control the arm by using input devices on your PC or over the internet. Plug into your Windows, Linux or Apple computer, configure it, and you can start work in under 30 minutes.

For more information visit: http://robai.com/

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LEGO Featured Product of the Month:

Playhouse Set (9091)

Age: 2+This set provides everything youngsters need to recreate their own homes and live out the roles and relationships that are so important to them. The large panels amke it easy for small hands to build different types of houses and the DUPLO figures help get role playing started. The playhouse is designed in classic style with colors that will appeal to both boys and girls.

Learning Values:- Exploring living environments and different functions of a house.- Exploring relationships with adults and peers- Understanding domestic roles and responsibilities.- Understanding domestic rules.

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Breakthrough in Robotics.. Electronic Skin.http://www.geekwithlaptop.com/breakthrough-in-electronic-skin-for-robots

In an exciting new breakthrough in the world of biotech research, scientists have engineered electronic skin that can sense touch.  These advances in artificial tactile technology are likely to have important implications within both medical and robotics research, and could go a long way towards upgrading todayʼs clumsy robotic and prosthetic devices.

The British journal Nature Materials has reported a couple of breakthroughs, with ʻe-skinʼ made at the University of California under the guidance of associate professor Ali Javey and a rubber film-like material engineered at Stanford University by a team led by Zhenan Bao.  The technology used is comprised of a mixture of silicon and germanium rolled onto a sticky polymide film, which is then layered onto a nano-scale layer of transistors and pressure sensitive high-tech rubber.

The materials tested in the lab have been found to respond to tactile pressure in much the same way as living human skin, with response rates within thousandths of a second and comparable with the speed of human skin sensation.  While there is still a long way to go, these advances in touch-sensitive technology are an important milestone in artificial intelligence, prosthetics, and tactile robotics.

Tactile sensitivity has long been one of the biggest barriers within robotics research, and this new technology is likely to push forward the practical use of mechanical, artificial devices.  For example “humans generally know how to hold a fragile egg without breaking it” said Ali Javey, and this technology will eventually be able to provide a similar biofeedback response to robotic devices.

For a robot to be considered fully functional, all five human senses need to be substituted to a degree.  Good approximations for sight and sound have existed for a while, and this breakthrough is a huge step forward for touch – which has always been considered the biggest obstacle.  However, electronic senses for smell and taste are still lagging behind, as is the interface technology for connecting sensing materials to the human nervous system in the case of prosthetics.