Skip to main content

NECC 2007 notes

By
I was able to attend the NECC 2007 on Monday and Tuesday (June 25-26) and visit with many of the LEGO Ed representatives there. They had a very nice booth area setup and were demonstrating many robots, including Brian Davis' LNE and some Tribots using the new HiTechnic sensors. HiTechnic also had a representative, Steve, who was available on Monday to answer questions and show off some of their products.

One of the highlights of my visit there occurred on Tuesday. The LEGO Ed rep for Texas, Betty, knowing I was going to be at the conference, arranged to have a video conference using one of the NECC vendor's real-time video conferencing systems, setup right there in the showroom. I was told 4-6 teachers would be there and it would be a Q&A session about the Mayan Adventure book... when the video popped up, I was looking about around 30-40 teachers in Temple, Texas. We had a nice discussion for about 20-25 minutes before I had to run. (This technology is really opening doors and plans are being made to have more of these distance-discussions.)

This conference focused on technology and math/science services and products available to the education field and I was amazed at the 500+ vendors there with all kinds of things to show off... looking forward to next year.

Popular posts from this blog

Celebrating 25 Years of MINDSTORMS

By Asha Seshan - ROBOTMAK3R
In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of MINDSTORMS, we take a trip through history. Please also visit ROBOTMAK3RS Community every week as we highlight different projects all through 2023 in celebration of the anniversary. Some of the early history is based on the content shared by  Coder Shah  in our  MINDSTORMS EV3 Community Group . Some of the text and links may have been edited from his original posts for consistency and clarity.  1984 - Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen watched a TV program called "Talking Turtle," where MIT professor Seymour Papert demonstrated how children could control robot "turtles" using LOGO, a programming language he developed. 1988 - The collaboration between MIT and LEGO resulted in LEGO TC Logo in 1988, which allowed students to control LEGO models using computer commands. The video shows Papert demonstrating TC Logo. 1990 - LEGO TC Logo was hampered since the robots you built had to be tethered to a personal computer. LEGO and MIT...
Read more

ROBOTMAK3RS Review: LEGO River Steamboat

By Asha Seshan - ROBOTMAK3R
I thought the LEGO River Steamboat would be an interesting set for a ROBOTMAK3R review for a few reasons. First, the LEGO designer of the model is Marina Stampoli, a long-time collaborator of the late ROBOTMAK3R Vassilis Chryssanthakopoulo s. From earlier collaborations with Vassilis, I  knew Marina was incredibly talented, with an eye for aesthetics and functionality. Her background in architecture is particularly useful for her relatively new position at LEGO. Her other sets include the Magic of Disney (21352), Message Board (41839), and Red London Telephone Box (21347). Second, watching Marina's reveal video  and reading her designer interview made this set even more tempting to build. The gearing mechanisms running through the model gave way to many opportunities for automation using LEGO robotics elements. Since ROBOTMAK3RS is all about adding interactivity and automation to LEGO brick, I thought it would be fun to see where and how LEGO robotics could be added to this s...
Read more

Part 3: Restoring the LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor App on Windows

By Asha Seshan - ROBOTMAK3R
Summary: This blog is written by Sizlaq and is about how he restored the LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor Windows app using an archived Appx installer and a backup of the app’s downloaded content. Important note: The files linked in this post are external archive downloads for the LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor app and its related content. LEGO MINDSTORMS, LEGO Education and Robot Inventor are LEGO Group products/trademarks. Use these downloads only where you are legally entitled to do so and only for legitimate preservation, repair, education or personal restore purposes. I do not own the LEGO app or content, and the links are provided as a convenience for people trying to restore a legacy installation. Download and run archived software at your own risk, and scan files before installing them. Why these backups mattered The reason I started looking into this was simple: LEGO had announced that the LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor apps were being discontinued...
Read more