
Chinese startup Makeblock is bringing robots to classrooms - johnshades
https://www.fastcompany.com/90242046/chinese-startup-makeblock-robots-are-invading-classrooms
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elocinstr8t
Well, as long as they're not going to eventually replace the teachers, I think
that this is a great idea to teach kids. It's innovative and it will inspire
them to actually pay attention to their lesson. It will also allow them to
learn the lesson quickly, right?

~~~
erikbe
I work at Makeblock so I will chime in. We design our robots to be a tool for
educators that, as you mention, helps them make classes so much more engaging.

The number of students who will be able to learn, and be interested in
learning, to program or to engage with scientific subjects when they see their
instructions executed by their own coding companion right in front of them is
so much greater than those who will find an IDE exciting. I started
programming in QBASIC when I was around 10 but got bored pretty quickly as
writing text-based games isn't that exciting, and started playing games
instead. I probably could've been a lot better at programming today if I'd had
something to keep me engaged.

We have a whitepaper available that is written by an organization that have
created their STEM courses around our robots, for those that are interested:
[https://educators.makeblock.com/whitepaper-how-to-design-
ste...](https://educators.makeblock.com/whitepaper-how-to-design-stem-courses-
in-six-steps)

~~~
elocinstr8t
That's good, because one of the misconceptions when it comes to robots and
other automation is that it will take people's jobs away from them. I do
believe that there's a middle ground that we can find where robots and humans
can work side by side. This (as in education) is one of them. Students tend to
get bored easily in class. If you bring this in, they will engage and pay
attention more, which seems to me is what your company aims to achieve. Great
job on that!

The only problem I can see here is that not all schools will be able to afford
this because not every school has a budget for this.

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godzillabrennus
Anything that makes a classroom more like the workplace of the future is a
win.

I think we have a much higher probability of humans assembling robots in an
office environment than needing to use a book or to know cursive.

Not that we have a high probability that humans will build robots in an
office.

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konschubert
The role of School should be to grow kids into smart and empathetic grown ups
that understand how the world works and can find their place in it.

It's not just there to prepare people for the cubicle.

I don't think a classroom should resemble a workplace, much less a workplace
of the future as we currently imagine it.

~~~
bschwindHN
Thank you for putting my thoughts into words. The comment you replied to is an
incredibly depressing way to look at life.

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anfractuosity
I've got the mbot robot from them which is pretty cool -
[https://www.makeblock.com/steam-kits/mbot](https://www.makeblock.com/steam-
kits/mbot)

It was a little fiddly to get it working via bluetooth via Linux with the
'scratch' interface, but I did eventually manage to get it to work :) (by
choosing serial port, rather than the bluetooth button, and using Linux's
rfcomm module)

We've only tried simple things with it so far like making the robot
controllable via the keyboard which works pretty well.

This reminds me I need to finish building a decent line follower in scratch.

