I've been noticing a trend - more and more educators are using industrial robots to inspire and challenge their students!

Check out these examples of standard 6-axis robots moving into the classroom to stack bricks, dish out soft serve, and motivate STEM kids:

Harvard University: ABB Robot Builds Undulating Wall

Ohio Northern University: Kuka KR3 serves ice cream!

Los Alamos High School: Fanuc LR Mate 200iB

Hands-on Robotics Education:

Robotics education is arguably one of today's most exciting educational movements. It is bringing a hands-on, project-oriented, team-building approach to learning.

Just in time too. I had the privilege of interviewing Tad Douce, a Middle School teacher here in Marion, Ohio about robot education. He had some interesting perspectives about educational priorities in the schools today. He believes that students need hands-on education now more than ever. That’s part of the reason he founded the National Robotics Challenge, one of the many robotics competitions taking the U.S. by storm.

This 12-category event is happening just down the street from our RobotWorx facility on March 7th and 8th. It’s for students of all ages – from elementary to college. Interested? You can still register throughout the month of February.

We're really excited about the competition and the good it is doing. One of our engineers is lending a hand by judging at this year’s NRC. We’re also opening our building for NRC tours on March 7th.

Introducing the WiiBot

This sword-wielding, tennis playing robot has folks in my office talking. Two guys programmed an industrial robot to work with a Nintendo controller. Pretty cool concept, despite the slight lag time.

Check it out! Neiman Marcus has decorated their main shop window in Dallas, Texas with industrial robots! All three Fanuc robots are wearing red Santa hats and working to trim a giant aluminum tree. Here's a bigger picture: www.hgtv.com

You still have time to catch a glimpse of the HGTV show about this and other window displays on December 23 – 5 PM ET/PT or December 25 – 11 AM ET/PT

It's movie time...First of all, I found this incredible video of a robot solving a Rubik's cube. This method certainly beats taking off the stickers..or taking the cube apart to solve it. :)

At my company we videotape our robot systems performing customized applications. Here are my favorites:

> Check out this dual system of Panasonic PerformArc 350: robots:Welding. There is a certain grace to this workcell.

> This ABB IRB 340 Flexpicker robot reminds me of a spider.

> This gripper video is mesmerizing.

> Finally, this robot is a neat stacker. Robots are making inroads when it comes to palletizing.