8. Make logging in with a security key more seamless
Now, you can set a custom PIN on your FIDO2 security keys for websites or apps that request user verification, allowing you to log in without a cumbersome password. If your physical key is lost or stolen, your information won’t be compromised because the use of your credentials will require your custom PIN code.
Website: LINK
For years, we’ve been working across the mobile industry, including carriers and smartphone manufacturers around the world, to evolve and adopt RCS, the modern texting standard.
By replacing the outdated SMS and MMS protocols, users benefit from a more modern and secure messaging experience with typing indicators, read receipts, threaded replies, high-quality media sharing, improved group chats, better privacy like end-to-end encryption and more with RCS. RCS is a much better messaging protocol, and we know that people love using it.
Today marks a new milestone that we are incredibly proud of: There are now more than one billion monthly active users with RCS enabled in Google Messages. We are grateful to our partners and our users that have advocated for RCS over the years — it’s been a lot of work to get here, and we want to thank you. Beyond Google Messages, there are other messaging clients that use RCS and we are pleased that Apple also took their first step two weeks ago in announcing that they’re embracing RCS.
Website: LINK
Google DeepMind’s Aimee Welch discusses our partnership on the Experience AI learning programme and why equal access to AI education is key. This article also appears in issue 22 of Hello World on teaching and AI.
From AI chatbots to self-driving cars, artificial intelligence (AI) is here and rapidly transforming our world. It holds the potential to solve some of the biggest challenges humanity faces today — but it also has many serious risks and inherent challenges, like reinforcing existing patterns of bias or “hallucinating”, a term that describes AI making up false outputs that do not reflect real events or data.
As AI becomes an integral part of our daily lives, it’s essential that younger generations gain the knowledge and skills to navigate and shape this technology. Young people who have a foundational understanding of AI are able to make more informed decisions about using AI applications in their daily lives, helping ensure safe and responsible use of the technology. This has been recognised for example by the UK government’s AI Council, whose AI Roadmap sets out the goal of ensuring that every child in the UK leaves school with a basic sense of how AI works.
But while AI literacy is a key skill in this new era, not every young person currently has access to sufficient AI education and resources. In a recent survey by the EdWeek Research Center in the USA, only one in 10 teachers said they knew enough about AI to teach its basics, and very few reported receiving any professional development related to the topic. Similarly, our work with the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre has suggested that UK-based teachers are eager to understand more about AI and how to engage their students in the topic.
Ensuring broad access to AI education is also important to improve diversity in the field of AI to ensure safe and responsible development of the technology. There are currently stark disparities in the field and these start already early on, with school-level barriers contributing to underrepresentation of certain groups of people. By increasing diversity in AI, we bring diverse values, hopes, and concerns into the design and deployment of the technology — something that’s critical for AI to benefit everyone.
By focusing on AI education from a young age, there is an opportunity to break down some of these long-standing barriers. That’s why we partnered with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to co-create Experience AI, a new learning programme with free lesson plans, slide decks, worksheets and videos, to address gaps in AI education and support teachers in engaging and inspiring young people in the subject.
The programme aims to help young people aged 11–14 take their first steps in understanding the technology, making it relevant to diverse learners, and encouraging future careers in the field. All Experience AI resources are freely available to every school across the UK and beyond.
The partnership is built on a shared vision to make AI education more inclusive and accessible. Bringing together the Foundation’s expertise in computing education and our cutting-edge technical knowledge and industry insights has allowed us to create a holistic learning experience that connects theoretical concepts and practical applications.
A group of 15 research scientists and engineers at Google DeepMind contributed to the development of the lessons. From drafting definitions for key concepts, to brainstorming interesting research areas to highlight, and even featuring in the videos included in the lessons, the group played a key role in shaping the programme in close collaboration with the Foundation’s educators and education researchers.
To bring AI concepts to life, the lessons include interactive activities as well as real-life examples, such as a project where Google DeepMind collaborated with ecologists and conservationists to develop machine learning methods to study the behaviour of an entire animal community in the Serengeti National Park and Grumeti Reserve in Tanzania.
Member of the working group, Google DeepMind Research Scientist Petar Veličković, shares: “AI is a technology that is going to impact us all, and therefore educating young people on how to interact with this technology is likely going to be a core part of school education going forward. The project was eye-opening and humbling for me, as I learned of the challenges associated with making such a complex topic accessible — not only to every pupil, but also to every teacher! Observing the thoughtful approach undertaken by the Raspberry Pi Foundation left me deeply impressed, and I’m taking home many useful ideas that I hope to incorporate in my own AI teaching efforts going forward.”
The lessons have been carefully developed to:
To date, we estimate the resources have reached 200,000+ students in the UK and beyond. We’re thrilled to hear from teachers already using the resources about the impact they are having in the classroom, such as Mrs J Green from Waldegrave School in London, who says: “I thought that the lessons covered a really important topic. Giving the pupils an understanding of what AI is and how it works will become increasingly important as it becomes more ubiquitous in all areas of society. The lessons that we trialled took some of the ‘magic’ out of AI and started to give the students an understanding that AI is only as good as the data that is used to build it. It also started some really interesting discussions with the students around areas such as bias.”
At North Liverpool Academy, teacher Dave Cross tells us: “AI is such a current and relevant topic in society that [these lessons] will enable Key Stage 3 computing students [ages 11–14] to gain a solid foundation in something that will become more prevalent within the curriculum, and wider subjects too as more sectors adopt AI and machine learning as standard. Our Key Stage 3 computing students now feel immensely more knowledgeable about the importance and place that AI has in their wider lives. These lessons and activities are engaging and accessible to students and educators alike, whatever their specialism may be.”
Our hope is that the Experience AI programme instils confidence in both teachers and students, helping to address some of the critical school-level barriers leading to underrepresentation in AI and playing a role in building a stronger, more inclusive AI community where everyone can participate irrespective of their background.
Today’s young people are tomorrow’s leaders — and as such, educating and inspiring them about AI is valuable for everybody.
Teachers can visit experience-ai.org to download all Experience AI resources for free.
We are now building a network of educational organisations around the world to tailor and translate the Experience AI resources so that more teachers and students can engage with them and learn key AI literacy skills. Find out more.
Website: LINK
In 2023, millions of us tuned in to Google TV to watch our favorite movies and shows. But with so much entertainment out there, maybe you missed some hidden gems or the chance to be part of a pop-culture moment.
Today, we’re launching the Best of 2023 on Google TV devices and in the Google TV app, so we all get one more chance to take a look back at the movies, shows and music that defined the year before we welcome in the next. Here’s a sneak peek at the movies and shows that stood out in 2023:
Website: LINK
Earlier this year, I took on a new role leading Google Play. One of the best parts of this job is that I get to see all the different ways Play impacts people around the world — whether it’s users discovering new trending apps, or developers building the game they’ve been dreaming of for years.
To support this entire community, we’ve made lots of improvements to the Play Store this year. For example, we made it even easier to discover all that Play has to offer, including for different device types like wearables, foldables and tablets. We also introduced new ways to redeem Play Points, along with new features and titles on Google Play Games on PC.
And because Play is only successful when our developers are, we continued to make updates to help them grow their businesses. That included launching tools to help them make their apps more discoverable, generate revenue and protect users’ privacy. It’s been amazing to see developers showcase their creativity and build great content people love on Play.
Today, we’re celebrating their success with Google Play’s Best of 2023 Awards, a roundup of the best apps, games and books on Play. To reflect this year’s trends, we introduced new award categories that recognize helpful apps using the latest technology (such as “Best with AI” and “Best Game for Good”), and experiences that work well across a wide range of devices (such as “Best Multi-device App and Game” and “Best for Google Play Games on PC”).
Read on for the full list of award winners in the U.S. To find out the winners in other countries, visit the Best of 2023 page on the Play Store. Congratulations to everyone!
We look forward to seeing what 2024 brings and continuing to help people discover new (and maybe their next favorite) apps, games and books — wherever they are, on whatever device.
Best App: Imprint: Learn Visually
As our best app of 2023, Imprint: Learn Visually shares bite-sized lessons that use visual storytelling to bring concepts to life. Explore the worlds of psychology, history, health, technology and more in a brand new way.
Best Game: Honkai: Star Rail
This sci-fi extravaganza takes the title of our best game of the year thanks to its excellent depth of content, stunning visuals and thoughtful design. By sprinkling lore and character backstories throughout the game, Honkai: Star Rail delivers lasting entertainment for role-playing game enthusiasts and newcomers alike.
Best Multi-device App: Spotify
Whether listening to your favorite music in the kitchen, on the commute or out on a hike, Spotify shines when it comes to working smoothly across devices. We love how you can remotely control playback on another device, and download tracks or episodes for offline playback.
Best Multi-device Game: OUTERPLANE – Strategy Anime
While we love its charming characters and captivating story, OUTERPLANE’s ability to easily work across multiple devices sets it apart from other turn-based strategy experiences on Play. From outstanding PC performance to flawless transition between screens on foldables, OUTERPLANE is visually stunning, technically impressive and just plain fun.
Users’ Choice App: ChatGPT
Users’ Choice Game: MONOPOLY GO!
Best for Fun: Bumble For Friends: Meet IRL
Best for Personal Growth: Voidpet Garden: Mental Health
Best Everyday Essential: Artifact: Feed Your Curiosity
Best Hidden Gem: Aware: Mindfulness & Wellbeing
Best with AI: Character AI: AI-Powered Chat
Best for Families: Paw Patrol Academy
Best App for Good: AWorld in support of ActNow
Best for Watches: WhatsApp Messenger
Best for Tablets: Concepts: Sketch, Note, Draw
Best for Chromebooks: FlipaClip: Create 2D Animation
Best for Google TV: Max: Stream HBO, TV, & Movies
Best for Cars: Amazon Prime Video
Best Multiplayer: Farlight 84
Best Pick Up & Play: MONOPOLY GO!
Best Indies: Vampire Survivors
Best Story: Honkai: Star Rail
Best Ongoing: Stumble Guys
Best Games for Good: Pokémon Sleep
Best on Play Pass: Magic Rampage
Best for Tablets: Honkai: Star Rail
Best for Chromebooks: Minecraft
Best for Google Play Games on PC: Arknights
Our 2023 picks
At its simplest, washing up liquid and a loop in which to form bubbles is all that’s needed to create this low-cost and playful distraction. But having set a precedent delighting pupils with her builds and science experiments, Aula was determined to design something that would catch their imagination while also encouraging them to build their own bubble machine. “With this project, children can explore the science behind soap bubbles while having fun building their own machine”, she reasons.
Aula has been using Raspberry Pi as a teaching resource in her lab since 2014. She first encountered the low-cost computer when on the hunt for a good value processor with an easy-to-read temperature sensor inside for use in thermal studies. “Thus began my friendship with the wonderful Raspberry Pi board, and I transferred the energy of love and optimism that the Raspberry Pi gave me to my students and everyone around me.” She particularly appreciates the open-source approach, and the attitude that science is for everyone from a community that ensures others can research and overcome any technical difficulties they encounter.
This project introduces children to basic electronics and encourages their creativity with options to customise their bubble machine, designing and decorating their own plastic discs or experiment with different fan sizes for varying bubble sizes. By programming the Raspberry Pi Pico, children can learn about coding concepts such as loops, conditionals, and functions.
The heart of Aula’s bubble machine is its perforated circular plastic disc, which performs the same role as a bubble wand. When the disc rotates, it dips into a soap solution, creating a film of soap on its surface, she explains, while air from the fan blows through the holes, forming bubbles that detach from the disc and float away. A DC motor connected to an L298 driver circuit controls both the fan speed and disc rotation. These signals are provided by Raspberry Pi Pico and a potentiometer connected to it by an ADC pin.
“Raspberry Pi Pico controls when to start and stop the motor, as well as adjusting its speed, and was the ideal choice”, says Aula. It allows her to calibrate the speed at which the disc releases the bubbles and helps to optimise energy consumption so both the battery and kids’ enjoyment lasts as long as possible.
A drill press is a very useful tool that lets you slowly drill holes that are perfectly perpendicular to the work piece. And good drill presses give you a readout that lets you drill to a precise depth. But the cheap drill press stands for hand drills make that difficult. To solve this problem on a budget, Minikk designed an affordable digital readout add-on.
This digital readout is very useful. It shows exactly how far you move the drill, with a precision of 0.01 millimeters. And it lets you set the zero point (typically the top surface of the material) so you don’t have to do any math in your head.
Minikk achieved this with an inexpensive digital caliper. That has an LCD screen without a backlight and it is hard to read, so Minikk hacked it with an Arduino Nano board to add a much more readable OLED screen. That was possible because this digital caliper, like most of the budget models on the market, has a control board that is accessible via I2C. That lets the Arduino pull the measurements to display on the OLED.
With a 3D-printed mount and enclosure to hold everything in place, Minikk now has a reasonably accurate and precise digital readout that didn’t break the back. This lets them drill holes to exactly the required depth without any hassle. Best of all, Minikk uploaded the sketch and 3D files so you can add a digital readout to your drill press.
The post Add an inexpensive digital readout to your drill press appeared first on Arduino Blog.
Website: LINK
There are many theories that attempt to explain the uncanny valley, which is a range of humanoid realness that is very disconcerting to people. When something looks almost human, we find it disturbing. That often applies to robots with faces — or robots that are faces, as is the case with the TAST-E robot that has a sense of taste and smell.
The TAST-E robot created by M. Bindhammer looks a bit like a human face, sans skin. Servo motors let it pan and tilt, flap its lips, move its unsettlingly realistic eyeballs, and waggle its eyebrows. It can even speak thanks to a Parallax Emic 2 text-to-speech module connected to an Arduino Mega 2560 board.
But TAST-E is most intriguing because of its sense of taste and smell, which let it identify specific compounds and molecules.
Our own tongues can only detect five distinct tastes: saltiness, sweetness, bitterness, sourness, and umami (savoriness). TAST-E can do the same by recognizing the compounds that stimulate those receptors on our tongues. It does so with colorimeters, which detect the color produced when certain reagents mix with those compounds. This is similar to how a woman might look for a blue or pink line on a pregnancy test. TASTE-E has custom colorimeters that look for the reagent colors associated with those taste compounds.
TASTE-E’s sense of smell is a bit more straightforward, but also less analogous to human smell. Its electronic nose uses a Grove gas sensor breakout with four modules: a GM-102B for NO2, a GM-302B for ethanol, a GM-502B for VOCs, and a GM-702B for CO/H2. Those let it analyze the concentration of those compounds in an air sample.
It isn’t clear what M. Bindhammer intends for TAST-E, but this robot is as impressive as it is chilling.
The post TAST-E is an animatronic robot head with a sense of taste and smell appeared first on Arduino Blog.
Website: LINK
How do you best teach programming in school? It’s one of the core questions for primary and secondary computing teachers. That’s why we’re making it the focus of our free online seminars in 2024. You’re invited to attend and hear about the newest research about the teaching and learning of programming, with or without AI tools.
Building on the success and the friendly, accessible session format of our previous seminars, this coming year we will delve into the latest trends and innovative approaches to programming education in school.
Our monthly online seminars are not only for computing educators but also for everyone else who is passionate about teaching young people to program computers. The seminar participants are a diverse community of teachers, technology enthusiasts, industry professionals, coding club volunteers, and researchers.
With the seminars we aim to bridge the gap between the newest research and practical teaching. Whether you are an educator in a traditional classroom setting or a mentor guiding learners in a CoderDojo or Code Club, you will gain insights from leading researchers about how school-age learners engage with programming.
Each online seminar begins with an expert presenter delivering their latest research findings in an accessible way. We then move into small groups to encourage discussion and idea exchange. Finally, we come back together for a Q&A session with the presenter.
Here’s what attendees had to say about our previous seminars:
“As a first-time attendee of your seminars, I was impressed by the welcoming atmosphere.”
“[…] several seminars (including this one) provided valuable insights into different approaches to teaching computing and technology.”
“I plan to use what I have learned in the creation of curriculum […] and will pass on what I learned to my team.”
“I enjoyed the fact that there were people from different countries and we had a chance to see what happens elsewhere and how that may be similar and different to what we do here.”
Computing teachers know that, for some students, learning about the syntax of programming languages is very challenging. Working through Parson’s Problem activities can be a way for students to learn to make sense of the order of lines of code and how syntax is organised. But for teachers it can be hard to precisely diagnose their students’ misunderstandings, which in turn makes it hard to create activities that address these misunderstandings.
At our first 2024 seminar on 9 January, Dr Barbara Ericson and Xinying Hou (University of Michigan) will present a promising new approach to helping teachers solve this difficulty. In one of their studies, they combined Parsons Problems and generative AI to create targeted activities for students based on the errors students had made in previous tasks. Thus they were able to provide personalised activities that directly addressed gaps in the students’ learning.
All our seminars start at 17:00 UK time (18:00 CET / 12:00 noon ET / 9:00 PT) and are held online on Zoom. To ensure you don’t miss out, sign up now to receive calendar invitations, and access links for each seminar on the day.
If you sign up today, we’ll also invite you to our 12 December seminar with Anaclara Gerosa (University of Glasgow) about how to design and structure of computing activities for young learners, the final session in our 2023 series about primary (K-5) computing education.
Website: LINK
Despite his thoroughly modern career as a software engineer in Silicon Valley and a CV that lists VMware and Google among his credits, Raju has a fondness for the old days. “I have always loved to tinker and repurpose old hardware to build something new”, he says, favouring Raspberry Pi boards because they are “perfect” for the projects he likes to work on since “they are so easy to setup and get started with”.
For the retro radio build Raju wanted something that would force us to slow down in our current fast-paced digital world. He says the analogue controls of the radio are in some way the opposite of how we interact with our devices today with touch and voice. The project was also meant to remind Raju of his childhood of using analogue knobs to change stations. His lengthy search for the ideal old radio eventually led to him choosing one with a speaker to one side and enough space to cut out a window and fit a new 5in screen. His Retro World Radio can tune in to a vast collection of internet streaming radio stations from around the globe, and features a vintage map to browse and find radio streams.
Raju had seen other retro radio upcycling projects online, and was particularly keen on creating one similar to this internet radio project. He used a 2GB Raspberry Pi 4 because he “needed the extra horsepower of Raspberry Pi 4 to get experience with the map display”. He bought the main components from online stores such as Adafruit.
Sourcing a suitable radio and writing the software interface were his main challenges, since backend engineering is his professional forte. “I enjoyed the experience of writing all the Javascript code for the display and I am still thinking of ways to improve the overall aesthetic. Raju designed the new parts himself including a new front face for the radio, using CAD software to design and create some 3D-printed parts. He also wrote software for the Retro World Radio, making liberal use of existing SDKs and open source or free online libraries.
He began with a development platform using a breadboard, which allowed him to test the software. The first version had three rotary knobs mapped to Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins, but Raju later decided to use four knobs. These pull in internet streams from Radio.Garden and can be chosen by location as well as genre.
Having completed the radio project, Raju is now gearing up to combine his love of tinkering with tech with LEGO, and has recently acquired a Raspberry Pi Zero W.
GPIO pins on most microcontrollers operate at low voltages, typically between 3.3V and 5V, and are unable to deliver much current — oftentimes stopping at 20-40mA. This is why, when setting up an LED, series resistors are used to limit the amount of current draw and prevent damage to the pin. Mirko Pavleski created a workbench device that helps figure out the size of this resistor and allows for an LED to be connected for live testing.
Built around an Arduino Nano, the system presents the user with a display for selecting the desired maximum current draw and LED voltage input. The panel of buttons on the left can increment or decrement the ideal voltage/current levels that, in turn, are then used to calculate the value of the series resistor. This value appears on the bottom alongside the part number for ordering the resistor from a distributor.
The values at the top of the LCD indicate how the connected LED currently behaves given a known voltage. By wiring the LED to a couple of sense resistors and an analog input pin, its forward voltage along with its current draw can be determined.
More details about this project can be found in Pavleski’s Hackaday.io write-up here.
The post This DIY tool automates LED testing and current limit calculations appeared first on Arduino Blog.
Website: LINK
As Jallson Suryo discusses in his project, adding voice controls to our appliances typically involves an internet connection and a smart assistant device such as Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. This means extra latency, security concerns, and increased expenses due to the additional hardware and bandwidth requirements. This is why he created a prototype based on an Arduino Nicla Voice that can provide power for up to four outlets using just a voice command.
Suryo gathered a dataset by repeating the words “one,” “two,” “three,” “four,” “on,” and “off” into his phone and then uploaded the recordings to an Edge Impulse project. From here, he split the files into individual words before rebalancing his dataset to ensure each label was equally represented. The classifier model was trained for keyword spotting and used Syntiant NDP120-optimal settings for voice to yield an accuracy of around 80%.
Apart from the Nicla Voice, Suryo incorporated a Pro Micro board to handle switching the bank of relays on or off. When the Nicla Voice detects the relay number, such as “one” or “three”, it then waits until the follow-up “on” or “off” keyword is detected. With both the number and state now known, it sends an I2C transmission to the accompanying Pro Micro which decodes the command and switches the correct relay.
To see more about this voice-controlled power strip, be sure to check out Suryo’s Edge Impulse tutorial.
The post Controlling a power strip with a keyword spotting model and the Nicla Voice appeared first on Arduino Blog.
Website: LINK
The launch of the Arduino UNO R4 marks a huge leap forward for our community. For us, it’s also the chance to celebrate the people who bring our ecosystem to life with their bright ideas, radiant enthusiasm, and shining insight.
That is how the UNO R4 Stars blog post series began: to highlight makers who have not only created amazing projects with Arduino, but who are giving back to the community by sharing as they go and helping others make anything they wish.
We invite you to discover each profile, hoping you might find a North Star to navigate around an expanding galaxy or venture into completely new universes.
Daniel Jansson first came into contact with Arduino in 2011, while at Umeå Institute of Design for his master’s degree in interaction design. The experience was empowering to the point of being weird: “It was like, now I can create things which only engineers and developers could make before. It felt like I was doing things that I should just not be able to do.”
Curious by nature, he instantly realized that – while the technology could have helped him in his studies – it was a lot more fun to create quirky interactive objects that made people smile. So he kept going, experimenting with various Arduino boards to create big and small devices with connectivity, sound, lights and interactivity.
“There are few things I enjoy more than taking disparate subjects and joining them into new creations, oftentimes with Arduino acting as the glue to help things sense the world around them, or interact in new and unusual ways,” he says.
A great example of this is his favorite maker project: the YouTube Subscriber Levelometer, which repurposes a device once used to measure the level of liquid in tanks using pressure. Adding his signature blend of “physical interaction, programming, sound, connectivity and a healthy dose of humor,” Jansson built a phygital system that keeps track of his key influencer stats. He integrated speech synthesis by combining an Arduino Nano with the Talkie library, which was based on work done by Texas Instruments in the 1980s, and programmed everything via the Arduino IDE.
As a long-time Arduino user, Jansson was excited to try the UNO R4: “It extends the potential for new projects to places where I did not imagine the UNO platform could go. It really feels like a leap forward, without compromising on the vast library of projects created over the last 11 years since the launch of the UNO R3.”
We asked Jansson, “What’s your favorite part of the UNO R4?”
Beyond any specific product, it’s the global community that makes Arduino unique: “It doesn’t matter where in the world you are, you can always find someone who has run into the same challenges as you have, and find help to overcome them to make your projects come true. The wealth of knowledge makes Arduino a democratic hardware platform in ways we have never seen before.”
The value of shared knowledge and experiences clearly resonates with Jansson, who hopes to encourage others to learn, enjoy, and broaden their mind with his projects. To keep up with his many fun and interesting ideas – bound to bring a smile to your face – follow his Instagram account or subscribe to his “Switch & Lever” YouTube channel.
The post UNO R4 Stars: Meet Daniel Jansson appeared first on Arduino Blog.
Website: LINK
Big news for young tech creators: Coolest Projects will return in 2024. The world’s leading showcase for young creators of digital tech will be open for registration in the online gallery, and we want young people worldwide to showcase their tech projects.
In 2024, we are hosting the Coolest Projects online showcase and livestream celebration for all young creators around the world, and also in-person events in the UK and Ireland for young creators who live there.
All young tech creators can take part — for free — in the Coolest Projects online showcase:
Coolest Projects is an opportunity for young tech creators to share what they have made with the world. Young people register their tech creations to show them the Coolest Projects online showcase gallery. Alongside mentors, parents, friends, and family members in their local and global communities, they can explore the gallery and celebrate what they and their peers have made.
If your kids want to learn about creating with technology, check out our free guided coding project paths. These paths are designed to support all young people to learn how to make their own tech projects and develop their coding skills. For example:
Young creators can take a look at the Coolest Projects 2023 online showcase gallery for inspiration if they are not sure what they want to make. You can also watch the story of Zaahra and Eesa, siblings who participated in Coolest Projects 2020.
If you are a young creator in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, or the UK, then Coolest Projects is also coming to you in person in 2024. Participants will be able to meet other young tech creators, connect to their community, and celebrate each other’s creations. Young people are encouraged to take part in both the Coolest Projects global online showcase and their local in-person event.
Coolest Projects Ireland will take place at DCU St Patrick’s College Campus, Drumcondra in Dublin. It’s open to young creators in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and their families and friends are invited to come along to celebrate them and see all the incredible projects on show. Participants can apply for partial bursaries for the costs of attending the event.
Very soon we will announce the date and venue for Coolest Projects UK for all young creators in the UK. Sign up for email updates to be the first to hear about it. We will also share full details of each in-person event on the Coolest Projects website when registration opens.
If there’s not an in-person Coolest Projects event near you, you can still join in the fun: the Coolest Projects online showcase is open to any young creator aged up to 18, from anywhere in the world. We also work with brilliant partner organisations around the world to bring Coolest Projects events to their countries and communities. Sign up to the Coolest Projects newsletter to be the first to know about any in-person event in your country.
Coolest Projects registration opens soon in 2024, and young creators can start thinking of ideas and working on their projects now. Or if young people have already made something they are really proud of, they can showcase that creation once registration is open.
Sign up for email updates to always get the latest news about all things Coolest Projects, from event updates to the fun swag coming for 2024.
Website: LINK
Everything you need to have fun with Raspberry Pi in 2024. We’ve got official accessories, third-party kits, cases, projects, circuits, robots and 3D printing projects. There’s enough here to keep any Raspberry Pi fan quiet for a while.
Raspberry Pi 5 runs fast! And with speed comes thermal heating. Keep your cool with our guide to heating and cooling your new Raspberry Pi computer. We’ve got graphs and charts to back up our advice.
Let’s take Raspberry Pi 5 up a notch. We’ve got a guide and code for taking your Raspberry Pi 5’s speedy CPU up to 3.0GHz and boosting the GPU to 900MHz. The increased performance makes gaming better, compiling faster and your Raspberry Pi 5 look cooler. So put go-faster stripes on your Raspberry Pi 5 today.
Did you know that Raspberry Pi can play just about anything thanks to the power of cloud gaming? You can stream Xbox games, Nvidia games and play many of the latest hits. Cloud gaming is fantastic on Raspberry Pi 5 and our guide can help you save hundreds of pounds on buying the latest consoles.
We’ve got lots of projects in this month’s edition of The MagPi. This retro radio that plays stations from around the world is a great example of upcycling. The original dial has been replaced with a screen displaying a map of the globe. This and many more projects can be found in this month’s edition of The MagPi magazine.
Ready to dive in? Subscribe to The MagPi today to get your hands on this fantastic issue and many more. Join us in exploring, creating, and celebrating the world of Raspberry Pi! Subscribers get Raspberry Pi 5 first with Priority Boarding.
Save 35% off the cover price with a subscription to The MagPi magazine. UK subscribers get three issues for just £10 and a FREE Raspberry Pi Pico W, then pay £30 every six issues. You’ll save money and get a regular supply of in-depth reviews, features, guides and other Raspberry Pi enthusiast goodness delivered directly to your door every month.
Since launching our free online courses about computing on the edX platform back in August, we’ve been training course facilitators and analysing the needs of educators around the world. We want every course participant to have a great experience learning with us — read on to find out what we’re doing right now and into 2024 to ensure this.
Educators of all kinds are key for supporting children and young people to engage with computing technology and develop digital skills. You might be a professional teacher, or a parent, volunteer, youth worker, librarian… there are so many roles in which people share knowledge with young learners.
That’s why our online courses are designed to support any kind of educator to:
We are constantly improving our online courses based on your feedback, the latest education research, and the insights our team members gain through supporting you on your course learning journeys. Three principles guide these improvements: accessibility, scalability, and sustainability.
Our online courses are used by people who live around the world and bring various knowledge and experiences. Some participants are classroom teachers, others have computing experience from their job and want to volunteer at a kids’ coding club, and some may be parents who want to support their children. It’s important to us that our courses are relevant and accessible to all kinds of adult learners.
We’re currently working to:
When we think about the scalability of our courses, we think about how to best support as many educators around the world as possible. If we can make the jobs of all educators easier, whatever their setting is like, then we are making the right choices.
We’re currently working to:
The educators who take our courses work to achieve amazing things, and this means they are often busy. That they take the time to complete one of our courses to learn new things is a commitment we want to make sure is rewarded. The learning you get from participating in our online courses should continue to benefit you far beyond the time you spend completing it. This is what we mean by sustainability.
We’re currently working to:
Our work to improve the accessibility, scalability, and sustainability of our courses will continue into 2024, and these three principles will likely be part of our online training strategy for the following year too.
If you’d like to support young people in your life to learn about computing and digital technologies, take one of our free courses now and learn something new. We have twenty courses available right now and they are totally free.
We are also looking for adult testers for new course content. So if you’re any kind of educator and would like to test upcoming online course content and share your feedback and experiences, please send us a message with the subject ‘Educator training’.
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We are proud to announce that Arduino Education has been shortlisted as a finalist in three categories for the Bett Awards 2024:
The Bett Awards are a celebration of the inspiring creativity and innovation that can be found throughout technology for education. These awards recognize Arduino Education’s efforts to nurture future talent by bringing easy to use, affordable, and skill-oriented solutions for students at school and university.
Let’s take a look at each of the award categories we’ve been nominated for in turn…
Why have we been shortlisted? At Arduino Education, we epitomize the fusion of cutting-edge technology with purposeful learning. Our revamped Arduino Cloud for Schools revolutionizes STEAM education by merging coding, IoT, and accessibility into a comprehensive ecosystem.
Meanwhile, the renewed Explore IoT Kit R2 is not just technologically advanced; it also aligns with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, promoting practical solutions to global challenges. The kit empowers students to delve deep into data communication, management, and societal problem-solving.
Our innovative Greenhouse Kit addresses urban farming issues, turning students into active participants in sustainability endeavors.
Across our products and solutions, Arduino Education’s commitment isn’t merely to educate; it’s to inspire, empower, and lead, paving the way for a brighter, informed, and sustainable future.
Our nomination for the Innovator of the Year award is a testament to this enduring commitment to innovation that truly matters.
Arduino Education collaborated with the Colegio San Jose de Las Vegas for the Medellín Challenge 2023. Students participating in the challenge experienced a transformative arc during an intensive three months. From the early days of choosing their challenges to turning their innovative ideas into tangible prototypes, their journey was supported at every step by Arduino Education’s state-of-the-art technology resources, including the Explore IoT Kit and the Arduino Cloud.
An experienced Arduino Education trainer teamed up with the teachers and students during the prototyping stage to provide direct in-person technical support throughout the design phase, and provide ongoing feedback.
Just some of the sustainability solutions that the teams of students devised with Arduino included:
There’s a significant gap between education and the job market, where technology, methodology, and mindset for educating future talents are generally missing. Arduino Education strives to bring easy-to-use, affordable, and skill-oriented solutions to bridge this gap. We want to continuously redefine the horizons of STEAM education and push for innovation in the classroom.
Always looking forward, we pioneer educational tools that reflect real-world applications, like our collaboration on machine learning content with Harvard, and our Explore IoT Kit which ties to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. We champion diversity, sustainability, and corporate social responsibility. Efforts such as supporting ‘Jenga Labs‘ in Ghana and local manufacturing demonstrate our broader vision.
Arduino Education’s focus on customer service and a thriving teacher community are testaments to our commitment to the education sector.
Dan Hubacz, a U.S. high school teacher, sums up Arduino Education’s approach perfectly: “I want my students to be working on things that are real and matter to them, and that also potentially have an impact on the community.”
Further to receiving this recognition from the Bett Awards for our continuous focus on innovative solutions, we’d like to say thank you to all the students and educators who use Arduino Education kits and solutions in their classrooms. It’s your enthusiasm and desire for learning that makes this possible and worthwhile.
With the newly-released Science Kit R3 and even more exciting kits to come in 2024, we’ll keep striving to innovate, bridge the STEM skill gaps, and nurture future talent.
The post Arduino Education is a three-time Bett Awards finalist for 2024 appeared first on Arduino Blog.
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We all know that learning to program, and specifically learning how to debug or fix code, can be frustrating and leave beginners overwhelmed and disheartened. In a recent blog article, our PhD student Lauria at the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre highlighted the pivotal role that teachers play in shaping students’ attitudes towards debugging. But what about teachers who are coding novices themselves?
In many countries, primary school teachers are holistic educators and often find themselves teaching computing despite having little or no experience in the field. In a recent seminar of our series on computing education for primary-aged children, Luisa Greifenstein told attendees that struggling with debugging and negative attitudes towards programming were among the top ten challenges mentioned by teachers.
Luisa is a researcher at the University of Passau, Germany, and has been working closely with both teacher trainees and experienced primary school teachers in Germany. She’s found that giving feedback to students can be difficult for primary school teachers, and especially for teacher trainees, as programming is still new to them. Luisa’s seminar introduced a tool to help.
To address this issue, the University of Passau has initiated the primary::programming project. One of its flagship tools, LitterBox, offers a unique solution to debugging and is specifically designed for Scratch, a beginners’ programming language widely used in primary schools.
LitterBox serves as a static code debugging tool that transforms code examination into an engaging experience. With a nod to the Scratch cat, the tool visualises the debugging of Scratch code as checking the ‘litterbox’, categorising issues into ‘bugs’ and ‘smells’:
What sets LitterBox apart is that it also rewards correct code by displaying ‘perfumes’. For instance, it will praise correct broadcasting or the use of custom blocks. For every identified problem or achievement, the tool provides short and direct feedback.
Luisa and her team conducted a study to gauge the effectiveness of LitterBox. In the study, teachers were given fictitious student code with bugs and were asked to first debug the code themselves and then explain in a manner appropriate to a student how to do the debugging.
The results were promising: teachers using LitterBox outperformed a control group with no access to the tool. However, the team also found that not all hints proved equally helpful. When hints lacked direct relevance to the code at hand, teachers found them confusing, which highlighted the importance of refining the tool’s feedback mechanisms.
Despite its limitations, LitterBox proved helpful in another important aspect of the teachers’ work: coding task creation. Novice students require structured tasks and help sheets when learning to code, and teachers often invest substantial time in developing these resources. While LitterBox does not guide educators in generating new tasks or adapting them to their students’ needs, in a second study conducted by Luisa’s team, teachers who had access to LitterBox not only received support in debugging their own code but also provided more scaffolding in task instructions they created for their students compared to teachers without LitterBox.
One important realisation that we had in the Q&A phase of Luisa’s seminar was that many different research teams are working on solutions for similar challenges, and that the impact of this research can be maximised by integrating new findings and resources. For instance, what the LitterBox tool cannot offer could be filled by:
As we navigate the evolving landscape of programming education, it’s clear that innovative tools like LitterBox can make a significant difference in the journey of both educators and students. By equipping educators with effective debugging and task creation solutions, we can create a more positive and engaging learning experience for students.
If you’re an educator, consider exploring how such tools can enhance your teaching and empower your students in their coding endeavours.
You can watch the recording of Luisa’s seminar here:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITbIVUc2Rxc?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]
If you’re interested in the latest developments in computing education, join us at one of our free, monthly seminars. In these sessions, researchers from all over the world share their innovative ideas and are eager to discuss them with educators and students. In our December seminar, Anaclara Gerosa (University of Edinburgh) will share her findings about how to design and structure early-years computing activities.
This will be the final seminar in our series about primary computing education. Look out for news about the theme of our 2024 seminar series, which are coming soon.
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RGB LEDs are sooooo 2015 and the “it” thing today is kinetic art. If a blinking LED is the “hello world” of the microcontroller industry, then making something move is the equivalent of finally fingering out how pointers work. So Robert of the Ideal Idea YouTube channel had to learn a lot of new skills to design this PC case with interchangeable kinetic front panels.
Robert was inspired by CyberPower’s Kinetic Series case, which was on display at CES 2022, then CES 2023, and is now beginning to look like vaporware. Robert wanted to upgrade his PC setup and didn’t want to wait on CyberPower, so he built his own custom kinetic case.
Despite Robert’s claims to the contrary, he certainly appears to be a talented mechanical engineer. He created a pair of kinetic front panels and they’re both mechanical masterpieces. The first consists of three circular windows, each with two spinning wheels rotating in opposite directions. Light shines through from the PC to highlight the effect. The second is an intricate matrix of wood pillars that move in and out in an undulating pattern that entrances us.
Both kinetic panels operate using input from a single stepper motor controlled by an Arduino UNO Rev3 board. Robert constructed the panels’ complex mechanisms using a combination of 3D-printed plastic, laser-cut acrylic, and laser-cut wood. The two panels required hundreds of moving parts and a mastery of mechanical design, resulting in an amazing final product.
The best part is the modularity, as Robert can design and swap in a new kinetic panel whenever he wants.
The post DIY PC case features interchangeable kinetic front panels appeared first on Arduino Blog.
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With a bit of deductive reasoning, Peter figured out that the plant was blocking the joint, so the rainwater would just overflow. He didn’t want to hire expensive equipment to confirm this theory, though.
“I then had the bright idea of mounting a Raspberry Pi Camera on the end of a long pole to get a view of the plant itself,” Peter mentions. “The sticking-point here was how to connect the camera to Raspberry Pi whilst still being at the far end of the pole. At first, I considered having Raspberry Pi and camera both mounted at the far end, but this would have required much longer power and display cables than I had available; the obvious alternative was just to have the camera at the far end of the pole but, at the time, I only had to hand the short ribbon cable that came with the camera, and had no idea whether longer cables were even available. However, after discovering that cables up to 2 m in length existed – thank you, The Pi Hut! – I had at least solved the connectivity issue.”
Peter turned to Fusion 360 to design and then 3D-print a mount that would allow the Camera Module to slot inside a bike lamp bracket, which was then mounted to a pole. After taking a peek, Peter found the true culprit – a plant growing in a big clump of soil.
“I now had a much clearer idea of what exactly we were dealing with, but there was still the matter of how to get the offending plant out,” Peter continues. “It was unlikely any cherry-picker would be able to fit through either of our side gates to reach the rear of the house where this gutter was, so it would have to operate from the adjacent road, with all the safety and other implications that would entail. However, to go down the scaffolding route would be equally problematic, not least because it would have to bridge over the conservatory to get to the gutter in the corner, with no obvious way to support it.”
For one small plant, this was a bit overkill. However, he did have a pole that could reach the plant, so he began Phase 2 of the operation: attaching a trowel. He already had a WOLF-Garten system that he’d 3D-printed parts for, so he made a further extension to fit the trowel on.
After digging up a bit of the soil, the plant was removed and the gutter stoppage fixed. It worked so well, it’s inspired him to do more.
“I would be the first to admit that I produce more things using my 3D printer than I do using a Raspberry Pi,” Peter says. “However, the success of this venture has opened my eyes (no pun intended!) to the potential for remote-viewing generally using Raspberry Pi / camera combination and, to this end, I have bought a second 2 m camera cable and connector, as well as a new Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3.”
As more people use their devices for mobile banking and money management, fraudsters and criminals are increasingly using malicious apps to steal money or account information.
Scammers often send phishing messages trying to get you to download a fraudulent app that’s designed to get your financial credentials, either through surveillance or by acting like a legitimate app. These phishing messages may appear to come from a well-known company, like a bank or a delivery service, and require urgent action to resolve an issue quickly. These types of scams affect people all over the world and have grown rapidly in recent years across all mobile operating systems.
Android has always offered the ability to download apps from many different sources. And we’ve built in multiple layers of protections and warnings to help you stay safe and make informed choices when downloading apps outside of established app stores.
To celebrate International Fraud Awareness Week, here’s a look at our multi-layered app safety defenses and a reminder of how to use them in your daily life to stay protected.
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