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FRANKLIN —
Area families and children got to see where education was 100 years ago and where it is headed in the future Friday evening at the Miners Hall Museum in Franklin.
The presentation was part of the latest in a series of monthly exhibits leading up to “The Way We Worked,” an exhibition created by the National Archives and part of Museum on Main Street, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and State Humanities Councils nationwide. The traveling exhibit will be in Franklin from May 11 to June 23, 2013. This month’s exhibit was titled “The Way We Worked in Southeast Kansas — Education,” and was hosted by Depco.
There were family games and story readings throughout the afternoon, and kids got to play with Depco’s GEARS EdS robotics racing and Totally Trebuchet targeting kits. The centerpiece of the presentation was the NAO Humanoid Robot. The $16,000 robot is manufactured in France, can wirelessly access the Internet, has 25 joints and can identify faces and other objects using sonar and infrared sensors.
“It has an accelerometer, so it knows when it’s falling,” Depco representative Rod Murphy said. “And it has a gyroscope for balance.”
The NAO robot also is used in research with autistic children, Murphy said, because autistic children often don’t respond well to adult humans. NAO held the crowd, and especially the kids, captive as it demonstrated various programs, which Depco develops for the robot. It danced to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” told a story from Star Wars, and imitated sports moves so the kids could guess which game it was imitating.
Pittsburg resident Debbie Baeza said she heard about the exhibit and the demonstration and thought her 8-year-old son, Shane, would enjoy it.
I’ve been interested in the exhibits as they change each month,” Baeza said.
The NAO robot, she continued, was impressive.
“I like that they can program him to help children learn,” she said. “It’s amazing what they can do, now.”
“The Way We Worked in Southeast Kansas - Education” will be open free to the public until it is taken down in the week after Thanksgiving. Miners Hall Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
Area families and children got to see where education was 100 years ago and where it is headed in the future Friday evening at the Miners Hall Museum in Franklin.
The presentation was part of the latest in a series of monthly exhibits leading up to “The Way We Worked,” an exhibition created by the National Archives and part of Museum on Main Street, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and State Humanities Councils nationwide. The traveling exhibit will be in Franklin from May 11 to June 23, 2013. This month’s exhibit was titled “The Way We Worked in Southeast Kansas — Education,” and was hosted by Depco.
There were family games and story readings throughout the afternoon, and kids got to play with Depco’s GEARS EdS robotics racing and Totally Trebuchet targeting kits. The centerpiece of the presentation was the NAO Humanoid Robot. The $16,000 robot is manufactured in France, can wirelessly access the Internet, has 25 joints and can identify faces and other objects using sonar and infrared sensors.
“It has an accelerometer, so it knows when it’s falling,” Depco representative Rod Murphy said. “And it has a gyroscope for balance.”
The NAO robot also is used in research with autistic children, Murphy said, because autistic children often don’t respond well to adult humans. NAO held the crowd, and especially the kids, captive as it demonstrated various programs, which Depco develops for the robot. It danced to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” told a story from Star Wars, and imitated sports moves so the kids could guess which game it was imitating.
Pittsburg resident Debbie Baeza said she heard about the exhibit and the demonstration and thought her 8-year-old son, Shane, would enjoy it.
I’ve been interested in the exhibits as they change each month,” Baeza said.
The NAO robot, she continued, was impressive.
“I like that they can program him to help children learn,” she said. “It’s amazing what they can do, now.”
“The Way We Worked in Southeast Kansas - Education” will be open free to the public until it is taken down in the week after Thanksgiving. Miners Hall Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
