Crawley STEMFest Big Bang Event Finds New Champions

The first Big Bang Roamer attended was at the National Event just over two years ago.  Students were set the challenge Sum Pathways – the aim of which was to program Roamer to find the pathway through a grid that would gather highest cumulative score from start to finish.  The challenge not only grabbed the attention of the children but fascinated many of the neighbouring exhibitors in the maths zone.  Over the four days the high score kept growing and by the end the top score stood at a massive 759,942.  This score has now been beaten by boys and girls from All Saints and St Richard’s Primary School in Old Heathfield East Sussex at Crawley STEMfest Big Bang 2015.

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The World’s Strongest Man competition sees people doing amazing things like carrying two large fridges over 30 m, pulling trucks or aircraft and what is the equivalent of carrying a fat man up a lot of stairs.  I have to say I enjoy watching the programme.  However, as an ex-crane designer I must tell them we have machines for doing that sort of stuff!  Of course this inspired the StrongBot Contest which will be taken on by Year 7 and 8 Lambeth Academy Students as par of British Science Week. Continue reading →

You may remember our heart warming articles on Liss and Kafuro Schools. Liss who use Roamer extensively introduced it to Kafuro their Ugandan partners in the Queen Elizabeth Parks Twinning Project.  Ugandan teacher Mr Yowasi Byaruhanga had left the warmth of the Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda for the for chilly climes of the Queen Elizabeth Country Park in Hampshire.  Valiant took the opportunity to find out how Roamer was doing in Africa and donate some more Roamers. Continue reading →

Research claiming that imagination and perception share the same neural networks adds support to the idea of “Playing Turtle”.  In a report in Scientific American, Jason Goldman’s article on “Thought Control” reports on the latest psychological research. Continue reading →

CAS (Computers At School) is charged with the task of training English Primary School Teachers to deliver the new Computing Curriculum from September 2014.  In recognition of Roamer’s potential to support the new curriculum initiative with exciting examples of the key concepts Valiant have been asked to run free  workshops at the 6 Regional Training events. Continue reading →

Radio and television presenter Maggie Philbin will attend the launch of Islington’s Computing Strategy this week.

Year 2 children from Laycock Primary School in Islington will demonstrate Roamer as part of the launch of the Computer Strategy developed by the Islington Council’s Children’s Services.  Islington is one of several ICT Teams  finding Roamer a useful part of the effort to meet England’s new Computer Curriculum.

The launch will take place on Wednesday 8th January at 1:30 pm at the Assembly Halls, Upper Street Islington.

Valiant continue their research programme on the use of Roamer and Educational Robots.  Dave Catlin’s paper A Day in the Life of an Educational Robot has been accepted for the RiE 2013 The 4th International Robtics in Education Conference.  The Conference will be held at the Lodz University of Technology, Poland 19th to 20th September 2013. Continue reading →

Roamer spent four days at the Big Bang Event at London’s ExCel Centre.  Over 60,000 Students attended this STEM Interactive Spectacular.  Primary and Secondary schools children were challenged to program Roamer to find a route through a matrix of numbers and operators.  The school who got the best score on the day went into a draw to win a Roamer.  Kate Hudson reports on  a great four days and announces the winning schools.

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We are not exhibiting at BETT this year.  However, both I and Roamer will be there and we will be happy to meet anyone over coffee and doughnuts.  To arrange a meeting time please contact me on kate@valiant-technology.com