【国际版】iRobot 收购Root机器人公司用来促进青少年STEM教育_

国智清创雄安机器人研究院

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Last time we talked why they pick ROOT as Robot all star robot. The idea for Root was formed and incubated when cofounders Zee Dubrovsky (formerly with Sonos, iRobot), Raphael Cherney (formerly with Apple, Microsoft), and Harvard University computer science Professor Radhika Nagpal were working together at Harvard University's Wyss Institute.

不知道大家还记不记得全明星机器人第六期可以帮助少儿编程画画的机器人ROOT。ROOT机器人是联合创始人Zee Dubrovsky（以前与Sonos、iRobot合作）、Raphael Cherney（以前与苹果、微软合作）和哈佛大学计算机科学教授Radhika Nagpal在哈佛大学Wyss研究所一起工作时迸发出来的想法。

ROOT目前为使用者设定了三个级别：

第1级是图形界面的，任何年龄（4岁及以上）的初学者也能理解。彩色块加强其基本的“如果，那么”框架。它教导事件，序列，循环，状态，功能，重点，时机，程序步进和调试。

第2级教程引入了高级流程语句，如when，repeat和if-then-else以帮助学习编程计算的流畅性。该级别还教授变量，传感器值，单位，算术运算，递归和并行性。

第3级教程是一个完全基于文本的界面，需要程序员专业使用的语言包括Python，JavaScript和Swift进行编程。

Today, iRobot is announcing the acquisition of Root Robotics, in order to “support iRobot’s plans to diversify its educational robot product offerings, further demonstrating its commitment to make robotic technology more accessible to educators, students and parents.” This makes a lot of sense for iRobot, which has historically been a big supporter of STEM education—National Robotics Week was pretty much their idea, after all. But iRobot itself only really had the iRobot Create and Create 2 to advance STEM education directly, and those robots are really not for beginners.

今天，iRobot宣布收购ROOT机器人，以“支持iRobot多样化其教育机器人产品的计划，进一步证明其致力于使机器人技术更容易为教育工作者、学生和家长所接受。”这对iRobot来说意义重大，它在历史上一直是一个巨大的优势。毕竟，STEM教育国家机器人技术周的组织者几乎是他们的主意。但是iRobot本身只有iRobot Create和Create 2两个来直接推进STEM教育，而这些机器人真的不适合初学者。

As of right now, iRobot is selling Root for $200, along with a companion app and integrated K-12 curriculum. We’ll take a quick look at everything this robot can do, and hear a bit from both iRobot CEO Colin Angle and Root Robotics co-founder Zee Dubrovsky on exactly what this new partnership means.

截至目前，iRobot正在以200美元的价格出售ROOT，同时还有一个配套的应用程序和集成的K-12课程。我们将快速了解这款机器人所能做的一切，并听取iRobot首席执行官科林·安格尔（Colin Angle）和ROOT机器人（Root Robotics）联合创始人泽伊·杜布罗夫斯基（Zee Dubrovsky）的一些意见，了解这一新合作关系的确切含义。

Root is packed full of sensors and interactive elements, which makes it both fun and interesting to use. But from the beginning, the focus of Root was education—it’s very important to understand that Root is not a toy robot that also teaches, but instead it’s an educational tool for teaching coding skills that also happens to be a robot. Robots are usually fun to play with, which is part of Root’s appeal, but the reason that Root exists is to provide a compelling focus for coding, turning abstract code into a thing that moves around and interacts with the world.

ROOT是充满传感器和互动元素，这使得它既有趣又有趣的使用。但是，从一开始，ROOT的重点是教育，了解ROOT不只是一个玩具机器人，还是一个教学编码技能的教育工具。机器人通常玩起来很有趣，这是ROOT的吸引力的一部分，但ROOT的存在的原因是提供了一个令人信服的重点编码，把抽象代码变成一个东西，移动，并与世界互动。

“We’ve identified coding as a particular challenge, where we’re just not teaching it in schools,” iRobot CEO Colin Angle told us. “Providing a tool to help kids code is of huge interest to me personally. And the ability to use the excitement that is engendered by a physical robot is a great strategy.”

iRobot首席执行官科林·安格尔（ColinAngle）告诉我们：“我们已经将编码确定为一个特殊的挑战，我们只是不在学校教授而已。”“提供一个工具来帮助孩子们编写代码对我个人来说非常有兴趣。利用物理机器人产生的兴奋感是一个很好的策略。”

Having a cool robot is just one part of this strategy—the other is developing a comprehensive set of app-based lessons that will effectively teach kids, growing with them as they develop their skills. Root was designed to be educational for children as young as 4, in some cases teaching very basic coding concepts even before children know how to read. This is possible because you can program Root by dragging and dropping symbols with pictures on them into the app interface. You can only do very simple things this way, but once you’re ready for more, it’s an easy transition to a more computational interface, where the visual symbols expand to include things like logical operations, sensor values, and adjustable variables. The final step is to switch over to full text coding in Swift, Python, or JavaScript, but being able to toggle back to the more visual interface makes the transition easy.

拥有一个酷酷的机器人只是这个策略的一部分，另一个则是开发一套全面的基于应用程序的课程，这些课程将有效地教给孩子们，并随着他们的技能的发展而成长。ROOT被设计为对4岁以下的孩子进行教育，在某些情况下，甚至在孩子们知道如何阅读之前就教授非常基本的编码概念。这是可能的，因为您可以通过将带有图片的符号拖放到应用程序界面来编程ROOT。你只能用这种方式做非常简单的事情，但是一旦你准备好做更多的事情，它就很容易过渡到一个计算性更强的界面，在那里视觉符号扩展到包括逻辑运算、传感器值和可调变量等内容。最后一步是切换到使用swift、python或javascript的全文编码，但是能够切换回更直观的界面使转换变得容易。

For now, Root will be taking advantage of iRobot’s resources and reach to execute on more ambitious plans while scaling more rapidly. It seems like a good match, since both companies share the same fundamental vision for STEM. As Colin Angle puts it, "there is no greater investment you can make in your child’s future than helping them learn the language of coding."

现在，ROOT将利用iRobot的资源，在更快速扩展的同时，实现更雄心勃勃的计划。这似乎是一个很好的匹配，因为两家公司对STEM都有相同的基本愿景。正如科林·安格尔所说，“没有比帮助孩子学习编码语言更大的投资了。”

素材来源：

https://rootrobotics.com/

https://root.irobot.com/

https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/irobot-acquires-root-robotics-to-boost-stem-education-for-kids

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