From dblank at brynmawr.edu  Thu Jan 15 17:21:50 2009
From: dblank at brynmawr.edu (Douglas S. Blank)
Date: Thu Jan 15 13:24:06 2009
Subject: [Pyro-users] Future of Robots in Education Presymposium
Message-ID: <496FB6FE.9060600@brynmawr.edu>

[Apologies for any crossposts you may get. -Doug]

SIGCSE 2009 sports a selection of presymposium meetings, including one
on the Future of Robots in Education, on Wednesday, March 4th. The
meeting is free to participants (limited number of seats!) You can
register at:

http://wiki.roboteducation.org/Symposium

The presymposium is sponsored by the Institute for Personal Robots in
Education. We are especially looking for participants willing and able
to discuss:

     * Examples of introductory or advanced courses that use Robots as a
         main topic or organizing principle
     * Examples of Robot based curriculum initiatives
     * Robot assignments in introductory and advanced courses
     * Robot based pedagogical resources for introductory and advanced
         courses
     * Other planned or deployed educational initiatives involving Robots

This one-day symposium aims to bring together educators, researchers,
and curriculum designers to discuss successful strategies for
incorporating robots into the undergraduate curriculum. The symposium
will be designed to be highly interactive. In addition to paper
presentations, it will include invited speakers, open-ended round-table
discussions, and panels of CS curriculum experts.

Keynote Speaker:
       Deepak Kumar, Bryn Mawr College
       What can we learn from robots?

Invited Speakers:
     * Robbie Berg, Wellesley College
     * Zachary Dodds, Harvey Mudd College
     * Jeffrey Forbes, Duke University
     * Jennifer Kay, Rowan University
     * Myles McNally, Alma College
     * David Miller, University of Oklahoma
     * Sheila Tejada, Brooklyn College, City University of New York
     * Dave Touretzky, Carnegie Mellon University
     * Jerry Weinberg, Southern Illinois University
     * Andrew Williams, Spelman College
       (and more)

Hope you can make it and particpate!

-Doug

-- 
Douglas S. Blank
Director, Institute for Personal Robots in Education (IPRE)
http://www.roboteducation.org
Chair, and Associate Professor, Computer Science, Bryn Mawr College
http://cs.brynmawr.edu/~dblank  (610)526-6501
From dblank at brynmawr.edu  Mon Jan 26 13:24:38 2009
From: dblank at brynmawr.edu (Douglas S. Blank)
Date: Mon Jan 26 09:26:54 2009
Subject: [Pyro-users] Calling all patches!
Message-ID: <497DFFE6.2070508@brynmawr.edu>

Pyro users,

We're getting ready to put a little polish on Pyro and bring everything 
up to date, including the yum repositories.

If you have bug fixes or patches, please send those in and we'll get 
everything upgraded. I've applied fixes and contributions from Lisa 
Meeden, Nik Swoboda, and Christophe Nowicki---thanks!

Also, if you have any issues, please let me know those too.

If I have missed any patches, or you need to send those in, please let 
me know.

Thanks!

-Doug

PS - the most current code is version 5.0.1 in SVN at 
http://svn.cs.brynmawr.edu/pyrobot

-- 
Douglas S. Blank
Director, Institute for Personal Robots in Education (IPRE)
http://www.roboteducation.org
Chair, and Associate Professor, Computer Science, Bryn Mawr College
http://cs.brynmawr.edu/~dblank  (610)526-6501