A Call for Votes!

As many of you know, for the past year I have been writing and directing scenes for NAO robots. These classes have been a co-endeavor with the Theatre and Computer Science Departments at the University of Iowa. At the same time my professor, Denise Szecsei , has been taking the robots on the road and into elementary, middle, and high school class rooms to expose students to the cool things that computer science and engineering can do.  I had the distinct pleasure of seeing these robots in action as students as young as six were taught how to program the robots to walk and talk.  

This summer Denise is taking the project one step further and she needs your help. Denise is putting together several summer camps where students and girls in particular, can work directly with the robots to write their own code and develop their own content. She is planning on three camps in three different states; Minneapolis, MN, Santa Cruz, CA and Portland, OR. Programs like this are expensive to operate and Denise has applied for Chase Bank Main Street grant.  You can learn more about the Chase program here. The way the program works is that grantees need 250 votes to be put into the running for a one hundred thousand dollar grant.  At this point the campaign needs an additional 200 votes. Time is short though; the window to vote will close soon. 

In addition to the cost of putting on the camp, Denise will use the funds to buy an additional robot and the hardware needed to work with it. The extra robot and equipment will help her include more students in the program. You can help by going to ModnaR Enterprises and clicking on the vote now button. (You will need to log into Facebook in order to vote)

All votes are appreciated.

Additional information:
You can find additional information about the NAO robots on their website 

Information about Denise, the robots, and the programs as well as other links can be found on the university of Iowa Computer science Department website.