Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy

Use educational affordances of robotics to create CS-STEM opportunities for all learners

Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy  ›  News  ›  CMRA News (2020-2022 Archive)

CMRA News (2020-2022 Archive)

2022

Tuesday, December 20, 2022

CMRA and Pittsburgh Technical College finalize articulation agreement for SMART program

Participants of CMRA's SMART program now have an additional pathway to lead them on their way toward their careers. Pittsburgh Technical College (PTC), located in Oakdale, PA, now offers SMART graduates 12 credits towards PTC's brand new Robotics & Autonomous Engineering Technology associate degree program. This amounts to over $4,000 in savings! The signing of PTC's articulation agreement is another win for the SMART program as it provides an additional option. 
Sunday, December 18, 2022

Girls Learn to Code Robots ROAR

ROAR is an all-girls STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) event for middle and high school students.
Monday, December 12, 2022

Anywhere, On-Demand Training in 2022

2022 was a much-needed return to normalcy in regard to our Anywhere, On-Demand Training!
Monday, November 28, 2022

Celebrate CS Education Week with CMRA!

Computer Science Education Week is December 5-11 and is a great opportunity to inspire students to learn CS. The Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy is proud to support learners participating in CS Education Week through our Hour of Code activities.
Thursday, November 03, 2022

2023 Training Schedule Released

The 2023 training schedule for both online and on-site training has been published!
Friday, October 14, 2022

NOW AVAILABLE! Coding and Computational Thinking with a Virtual Robot

Coding and Computational Thinking with a Virtual Robot provides a structured sequence of programming activities in real-world project-based contexts. The projects are designed to get students thinking about the patterns and structure of not just robotics, but also programming and problem-solving more generally.
Tuesday, October 11, 2022

Interview with FRC Team 254 "The Cheesy Poofs"

Aakarsh sits down with FRC (First Robotics Competition) Team 254 "The Cheesy Poofs" and discusses the 5-time world champion team's engineering, programming and the team structure.
Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Google Classroom - CS2N integration with Aakarsh

The CS-STEM Network (CS2N) provides curricula created by Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy. Recent CS2N developments include integration with Google Classroom. Enjoy this overview video from Aakarsh which provides an overview of this popular user request.
Monday, September 12, 2022

Sneak Peak - Coding and Computational Thinking with a Virtual Robot

Coding and Computational Thinking with a Virtual Robot provides a structured sequence of programming activities in real-world project-based contexts. The projects are designed to get students thinking about the patterns and structure of not just robotics, but also programming and problem-solving more generally.
Wednesday, August 31, 2022

CMRA Welcomes Aakarsh into our Internship Program!

CMRA welcomes Aakarsh as our 2022 intern! Open the link and read what Aakarsh has planned, and watch his personal introduction video. Welcome aboard Aakarsh!
Monday, August 15, 2022

Summer Training with CMRA

Sixty educators from around the country traveled to the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy headquarters in Pittsburgh this summer with a vision of bringing robotics back to their schools.
Thursday, June 09, 2022

New VEX IQ 2nd Generation Curriculum

To meet the needs of the ever-evolving educational robotics community, the team at Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy is excited to release a new curriculum: Coding and Computational Thinking with VEX IQ 2nd Generation.
Wednesday, March 23, 2022

New Century Careers shows High School Students their Tuition-Free Programs

Students from Clairton City high school were given the chance to tour new Century Careers is Training Center to get a feel for the types of equipment, tools, and other machines that the workforce in manufacturing uses every day. Patrick Bendel, Special Projects/Outreach Coordinator for New Century Careers, lead the pack along with Tasia Armstead, Student Services and Development Associate.
Tuesday, April 05, 2022

More Scouts Visit us at NREC!

More Scouts Visit us at NREC!
Tuesday, April 05, 2022

An Investigation Into SPIKE Steering

It all started from what seemed like a simple question asked during one of our Live Online Training sessions with SPIKE Prime. Well, it turned into a full investigation to find out more about how the SPIKE steering block works and the relationship between the steering value and distance traveled.
Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Wild pack of scouts visit NREC

Wild pack of scouts visit NREC
Tuesday, March 22, 2022

2022 State of Development: CS2N

Greetings from the CS2N team! We are extremely excited to share an update that will make things a little easier for Google-enabled users. CS2N is now connected with Google Cloud Platform, so anyone with a Google account can skip account creation and jump right to viewing content and saving progress.
Friday, February 11, 2022

International Day of Women and Girls in Science - Robotics Spotlight

International Day of Women and Girls in Science - Robotics Spotlight Video
Tuesday, February 01, 2022

Want to know more about our online training?

Look no further. This video explains the value behind our Live Online and Anytime Online training options.
Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Refer a Colleague, get $100 in CMRA Virtual Robot Curriculum or Certifications

Do you know any fellow educators who would benefit from one of our certified robotics training courses? Refer them and you will receive $100 credit for use in our Virtual Robot Curriculum or Certifications.
Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Will Allen Foundation begins Fabrication Foundations course at Clairton City School District

Today, The Will Allen Foundation begins their fourth class of the SMART Program, Fabrication Foundations. In Fabrication Foundations, students learn about hand tools, and how to fabricate specific robot parts such as a chassis, motor mount, and sensor mount.

2021

Wednesday, December 01, 2021

Free CS Activities for CS Education Week and Remote Learning

We fulfill our mission by developing research-based solutions that are classroom-tested and foreground CS-STEM concepts - most of which are freely available to the world through our CS-STEM Network. Read on to learn about some of our free (but also engaging, and research-based) activities that you can use for CS Education week (or really any week).
Wednesday, December 01, 2021

Westmoreland County Community College students participate in Robotics Integration workshop at CMRA

As part of a MEEP grant through a collaborative project between MIT and Westmoreland County Community College, Westmoreland County Community College students participated in a workshop where they learned about some concepts around Robotics Integration here at the Academy.
Thursday, November 18, 2021

North Hills Students Resume SMART to Complete Software Foundations for the 2021-2022 School Year

Students from North Hills area school district in Pittsburgh are back at it with the SMART Robotics Technician program for the 2021-2022 school year! This program is being run by our friends at the Will Allen Foundation.
Thursday, November 18, 2021

CMRA Hosts Career Day Session with Insight PA to talk Careers and Educational Background

Today CMRA hosted a session to talk to high school students from Insight PA Cyber Charter School to give the students there an idea of the type of work that we do, but also have some fun while doing it.
Monday, November 01, 2021

New Virtual Robot Curriculum - Coding and Computational Thinking with Virtual SPIKE Prime

Meeting the complex educational needs of today with a new generation of virtual robot curriculum. We’ve virtualized over 75 SPIKE Prime environments, so that students can follow along with every lesson in our curriculum, even without a robot.
Tuesday, November 02, 2021

Middle School Girls Use RoboCamp with Virtual SPIKE Prime for CMU SWE Event

Middle School girls used RoboCamp with Virtual SPIKE Prime developed by Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy for Society of Women Engineers Middle School Day workshop.
Tuesday, September 14, 2021

State of Development: CS2N Sept 15, 2021

Hello everyone! Thomas here with another check-in with the state of CS2N! We are excited to bring overdue changes to one of our more popular and time-saving features, the account generations!
Thursday, August 26, 2021

SPIKE Prime Curriculum: Updates and Improvements

The team has made some significant changes and improvements to address the feedback received from teachers during the onsite and online SPIKE Prime professional development training sessions. Learn more!
Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Update to Internet Security Protocol Forcing Discontinued Support for Robot Virtual Worlds

Sad news: An update to an Internet Security Protocol (TLS) is forcing Robot Virtual Worlds to no longer be able to communicate with CS2N
Friday, August 20, 2021

That's a Wrap! Summer 2021 Teacher Training

Thank you to all of the teachers who spent some of their summers with us this year, whether at our facility or online over Zoom!
Thursday, August 19, 2021

Help for the LEGO EV3 Robotics Teacher

The last two years have been full of changes (and resulting challenges) for classrooms that use the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 robotics platform. The Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy has been hard at work to support LEGO EV3 teachers as they navigate these challenges.
Tuesday, August 17, 2021

Want to Partner with CMRA? (US Options)

In addition to training educators directly, the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy is proud to partner with a wide variety of organizations to offer our training, curriculum, certification, and other services. In this article, we discuss approaches we take toward partnership within the United States.
Tuesday, August 10, 2021

FIRST Robotics Canada Teams Up with Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy to Tackle Learning Loss in Ontario Schools

This summer, FIRST Robotics Canada and the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy have teamed up to help combat these effects of learning loss for students in Ontario, Canada.
Thursday, August 05, 2021

New: CS2N Digital Store

No more waiting when purchasing virtual curriculum license! Instant gratification: achieved!
Thursday, July 15, 2021

Local High School Celebrates SMART Graduates

On July 2, 2021, the Will Allen Foundation hosted a ceremony for their participating high schools for those who graduated their Robotics Leadership program. Several students came to share a meal and enjoy the outdoors at the beautiful Riverview Park in Pittsburgh.
Wednesday, July 14, 2021

2021 State of Development: CS2N

Take a look into a new feature that was implemented on CS2N, described by one of the lead developers, Tom Luong.
Friday, July 02, 2021

4 Ways Designing with Children Can Make You a Better Game Designer

Children are natural game designers because play is an integral part of childhood development. Whether it’s adding a rule to tag so that you can “freeze”, to creating elaborate games within established video games to allow for multiplayer when you only have one controller. Children are innovative in ways that adult game designers can benefit from.
Friday, July 02, 2021

Codesigning Games with Students through a Pandemic - Part 2

The following article serves as a journal entry from CMU Game Design student Adrian Ma as they explore codesign with K12-aged students through the Player-Programmed Partner Games (P3G) project, under COVID-19 restrictions.
Friday, July 02, 2021

Codesigning Games with Students through a Pandemic - Part 1

The following article serves as a journal entry from CMU Game Design student Franklin Guttman as they explore codesign with K12-aged students through the Player-Programmed Partner Games (P3G) project, under COVID-19 restrictions.
Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Clairton City High School celebrates graduation of Will Allen Foundation / CMRA's Robotics Leadership program

Students from Clairton City High School celebrated the completion of SMART courses: Software Foundations and Robotics Integration. The ceremony took place during the regularly scheduled board meeting - only this time it included guests such as a PA senator.
Friday, May 21, 2021

2021 Remake Learning Days

This year’s Remake Learning Days expanded across the nation to be able to provide not only local events for learners of all ages, but also virtual experiences so that people can jump from one event to another at the click of a link. We were fortunate enough to be able to provide a few different events over the course of a week.
Monday, May 24, 2021

Virtual Site Visit Series: Near Earth Autonomy

April 27, 2021 - PITTSBURGH, PA: For the third installation of the Virtual Site Visit series, we get to see the world of autonomous aerial vehicles with Near Earth Autonomy (NEA) located towards the Wilkinsburg area of Pittsburgh.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Attention Campers! New RoboCamp with Virtual SPIKE Prime Available!

RoboCamp with Virtual SPIKE Prime is an informal curriculum that teaches basic programming, proportional mathematics, robotics, and other STEM concepts at an introductory level. All of the activities and challenges use a custom virtual SPIKE Prime build in a space-like environment. Get ready for take-off!
Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Virtual Site Visit Series: Premier Automation

April 27, 2021 - PITTSBURGH, PA: For the third installation of the Virtual Site Visit series, we get to see the world of autonomous aerial vehicles with Near Earth Autonomy (NEA) located towards the Wilkinsburg area of Pittsburgh.
Tuesday, May 04, 2021

A Primer in Machine Vision

CMRA is excited to share our Machine Vision micro-credential on CS2N. The Machine Vision micro-credential is designed to provide students with an understanding of how robots process information from a camera or vision sensor, and how that information can be used alongside a Machine Learning model to perform duties as complex as quality control inspection in a factory.
Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Virtual Site Visit Series: RE2 Robotics

On April 7th, RE2 Robotics is the first company in the virtual series to volunteer their time to talk to students from around Pittsburgh about who they are, and topics like what the difference is between human-like robots vs industrial robots, and top 10 skills  for a career in Robotics.
Monday, March 22, 2021

Merit Badge University runs 2021 sessions for the Robotics Merit Badge with Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy

Last year's BSA Merit Badge University (MBU, offered through CMU's Alpha Phi Omega chapter) was unexpectedly cancelled due to the pandemic. This year, to still provide an opportunity for scouts to earn a badge, turned to remote/virtual methods. Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy has been offering the Robotics Merit Badge to scouts for the last few years, and this year was no exception.
Monday, March 08, 2021

SPIKE Prime Teacher Training - Registration is Open!

The Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy is thrilled to announce a brand new certified teacher training course with the LEGO Education SPIKE Prime robotics platform.
Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Three Pittsburgh area high schools kick off their 2021 cohort of students for SMART

Three high schools in the Pittsburgh area are set to officially kick off their 2021 cohort of students for the SMART pre-apprenticeship program. Clairton City High School, Perry High School, and North Hills High School will all began two of the five SMART Robotics Technician micro-certification courses.
Thursday, January 28, 2021

Virtual Robotics Curriculum - a Complete Solution for Robotics Education

Meeting the complex educational needs of today with a new generation of virtual robot curriculum. We’ve virtualized over 70 environments, so that students can follow along with every lesson in our curriculum, even without a robot. The curriculum contains all of the material for both physical robots AND virtual robots.

2020

Monday, December 14, 2020

Introduction to Programming VEXcode IQ Blocks Curriculum

Just in time for the holidays, we have a gift for you! The Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy is excited to release Introduction to Programming with VEXcode IQ, using the new VEXcode IQ Blocks programming software.  
Friday, December 11, 2020

CMRA joins in discussion around the Manufacturing Workforce Challenge at IMTS

Earlier this week we joined in the discussion at IMTS's online discussion about addressing the Manufacturing Workforce and the challenges that manufacturers face. The panel discussion was hosted by Hannover Fairs USA, Inc. on the IMTS Spark platform - a digital destination that hosts several exhibitions, talks, and demos every day.
Monday, November 02, 2020

New EV3 Classroom Curriculum introduces the new LEGO EV3 Programming Software!

It's always so exciting to be able to announce more curriculum that we can provide for teachers! The new Introduction to Programming EV3 Classroom teaches coding, computational thinking, and problem-solving skills with the LEGO EV3 using the newly released EV3 Classroom software.
Thursday, October 22, 2020

Big Changes to VEX IQ Teacher Training

To support educators, all future Live Online and On-site Training for the VEX IQ will be conducted using VEXcode IQ, the new programming environment provided by VEX Robotics. ROBOTC for VEX IQ Training will still be available through our Anytime Online Training format.
Tuesday, September 22, 2020

Become CMRA Certified based on your FRC Experience!

Our hearts go out to the many members of the FIRST community who are not able to compete this year due to the effects of the COVID-19 crisis. We would like to help past and current participants of the FIRST Robotics Competition have evidence of the incredible amount they have learned by being on a team.
Tuesday, September 22, 2020

VEX Robotics Competition Participants can earn a CMRA Certification

Student participants of the VEX Robotics Competition learn an incredible amount by being an active member on a team. Unfortunately, many postsecondary education providers and employers aren’t fully aware of how participation equates to what the students know and can do. To help close this gap, we are proud to offer student participants the opportunity to earn credentials endorsed by the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy.
Thursday, August 06, 2020

Teach a Project-Based course aligned to Robotics Technician skills around fabrication

We are excited to announce the last of the series of SMART Professional Development courses: Fabrication Foundations Professional Development available through our Anytime Online Training.
Friday, July 24, 2020

Coding and Computational Thinking with VEX V5 Curriculum Just Released!

The Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy is thrilled to announce the release of a new, one of a kind, curriculum that teaches coding, computational thinking, and problem-solving skills with VEX V5.
Monday, July 06, 2020

Electrical Foundations Professional Development Available

We are excited to announce the Electrical Foundations Professional Development available through our Anytime Online Training. Electrical Foundations focuses on the foundational concepts around basic electricity and how circuits work.
Friday, May 29, 2020

Mechanical Foundations Professional Development Now Live

We are delighted to continue to support educators with a brand new training course, certification, and format, Mechanical Foundations Professional Development available through Anytime Online Training.
Monday, April 20, 2020

The Story of One Robotics Academy Graduate

Take a look at one Robotics Academy graduate's journey from taking one of CMRA's training courses, to getting invited to FIRST World Championship!
Monday, March 23, 2020

Free Curricula and online resources

We know it’s hard at the moment with everything that is going on. Educators all over the world are currently figuring out how to teach students remotely, and resources are being generated from many organizations to try to tackle this problem.
Monday, March 02, 2020

CMU's Merit Badge University returns for 2020

CMU’s Merit Badge University returned for the 2020 year this past Saturday with several offerings for scouts to earn their merit badges. CMRA hosted 20 scouts who are well on their way to earning their Robotics Merit Badge.
Thursday, February 20, 2020

Robeson County shows true southern hospitality during CMRA robotics training

Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy was recently down south, out and about in the great Robeson County, North Carolina! Tom and Curtis held simultaneous professional development training at St. Pauls Middle School and Littlefield Middle School, working with a total of 24 teachers altogether. Craving to bring STEM to their students with VEX IQ robots, everyone worked hard through two days of training, with very little to no prior knowledge.
Tuesday, February 18, 2020

CMRA Visits Spectrum Charter School

The Robotics Academy team spent some time speaking to the students over at the Spectrum Charter School about “What is a robot?” and discussing what makes a robot, a robot! 32 students participated in the discussion and provided their own insights and experiences with robots.
Friday, January 24, 2020

Carnegie Robotics demonstrates stereoscopic sensors and other innovations during tour for students

Founder and CEO John Bares gave students from Clairton City High School a tour of his Pittsburgh-based Robotics company, Carnegie Robotics. Carnegie Robotics specializes in creating advanced robotics sensors and platforms for all kinds of applications.
Monday, January 06, 2020

Premier Automation emphasizes to students their process of iterating design until reaching perfection for clients

The students from New Castle were taken through the sections of the facilities that ranged from engineering, integration of components, robotics, electrical and panel manufacturing, and delivery/inventory areas. Staff members were willing and happily explained to the students what they were working on, or the equipment that they were using for the projects.