Education

Back in 2015, developer Kevin Bates launched a credit-card-sized open-source 8-bit gaming system on Kickstarter called the Arduboy for folks with keen eyesight to play, create and share free games. Now an even smaller version has landed.

It's ironic that while violins are popular instruments for children to learn to play, they can also be pricey. The Montreal-based AVIVA Young Artists Program has set out to change that, by creating an inexpensive yet nice-sounding 3D-printed violin.

Minnesota company Upper Story has sent us its Turing Tumble, a fascinating educational toy that quietly tricks kids into inventing binary logic computers using nothing more than tiny marbles dropping through a series of clicky-clacky plastic pieces.

Luxonis has launched a hackable, open-source roving robot called rae that packs AI processing and machine learning, depth-sensing cameras, app control and fun RGB lighting into a pint-sized package designed "for every age, and every skill level."

Japanese musician and designer Yuri Suzuki has partnered with Sweden's Teenage Engineering for an update to a dinky little lo-fi vinyl record cutter and playback machine originally launched in 2020 in collaboration with Gakken.

In an example of a building's design reflecting its purpose comes a fish eye-shaped floating event space dedicated to salmon farming. The Salmon Eye is finished in 9,500 stainless steel scales that are meant to resemble the fish's silvery skin.

Building a robot and then getting it to do exactly what you want it to can be a serious head-scratcher. Taiwan's NUWA Robotics is looking to make things simpler with the RobotCreator DX, plus an easy-to-use cloud-based programming platform.

The recently completed Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in Rwanda has been designed to vanish within the existing lush volcanic landscape, and sets a new standard for ecological preservation and responsible design.

Good news for those who like racing through audiobooks. A study has found learning is not negatively effected when students watch recorded lectures a faster playback speeds. However, comprehension did suffer when playback reached 2.5 times normal speed.

While it would be great if teachers could spend lots of time with each of their students, the fact is that children often end up doing most of their handwriting exercises unsupervised. A new system may help address that problem, using a "smart" pen.

Microsoft has announced a slimmer version of Windows and a low-cost laptop to run it on. The Surface Laptop SE has been designed exclusively for use in the classroom, and is the first of a number of Chromebook rivals powered by Intel and AMD.

As part of a refurbishment at the planetarium at La Coupole, a former World War Two bunker in northern France that's now a museum, RSA Cosmos has installed a dozen 4K projectors to create what's billed as the world's first 10K 3D planetarium.