Testers wanted!

My name is Jasmeet Singh and I am the founder of the company that runs RoboRium.com (India's cheapest robotic store) where we constantly aim to add unique products to the store once we check them out and get feedback from the members of the makerspace started by our company. JMoon MakerSpace is also India's first technology focused makerspace and helps set up makerspaces within schools and colleges.

I met the Festo team and saw the kit in action today at DIDAC India. I think our makers, who range from the age of 14 to 30, would love to try out the different models of the kit and come up with new applications for it. With a strong community of roboticists from various backgrounds, we'd be able to contribute a lot to the community here and figure out what else we can do with the ESP32 board that hasn't been thought of yet, specially by designing new open source parts for people who have access to 3D printers around the world. Using the same concept of the elephant trunk, the first thing I plan to make is an animatronic tail.

Once we see the community responding positively to the kit, which I am sure they will after seeing the demo myself, RoboRium can also help in expansion of the kit in other STEAM based makerspaces and schools in India as well specially among the customers who focus on Bionics and Animatronics by becoming a distributor/reseller.

At the IMTS Smartforce Student Summit, I met your staff and learned about the new bionics construction kit you are offering. Locally we are collaborating with schools and the La Porte County SkillUp Network to provide professional development for educators and outreach STEAM lessons. This collaboration is essential in our community because there is a skills gap and there are not enough skilled workers to currently fill available jobs. We must all work together locally to solve this issue. Throughout the year we travel to over eighteen schools providing hands on immersive experiences for students who are learning about the many exciting career options available in STEAM fields. FESTO is an excellent example of a company that builds diverse teams who work collaboratively to create machines and processes that can improve people's lives and expand our understanding of how to be more efficient and productive. We are very well positioned to test your equipment with the over 15,000 students we serve and the more than 1,300 educators we work with on a daily basis. It is my hope that providing access to the robotic animals exposes our students and educators to new horizons of possibilities that they never considered. It is this part of the work we do that is most rewarding and satisfying.

Hello, I am a Maker who's passionate about engineering and science. I do many projects with my teenage son who wants to become a robotics engineer. We are currently working on a rocket for the Alka contest. I also work at the Library where I love to share my knowledge with patrons of all ages. I am currently working on programs for teens and this would be perfect. My first Instructables was featured and won a prize. Last year for Halloween, my son and I worked on a replica of the portal-gun from the Rick & Morty show. It involved an Arduino board hooked up to a dot-matrix screen to display the dimension name. We made it all with parts we had at home (PVC pipe and so on.) The Bionics4Education kits are exciting because it's a new take on the growing STEM field. It also looks like they're self-contained, which is perfect for libraries or schools. Thank you for reviewing my application and I look forward to hearing from you soon. M. Velde

Hello community!

My name is Ani and I am a passionate maker from a small town in the Midwest! When it comes to engineering, I learned everything I know from science class in school, workshops I visited and, of course, the internet! My free time is all well spent in my little workshop, where I build little things, trying to learn the most about hardware and software and I do my best to bring that knowledge together. Here's a picture of one of my creations:

I managed to achieve a lot in robotics all by myself, but when I passed by the booth at MFNY and heard about bionics, I wanted to try that out immediately. Before I only knew bionics as a part of prosthetics and even though I think it's a wonderful use of technology, for a self-taught "engineer" like myself that is too advanced. This kit is the perfect toy for me to play around with and advance even more in that direction.

What would I do with that kit? Well, the grippers are a wonderful addition to my workshop. Because sometimes you just need more than two hands. Much more. And I have a special plan for the fish: I'll turn it into a shark and play innocent pranks on the people in town. "Help! There's a shark in the fountain!"

So, Kermit and I send you some very warm greetings. As warm as our coffee!

Hello! My name is Travis Sluss, I founded MacInspires back in 2011 with the goal to enrich people's lives through technology education. We have grown into a Youth Focused STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Math) Education company, teaching over 400 students a week, ages 5 through 17, through our two makerspaces, dozens of local schools, libraries, events and more. We also provide professional development and consulting in schools, libraries and other organizations with STEAM needs.

Dear Sir.

I like to learn about the biomimetics and how they work with mechanisms, particularity the design of this, and all the physical behavior, because I am a student of engenieering in mechatronic and I always worked Whit festo equipment. And I think that the application of this kit will help me to enrich my knowledge.

Sincerely Luisa Martinez

Dear Sir,

I am a Master hydraulics and pneumatics trainer in my country TUNISIA.

So I think that it will be very useful for me to have an idea about bionics and how it can be useful for education.

Sincerely yours. Sami REKIK

Hi everyone,

my name is Philip, I‘m a graduate student from Germany in the field of computer science. I’m a technology enthusiast, I like to work with all kinds of technology from mechanical parts to software. But most of all I love it when mechanics, electrical engineering and software come together in one project.

In my free time and also for university, I frequently work on different projects which often include 3D printing, circuit design and coding. One of my latest projects for example was a selfie machine which prints out photos taken with a raspberry pi camera on thermal paper. For this application I built a mechanical fish with some Legos I had lying around.

The selfie machine printing out my profile pic:

The moving Lego fish:

My workbench (rarely as clean as in this picture):

One of my favorite tools:

During my bachelor studies, I had a lecturer who worked at Festo. He organized a tour through the Festo site in Esslingen. I was fascinated by the 3D printing techniques used at Festo, but most of all by the Bionic projects that were shown to us. So when I read about the Bionic kit and the possibility to test it a few days ago, I was thrilled and immediately decided to participate.

If I get the chance to test the kit, I will try different things. First of all I plan to build the different projects of the kit to get an understanding how everything works. Afterwards I want to go further and check out the possibilities to integrate the different modules in own projects and take a closer look at the following aspects:

• How easy is it to write custom software and flash it on the microcontroller?
• How can the hardware of the kit be mechanically attached to other parts?
• How well are the interfaces documented and is the documentation understandable?
• For which purpose can the hardware be used and where are the limits?

If I come up with new software, 3D printable parts etc. for the kit, I will of course make it available for others for further exploration and development. Also I’ll look forward to get in contact with other testers to see what they use the kit for.

I’m probably not the best tester when it comes to education aspects, but if you want the kit to be tested from a makers and engineers point of view I’m perfect.

Best regards and good luck to the other participants!

Philip

I am ziyad Abouelenin, a mechatronics student in the German university in Cairo who is interested in Active EMG controlled prosthesis and bionics. Recently I got a scholarship to do my senior project in the NYU Tandon School of Engineering where I designed and controlled an underactuated active EMG-controlled prosthetic hand with an over grade of Excellent. My first research paper got accepted October, 2018 where I am the second author, my second research paper as an undergraduate and first author will be submitted for review soon. I think that my mechatronics background will help me in testing the kit and see how it works whither it will be hard or easy to use for a beginner. P.s: I have a video for the prosthetic hand I designed where it is controlled using EMG signals from my forearm, but can not post it on YouTube because the research papers I wrote are still not published, but I can share it with the evaluation comity.

Hello, My fiancé and I come from Germany and we own a 3D-printer since more than two years now. We are also interested in robotics and it's always awesome to see what FESTO employees invent and develop. We would love to test one of these kits with my clever niece to excite her even more for sciences and future technologies. So maybe she would love to go to RWTH Aachen before working for FESTO some time? ;)

I believe I am a great candidate because I have started the steam program at my school, opened the steam lab, love to learn and I am a big kid at heart. In addition, I have retired but can try things out with my former after school group via my colleague.

I have a young nephew that has an extremely high IQ however there is no training that teaches parents how to get through to kids that have a much higher mental capacity and grasp on abstract constructs than his peers or parents.

Standing looking at a Festo robot the other day at the BRICS Conference at Gallagher Estate in Johannesburg, South Africa, I got the realisation that Festo is creating a world of wonderful complex innovations that could capture the mind of a young genius. As an adult I am fascinated by this technology, I am just wondering how a young mind would be inspired by something this amazing.

So I am actually just trying to find something that can unlock the hidden potential that is laying within this kids mind. I think this could help with that process.

Dear Festo Didactic Managers,

Being a science and physics teacher, STEM applications were always in my field of interest. Currently, I have been focused on teaching robotics, mostly. I searched for LEGO, VEX (USA) and EZ robots from Canada. In the first two platforms, students participate in competitions and build mobile arms on wheels that perform specific tasks. E-Z made humanoid and arthropod robots. They are different from the former two by modeling living organisms and responding in numerous ways. In my opinion, you put the bar at a higher height with flic-flac spider. To say the truth, I was thrilled with when I first saw this in you-tube and since then I have been checking Festo website in detail (I-4 Certification in NJ) to find more. My Goodness! I found myself in a place like a "Bionics Zoo" (why not, it sounds great!). Each specimen will help the students understand the mastery and beauty of the originals in nature thru the scope of industrial design and engineering. Right at this point, your products deserve quality curricula and qualified teachers who can and -are willing to- make these connections between mechanisms we observe in living ones and the bionics. How to implement these products into the learning process of students in an interactive way from kindergarten to College level stays as an issue that needs to be paid attention not less important than the products themselves.

Having this said, I want to express my warmest appreciation for your top-notch work again.

Regards, Suleyman Mamaloglu

Greenville, SC

My name is Vonda Fruhwirth. I am a 7th grade Science Teacher at Kings JH. My students have been competing in Ecybermission, which is an Army Educational Outreach Stem Program, for the past 7 years. Last year Festo engineers from your solution's team came over and helped my students get started on their Ecybermission projects. They came back a second time to check on the student's progress/projects. This is just one way I engage my students through STEM/STEAM. The bionic kits would be a great addition to upgrading our STEM program as well as hit on the Ohio Learning Standards: Energy can be transferred through a variety of ways and an electrical circuit transfers energy from a source to a device. I'm looking forward to hearing from you and hopefully the opportunity to try one or two of your kits.

My name is Mike Luke and I am one of the members on Columbia Intermediate's Innovative team. I service 5th and 6th graders in the area of STEM and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) education. In 2017 the leadership of this building decide to jump head first into embracing the idea of STEAM and begin to offer programs that support it. We have been digging up money and resources to build the new programs in our classes to the best of our abilities. The fantastic opportunity to test FESTO's bionics would mean having immediate materials on hand for our students and increase the visibility and desire of our program to our students and the Kings community. Also, it would just be good teaching for good teaching sake!!! Please consider Columbia's new STEAM program in your selections. Thank you!

We at Edgewood Independent School District are looking to be the premier school district for STEM and trades in the city of San Antonio. We are currently reorganizing our district to foster in this goal. I believe that not only would this Bionics4Education help mold the minds of our young students and convince them to pursue our manufacturing, robotics, and/or STEM pathways, but will be an excellent learning platform to begin their studies.

Bionics4Education seems to be the perfect balance of engaging, interactive, and multi-platform learning that students crave today, and also just an incredibly neat and creative way to present STEM and robotics principles to the classroom. I would be very excited to implement these kits in our Career and Technology Classrooms and hopefully, down the road, implement lesson plans in all of our classes across the district.

Ich bin ein junge frau die gerne neue Produkte aus probiere. Intesse mich für alles was neu ist.

I love electronic devices so much. I try to open most of them and see the what is the magic behind their working. In my free time, I do projects with my own ideas and try to come up with solutions for any problems in the present situation. I always use E-waste and waste material creatively for my designs.I joined mechatronics branch in engineering. Currently I am studying final year of my engineering. From my sixth standard my interest towards electronics and mechanical devices grew by the day. I prepared a ROBOT in 8th class of my schooling.In my 9th standard my work, ROBOBOAT was selected for National level INSPRE science fair and I had to present it in Delhi.BIONICS grabbed my interest now and I want to learn more and use my skills to create new designs.

It looks really cool and my kids would love it. They are really curious and have interest into science. It would without doubt be really happy to test it.

Our group develops tech solutions to real-world Conservation and Cultural Heritage Preservation challenges whilst expanding public outreach especially to students for whom we develop custom curriculum programs.

For one of our ongoing projects, several hundred thousand global followers have actively participated in and watched over 15 million minutes of video over the past 2 years. http://www.nonsuchisland.com/live-cahow-cam/

We currently work with Universities including UCSD and Cornell to develop these solutions along with developing companion high school curriculums. We are based based in Bermuda (where we work with all of the Public and Private schools), putting us in the unique position to meet / bridge both the US K-12 and UK International Cambridge curriculum standards.

Being based in Bermuda one of the original Ocean Exploration Field Stations, your products would not only be tested in labs / pools but also in real ocean settings to meet real world Conservation challenges...