Japan's schools adopt Lego Mindstorms
By Gareth Edwards 
posted August 17th 2004 12:39PM
posted August 17th 2004 12:39PM
Given Japan's general
robocentricity the question should perhaps be "why did it take them so long?", but Lego Japan has apparently teamed up
with a company called Eiwa System Management to offer a system called Warp5500 that uses Lego Mindstorms technology to
provide a Ministry of Education-approved curriculum for junior high school students that teaches them how to build
robots. Given that our exposure to computers, let alone robots, in school amounted to programming BASIC on a BBC B,
we're wondering if we weren't born too early. The learning curve for teachers can't be getting any easier, though.
[Via Ascii24 (Japanese)]
They were amazed at the robotics pictures. Most elementary and junior high classrooms DO NOT have computers in them...even in the science rooms. Budget is a problem for them. The typical school is several years behing the U.S. in using computers for classroom work... some of the older teachers do not even use computers at all. I wish them luck.