New Danish robot to tackle UK’s STEM skills gap

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Shape Robotics is set to premiere its latest educational teaching robot Fable Spin at BETT, the world’s biggest education technology event taking place from 23-26 January.

Designed to make it easy to teach STEM skills and for students to become creators of technology, the new Danish robot aims to inspire students to engage with science, technology, engineering and mathematics to alleviate the shortage of qualified candidates that is estimated to cost UK businesses £1.5bn per year.

Said David Johan Christensen, CEO of Shape Robotics: “We have chosen London for the world premiere of Fable Spin, which makes robot technology widely accessible and inspires imagination while teaching multidisciplinary skills in the classroom. Fable Spin is the latest offshoot from the Fable System, which gives everyone the fantastic feeling of being able to programme a robot. The Fable System ensures successful programming, innovation and creativity in teaching and is robust enough for rough treatment in the classroom.”

The Fable System assists learning at all levels, from the comprehension of technology in primary and secondary school, through to the teaching of more advanced mathematics and informatics in vocational training programmes in industry and construction.

Explained Moises Pacheco, CTO and co-founder: “Due to its ease of use and applicability, Fable can be used to teach everyone – from inexperienced children to robot scientists. Its resemblance with professional robots also means that it can be used at vocational training programmes for training programming, automation, computer vision, CAD design and artificial intelligence. Fable covers the entire spectrum and is designed for 21st century learning.”

Karen Fleming, Keble Prep School, UK, said: “We were thrilled when Fable arrived, and we found it easy to get started. It is really well made and easy to put together. We also loved the blocky editor and found it easy to navigate round. It complimented the other work on blockly we had been doing. We set it up and got a few pupils to try it out. They got Fable to monitor movement, then wave and smile. The best thing though was the discussion between the pupils. The problem solving and thinking skills were a joy to witness.”

Pupils can programme the Fable Spin to move, play football, tidy up, dance, wrestle, monitor rooms, be social or transport items from A to B. Fable Spin has wheels and a number of integrated sensors that allow it to avoid obstacles, perform search and rescue missions and navigate by lines.