Our Summer 2016 NuBots Session 2 is in progress, and students are back at it! We have 6 new studios as part of Session 2: Battlebotics, Robo Pets, Animation & Visual Effects, Emergency Robots, Foodbots, and Flyingbots 2. Students are busy designing and prototyping their ideas!

Today we had our first Summer Falafel Day! Working in collaboration with Tarboosh, a wonderful mediterranean restaurant in Allston, MA, we produced our famous doughnut-shaped O'Falafel for the students and staff and had a grand feast! Despite the hot and humid weather outside, there were plenty of smiles and satiated bellies!

214 Students
100 Projects
37 NuVu Team Members

The energy is high and students are putting the finishing touches on their final prototypes. It's been an incredible 6 weeks of creating and making, and we're approaching the home stretch. What an incredible Summer it's been! 214 students from around the US and around the world came to Cambridge to take part in our NuBots Summer 2016 Program. They created Medicalbots to help with patient therapy, built Foodbots to serve people freshly brewed coffee, engineered Flyingbots to transport small items, produced short animated films on robot love and heartbreak, and created spectacular Battlebots that traversed across rough terrain! Over the course of 6 weeks, students produced 100 unique projects!!! And we couldn't have done it without our wonderful Summer NuVu Team of 37 designers, engineers, roboticists, programmers, fashion designers, animators, architects, and makers! Thank you all for a spectacular Summer!

TechHive, a media outlet that covers news and reviews of the latest connected home innovations, recently featured our students' Smile Shade. Micah Reid, Ethan Wood, Andy Kreiss and Maia Levitt created this product to combat Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a mood disorder in which people’s mood is negatively affected by the environment, specifically in areas where there is a seasonal lack of sunlight.

You can read the full TechHive article here:
http://www.techhive.com/article/3095329/smart-appliance/seasonal-affective-disorder-sad-impacts-millions-these-high-school-age-inventors-have-an-antidote.html

Snapmunk also picked up the story and product of the students' invention. Check out the Snapmunk piece here:
https://www.snapmunk.com/seasonal-affective-disorder-cure-nuvu-high-school/

NuVu students are working with Donna Duggan Edwards at the Perkins School for the Blind on creating devices to help students practice inserting their ocular prosthetics. The studio got off to an exciting start with a field trip to Perkins. We were greeted by Donna and Kevin Hartigan, one of Perkins' tour guides. Our tour focused on the innovations that Perkins has introduced toward education for students with visual impairments. We were shown a sample of Helen Keller's handwriting, and various innovative writing guides. We ran around the indoor track with blindfolds as a way of experiencing the great possibilities that exist for people with vision impairment. The Tactile Museum at Perkins had an incredible assortment of touchable specimens, from taxidermied geese to a full scale bust of Mozart. The students were very impressed with the Assistive Device Center which fabricates an enormous range of devices for people across New England. These devices are sturdy, innovative and made out of a special cardboard.

Jim Denham, the Assistive Technology Coordinator, showed students the range of devices that have enabled independence for people with vision impairments. One of the coolest devices was a refreshable braille device which allowed for text to be translated live into braille. We next visited Donna's classroom which is housed in the basement of Perkins to allow her to have full control over the lighting. This control is important because she tries as much as possible to mimic an eye doctor's office to help her students get ready for appointments. A visit to the doctor's office can be a scary experience and Donna's work helps prepare students through activities that simulate the procedures performed by an eye doctor. We observed Donna working with a wonderful 12 year old who is preparing to get a scleral shell.

This week, NuVu students are hard at work on their first prototypes. Their project ideas include a bunny that a kid can use to practice fine motor skills, an interactive giraffe, and a game that helps kids to practice opening an eye and inserting a prosthetic.

MIT's Alumni Association featured NuVu in their latest piece titled "NuVu Studio Breaks the 'Classroom' Model" in their Slice of MIT online magazine. Check out the article and film at https://slice.mit.edu/2016/09/08/nuvu-studio-breaks-the-classroom-model/.