FP2-5 Messing with R2-D2

FP2-5 first applications in action.

Something very special is headed to JAKE's

NAO is coming to JAKE's.

In May 2016 we will be moving to the nearby Westwoods Shopping Center at 64th & McIntyre. Inside our new location will be the first ever, that were aware of anyway, Maker Space in a Toy Store.  In addition to all this great news, NAO will be joining us in the Maker Space.  

Who is NAO?

NAO is a 58-cm tall humanoid robot. He is small, cute and round. You can't help but love him! NAO is intended to be a friendly companion around the house. He moves, recognises you, hears you and even talks to you!
Since his birth in 2006, he has been constantly evolving to please, amuse, understand and love you. In short, to one day become your friend.
Aldebaran created NAO to be a true daily companion. He is the little creature who helps you be your best. His humanoid form and extreme interactivity make him really endearing and loveable.

HISTORY

While waiting to be ready for home use, NAO became a star in the world of education. In more than 70 countries, he was used in computer and science classes, from primary school through to university. Thanks to NAO, students can learn programming in a fun and practical way. They can program him to walk, catch small objects and even dance!

He then conquered communities of developers, who recognised him as a powerful and incredibly expressive medium for creating applications. Imagine all the things you can do with NAO! A new world of applications has been opened, and the next step is to make him available to everyone.

NAO, COMING SOON TO YOUR HOME!

Speak, and he answers!
Ask him to do something and he does! For example, ask NAO to teach multiplication tables to your children, wake you up in the morning, monitor your home during the day or teach you new things whenever you want. You no longer need a keyboard, computer or mouse to communicate with technology. All you have to do is talk to it, and it responds!

A new member of the family
Now, imagine that he can learn to read your moods, so that he always knows the right thing to say; that he can recognize your family members and call them by their first names; that you can teach him your musical, food and film preferences.
This is the goal of Aldebaran: create an engaging, interactive companion and partner. His humanoid form transports you into a world of emotions and caring, his sign language gives him life and makes him endearing, and his capacity to interact makes him a new member of the family.

Inside the Maker Space at JAKE's and beginning in June 2016, we will be offering an opportunity for you and your kiddos to work with and learn from NAO.  Some of the classes will include;

SDK, Simple software for developing your robot

A comprehensive, accessible software development kit
Aldebaran puts a user-friendly, documented software development tool kit at the disposal of everyone. This kit allows users at all levels to create behaviors for their robots.
It also lets you integrate the modules you developed into your robot and use them to create elaborate behaviors.
The software development kit also contains the required compilation and debugging tools.
This multiplatform development kit is compatible with many languages and robotics platforms, including Java, JavaScript, C++, Python.

CHOREGRAPHE: CUSTOMIZE YOUR ROBOT AT YOUR OWN PACE

Program incredible applications by creating sequences of predefined behavior boxes or coding your own behaviors.
Entirely designed and developed by Aldebaran, Choregraphe is the programming software that lets users of our robots create and edit movements and interactive behaviours easily. Its intuitive graphical interface, library of standard behaviours, and advanced programming functions will meet the needs of beginners and experts.

Anyone can create behaviors simply by dragging and dropping actions from the library or creating customized boxes and saving them to custom libraries. Explore programming by sequential or parallel events. Regarding chronology, Choregraphe allows you to program temporal logic.
The boxes of preprogrammed behaviors are easily configurable, but you can also create your own by using the Curve Editor to edit movements or writing them in Python scripts.
The combination of these approaches opens up great programming possibilities for our robots; you can dabble in the code's complexity or bypass it as you wish.

Choregraphe accepts the Urbi and Python languages and can therefore directly call the C++ modules developed separately.
It is supplied with many detailed examples that simplify the learning process.

WEBOTS: A VIRTUAL WORLD TO SIMULATE BEHAVIORS

You can also test your program creations in a 3D environment.
Webots for NAO is the perfect simulation software to assist your lessons or educational research. Interfaced with Choregraphe, it allows you to test your programs in a virtual environment before inserting them into NAO in real conditions.
Our Webots for NAO simulator, designed by our partner Cyberbotics, allows users to test their algorithms in a virtual world governed by real physical laws.
Users can alter the simulated environment at will, inserting and editing objects of different weights and shapes.  

MONITOR: SEE AND PERCEIVE LIKE YOUR ROBOT

Monitor is an application that allows you to see what your robot sees and perceives. It allows you to access accurate data from its sensors and motors easily.

With the Camera module, you can receive data from the selected camera.
You can then use the Memory module to access and analyse, in a user-friendly way, all the data provided by the sensors.
Monitor also lets you test the vision algorithms on recorded extracts.

NAO will be just one of many Family Friendly activities planned for the Makers Space at JAKE's! Absolutely thrilled we are to have NAO joining us and, if you are interested in learning more, please be certain to sign up for our mailing list and share this with someone you know.


Watch a video of these French engineering students working with NAO to drive a car.

First Bank Elevator Pitch Contest Submission.

Sorry for the delay in-between blogs however, take a look at the video below and you'll get an idea of some of what we've been up to. Thanks to an amazing staff for coming together and making this video happen.  We hope to win First Bank's $20,000 Elevator Pitch Contest 

The other BIG NEWS is that our website now synchronizes daily with our store so if you see it in our on line store, we have it in stock at the store albeit a couple BERG pedal karts remain special order.   

A reason to shop with JAKE's even if you don't have kiddos in your circles.

2016 Holiday Toy Drive

Duane - Arvada Santa House.

It's not unheard of for people to think, because they don't have children they have little reason to shop with JAKE's.  On the other hand, we are blessed to have more than a few generous benefactors whom only purchase from us during the holidays.  This year were looking for a few families to help us hand select thousands of dollars worth of Toys, all of which will then be given to: Toys for Tots, Family Tree, Hope House, Arvada Santa House, Boys and Girls Club of Denver and more.

Now through Nov 22nd, we will be asking for and happily accepting monies that we apply 100% toward the selecting of inventory provided by JAKE's at wholesale (our cost).  In an effort help us choose the very best, we need some volunteers to help us go shopping within our store during the weekend of Nov 21st. (Weekend before Thanksgiving)  The place should be packed in anticipation for the following weeks up to Christmas.  We plan many tie ins' with social media including a video during the selection process, so be forewarned.    

If you're interested in sharing the good feelings associated with helping to pick out some really cool toys for some really great organizations, simply reply to dan@jakestoyboxonline.com.  Consider too the really great feeling you'll get in becoming one of our 2015 toy drive holiday benefactors.  More about that be found by clicking the link or please, use the social shares with someone you may know.  Thanks in advance! 

Toys from the 50s 60s and 70s

History Colorado Center, now though Oct 4th.

Toys from the 50s 60s and 70s

I rather regret waiting so long to visit this really fun exhibit at the History Colorado Center.  Why? Because there is limited amount of time left for you, should you feel so inclined, to visit.  Please click on the image above or HERE to be taken to the Flickr photo album of my journey.  

I've heard it said that a picture is worth a thousand words so this blog is going to be short.  Many of the photos have captions and many do not.  How many bring back fond memories for you?  You'll probably notice my enjoyment of the exhibition layout almost as much as the toys themselves.  Hope you enjoy and please share if ya do.

A Die-cast P51, an Educational Toy?

How is a Die-cast P51 educational?  

I am glad you might not have asked yourself that question so please read on.  

Tuskegee P51 Mustang

The young man occupying the cockpit is Hunter Call, who works with us at JAKE's.  The man standing beside him is Bill Shepard and he works with the CAF Red Tail Squadron.  The photo was taken during the recent Rocky Mountain Airshow in Broomfield.  It was especially neat to watch Hunter and his colleagues learn more about the Red Tail Squadron before the show.  Both Hunter, and in particular myself, thought we already knew a little about the Tuskegee Airmen; however, neither he nor I would understand the full importance, not just because the sheer rarity of being allowed to sit in that plane, but because of who sat in it before him.

 

In great part to my Hollywood influences, I somehow missed the importance of not just the pilots themselves, but also the Tuskegee Air Core itself.  At one time representing over 13,000 men and women mostly comprised of what some said were "colored" people.  This was 1940's and segregation ran so rampant that many people mistakenly thought less than or inferior too simply because of skin pigmentation.  

"they certainly demonstrated that they were not inferior to them, either. Moreover, they began at a line farther back, overcoming many more obstacles on the way to combat." 

Daniel L. Haulman, PhD Chief, Organizational Histories Branch Air Force Historical Research Agency 

As incredible are the story's of the Red Tail Squadron, is also how close they became to drifting into relative obscurity had it not been for the efforts of so many.  One in particular, a man named Don Hinz, the very mustang he helped to restore and fly while working with CAF is the one Hunter is pictured setting in from the beginning.  

"The CAF Red Tail Squadron was started in the 1990s by a group of volunteer members of the Minnesota Wing of the Commemorative AirForce.  As they were getting ready to restore a WWII-vintage P-51C Mustang fighter, Don Hinz, a pilot and entrepreneur, presented a unique idea. Instead of just restoring another old U.S. Army Air Corps airplane to fly at air shows,why not have this Mustang be an educational tool?"- RedTail.org - 2015

"Between early June 1944 and the end of April 1945, the Red Tails conducted at least 311 combat missions for the Fifteenth Air Force. Of these, the 332nd Fighter Group flew 179 bomber escort missions. On only seven of these missions were Tuskegee-Airmen escorted bombers shot down by enemy aircraft. The number of Tuskegee Airmen-escorted bombers shot down by enemy aircraft was 27, while the average number lost by the other six fighter groups was 46. The Tuskegee Airmen lost significantly fewer bombers than the average of the other fighter groups in the Fifteenth Air Force"  DANIEL L. HAULMAN, Chief, Organizational Histories Branch, Air Force Historical Research Agency

I was able to learn a number of things about our history with applicable relevance today. Of equal importance to me was an opportunity to meet the coordinators behind the Red Tail Squadron's Traveling Exhibit.  As a result, they extended a rather unique invitation that I am so fortunate and thrilled to share with you.  

Unlike the abbreviated version used during air shows there is also a 30 minute film explaining in even greater detail the Tuskegee History.   They have already setup at many many schools nationwide.  QUESTION?  If we bring this to Jake's, say about this same time-frame next year, would you come a see it?  Would you bring a friend?

CAF RedTail Traveling Setup

The rig setup is somewhat like a transformer triple wide.  One side extends out to become the almost 180 degree curved screen and the other side extends out for small bleacher type seating.  Easily hold 20 - 30 kiddos at a time.  There would be no charge for this either.  All attendees would also depart with red alloy metallic dog-tag etched with:  Aim High, Believe in Yourself, Use Your Brain, Be Ready to Go, Never Quit and Expect to Win.  Please watch their video and learn more.

"The Traveling Exhibit is housed in a 53′ long semi trailer that has been turned into a theater with a 160-degree panoramic movie screen and seating for 30 people. The climate-controlled theater shows an original film about the Airmen and their role in World War II and beyond. "THE RISE ABOVE."  Traveling Exhibit accompanies the Mustang to air shows, but also make stops at schools, museums and other venues.  Students and others who cannot get to an air show can hear about and learn from the Tuskegee Airmen."  RedTail.org -Education outreach 2015."

NO, not unless there is an adjacent runway, the Mustang does not or will not join us at Jake's or any other facility that is not an Airport.      

How can we make this a reality?  If you have enjoyed the information here and the links, please share this with others or add comment in support of the idea.  Simply for doing so, many of you will randomly be chosen in receiveing a FREE a Diecast Tuskegee P51 Mustang Replica pictured below.

Help with shipping costs, if applicable, requested.