Dear all, After this Thursday's PIDSIA, we will have another PIDSIA next week! *Speakers: Alberto Piatti, Lucio Negrini, Christian Giang, Alessandro Giusti, Jerome Guzzi, Alan Kueng. SUPSI-DFA and SUPSI-IDSIA *Title: Educational Robotics at IDSIA *Abstract: Since the pioneristic work of Seymour Papert, Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980), the idea of using robots in education has grown steadily and is nowadays a very important interdisciplinary field of research, at the crossing between educational sciences and robotics, known under the name of Educational robotics. At the beginning of the present academic year, a group of teachers - researchers of IDSIA and of the Dipartimento Formazione e Apprendimento of SUPSI (university of teacher education of Southern Switzerland) has been established, with the aim of developing the competences of SUPSI in this field. In few months, the group, in collaboration with the EPFL, has already obtained two research projects: (i) a project of the SNF program Agora, named Introducing People to Research in Robotics through an Extended Peer Community in Southern Switzerland (the project proposal has been awarded with the Optimus Agora Award) and a project, named Robotics Teacher Community (ROTECO), founded by the Swiss Academies of Sciences. Both projects are based on the use of the educational roboto Thymio, that has been developed by the EPFL. During this PIDSIA, we will present briefly the field of educational robotics, the members of our group, the two projects that will start in september 2018 and the educational robot thymio. *When: Thursday 13th of June 2018, 12:00-13:00 *Location: Manno, Galleria 1, 2nd floor, room G1-204 *Registration: Pizza (or alternative food) and drinks will be offered at the end of the talk. If you plan to attend, please register in a timely fashion at the following link so that we will have no shortage of food: https://doodle.com/poll/n5kzcrkbcfdgmay5