The updates coincide with the annual National Robotics Week, a time when kids, parents and teachers across the nation tap into the excitement of robotics for STEM learning. Supporting Social and Emotional Learning The events of the past year changed the traditional learning environment with students, families and educators adapting to hybrid and remote classrooms. Conversations on the critical importance of diversity, equity and inclusion have also taken on increased importance in the classroom. To address this, iRobot Education has introduced social and emotional learning (SEL) lessons to its Learning Library that tie SEL competencies, like peer interaction and responsible decision-making, into coding and STEM curriculum. These SEL learning lessons, such as The Kind Playground, Seeing the Whole Picture and Navigating Conversations, provide educators with new resources that help students build emotional intelligence and become responsible global citizens, through a STEM lens. Language translations for iRobot Coding App More students can now enjoy the free iRobot Coding App with the introduction of Spanish, French, German, Czech and Japanese language support.

It's hard to believe that it's been a decade since the first National Robotics Week. A decade ago I was a fledgling robotics blogger and was absolutely convinced that within the next 10 years, robots would be everywhere. That hasn't quite happened (yet), but robots certainly are a lot more places and doing a lot more things than they were in 2010, and that's definitely worth celebrating! National Robotics Week 2019 officially starts this Saturday, and runs from 6 to 14 April. To get everyone excited, the organizers put together this awesome video featuring a lineup of star roboticists: Ayanna Howard (Georgia Tech), Colin Angle (iRobot), Ian Bernstein (Misty Robotics), Kate Darling (MIT Media Lab), Mark Palatucci (Anki), and Rodney Brooks (MIT). There are all kinds of ways of getting involved with National Robotics Week, with events taking place nationwide--see everything that's going on here.

In 2010, the U.S. House of Representatives passed resolution H.Res. 1055 to make the second week of April officially National Robotics Week. Now celebrating its eighth year, National Robotics Week is more national and more robotics-y than ever, with hundreds of events taking place all over the country. We know that most of you live robotics every single day anyway (as you should), and so National Robotics Week might not seem like it's worth celebrating, but what about your friends and family who have no idea how cool robots are, and who maybe have no idea what it is that you actually, you know, do? Fundamentally, NRW is all about celebrating how cool robotics is, and getting as many people involved as possible--think about finding an event near you that looks like fun, and then dragging someone along who doesn't (yet) understand why robotics is the best thing ever. They'll either thank you for it, or think you're crazy, but it's a win either way, right?

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next two months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. To celebrate National Robotics Week the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition recently hosted the annual Robotics Open House at the newly constructed Levin Center for IHMC Research. IHMC Researchers demonstrated work across multiple platforms including the Atlas Humanoid robot, MinaV2 Exoskeleton, Planar Elliptical Runner, and Virtual reality stations.

Strictly speaking, every single week is Robotics Week around here, but this week (or, technically, April 8-16), also happens to be U.S. National Robotics Week. This is an Official Thing--the U.S. House of Representatives declared the second week in April to be National Robotics Week starting back in 2010 and continuing until the End of Time. There are hundreds of events going on all over the country for the eighth edition of this event, ensuring that you'll be able to find something awesome and roboty to do near you. There's a list of everything (organized by state) at the official website here. IEEE Spectrum is a big supporter of National Robotics Week, and like in previous years, we teamed up with iRobot and Georgia Tech to put together a new set of robot trading cards for 2017, which is obviously by far the most exciting thing about NRW every year, and you can see those here.