Engineering a plan for math and science

Nationally, more and more children are moving away from careers that feature math and science and National Instruments continues to evangelize engineering initiatives for grades K-12 and beyond.
The engineering-centric company conducted a special panel at NIWeek 06 in Austin, Texas on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education led by Ray Almgren, vice president of Product Marketing and Academic Relations. Almgren heads up the company's worldwide academic relations program.
Panelists discussed ways they can encourage children to embark on a math and science track without suffering from the “uncool” factor. While there were no answers, there was plenty of discussion on ways to go about solving the dilemma.
Along those lines, NI introduced a LabVIEW Toolkit for LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT. With the new toolkit, LabVIEW users can create and download virtual instruments to operate and control the MINDSTORMS NXT robotics platform. Third-party software and hardware developers also can use the toolkit to create native blocks for MINDSTORMS NXT software. MINDSTORMS NXT, the next generation of the LEGO robotics invention system, became available earlier this month and includes a new programming environment.
The LEGO Group and NI teamed to develop the new MINDSTORMS NXT software that includes a drag-and-drop, graphical interface optimized for the target MINDSTORMS NXT consumer, children 10-14 years old. With the new LabVIEW toolkit, more advanced MINDSTORMS NXT users, including adults, students and secondary school and university educators, now can program the NXT using advanced graphical programming tools available in LabVIEW.
If you think LEGOs is a toy just for kids, try playing around with this system. It will be great for kids young and old.