REGISTRATION OPENS FOR STUDENT ROBOTICS 2024
We're excited to announce that registration for the 2024 season of Student Robotics is now open! Based in the UK, Student Robotics challenges teams of 16 to 19 year-olds to design, build and program fully autonomous robots to compete in our annual competition. Teams will have just three months to engineer their creations. As well as supplying teams with a kit, which they can use as a framework for their robot, we mentor (指导) the teams over this period. Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, we provide all of this to our teams at no cost.
The competition cycle will start with a live streamed Kickstart event on our YouTube Channel. During the event, the game and the structure of the competition will be announced and kits handed out to teams.
The competition year will culminate (达到高潮) in an in-person competition from September 30 to October 1, 2024, which will see the robots compete through a league stage and a seeded knockout. As usual the prizes will recognise not only the teams which come top in the knockouts, but also those who are excellent in other ways.
Details of the game and prizes will be revealed at Kickstart. Details of the Kickstart and competition events will be published when they are available. We expect to confirm places towards the end of August, 2024.
If you would like a chance to compete in Student Robotics 2024, please fill in the entry form with the required information. The deadline of the registration is May 30, 2024. Places are limited, so please click here and sign up soon to avoid disappointment.
We look forward to seeing your teams!
A family attempting to travel to Australia without flying have arrived in the country after a three-and-a-half-month journey. Shannon Coggins, Theo Simon and their daughter Rosa, 19, left England to begin their 10 thousand-mile trip to Sydney on 16 August. The family was hoping to make it in time for Ms. Coggins' sister's wedding on 28 December.
The family saved up for several years to pay for the trip, which has cost them much more than air tickets would have done. They travelled through Kazakhstan, China, Laos, Thailand and Indonesia, and finally arrived in Dili, hoping to find a boat to cross the Timor Sea to Darwin, Australia. From there they planned to take a bus to Sydney.
"The world is a huge thing, and one personal thing that I do will never make the difference that we need but I want to live by my principles," Ms. Coggins said. "I want a clean world for my daughter when she's growing up in the future and the grandchildren. But the world is getting hotter. There is so much going on in Australia here at the moment with floods and fires, and I think we've all got to take that seriously."
"All three of us have campaigned in different ways for action on climate change, so we decided our journey to Australia would have to be as low-carbon as practical," Mr. Simon said.
The family arrived on the other side of the world just in time. But they said there were many moments during their journey across continents and oceans when they thought they might not make it to Australia. A conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and the danger of travelling through Iran, forced them on a four day detour (绕行) through Russia where Mr. Simon almost get arrested.
"It hasn't always been easy, but it was worth it", Mr. Simon added. "We want to keep this beautiful planet, don't we?"
There's been an enormous amount of progress in language-generating AI over the past couple of years. OpenAI's GPT-3, for example, is a language generator that's been trained on 570 GB of text, and is able to write convincing essays. Google, of course, is working on language generators too, and its latest one helps you write like a legendary poet.
Google's new AI tool, Verse by Verse, allows users to compose a poem using "suggestions" from classic American poets. The AI generates these suggestions based on what it's collected from reading the poets' oeuvres. That is, the program uses machine-learning algorithms (算法) to identify the language patterns of a particular poet's work, then applies those to text it generates as the suggestions.
The tool works by allowing users to select from 22 American poets for the suggestions, including legends like Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Edgar Allen Poe. After a user has selected up to three poets, they then pick the type of poem they'd like to write. The program offers various poetic forms, and even allows users to select the number of syllables per line.
Users then give the program a first line, and AI generates the rest of the poem. The AI makes suggestions line by line, however, making it more interactive than other top language generator s out there. As far as results, they're interesting, but not nearly as impressive as GPT-3's writings.
According to Google engineer Dave Uthus, "The system was trained to have a general understanding of what lines of verse would best follow a previous line of verse. So even if you write on topics not commonly seen in classic poetry, the system will try its best to make lines that are relevant. The widely varying degrees of Verse by Verse output quality show that while good lyrical gems (宝石) may occasionally emerge, further work by the AI team remains to be done."
A physical checkup often begins with a series of questions: What foods do you eat? Do you smoke? Getting any exercise? A new research suggests another telling indicator could be added to that list: What was your college major? The study finds one's chosen field of college study is a statistically significant predictor of health in midlife.
The researchers find four majors associated with the best midlife health are architecture/engineering, biology/life sciences, business, and — here's a surprise — communications/journalism. Perhaps chasing after big stories keeps us journalists in shape.
It has long been established that people with more education tend to be healthier. But does one's major matter? To find out, the researchers analyzed data from the nationally representative American Community Survey.
Their sample consisted of 3.7 million United States-born adults between the ages of 45 and 64—the time of life when physical functioning problems start to appear. Participants noted whether they had difficulty walking or climbing stairs, dressing or bathing. A "yes" answer in any of those categories resulted in a grade of relatively poor health.
The researchers focused on the 667,362 participants who earned a bachelor's degree, but went no further in their education. They noted each person's college major, which they placed into one of 15 categories. They found substantial differences in health across majors. Two majors are particularly disadvantaged in midlife. The chances of poor health are 1.9 times greater among psychology/social work and law/public policy majors compared to business majors. The researchers argue this is likely due to several factors. Psychology majors tend to suffer from high unemployment and low earnings. Law/public policy majors often enter the field of law enforcement (执行).
The researchers say that they have discovered associations, not proof of causality (因果关系). But they make a convincing case that some majors lead people to live healthier lifestyle s than others. Their findings might even inspire a warning country song: Mammas, don't let your babies grow up to be psychology majors.
HOW TO DO HARD THINGS
It's an inconvenient truth that the road to success isn't a secret. Most of us know exactly what we need to do to improve our lives. We prefer things that feel good and avoid things that we know are hard but most effective. Follow these tips to get hard things done with less struggle.
First, you need to make sure you know what the hard, but effective thing is in the skill or job that you want to improve. It's usually the thing that creates the output. For writers, it's writing. For musicians, it's writing a song. For athletes, it's doing a workout.
Figure out your why. Make sure you know why you want to do this hard thing. So figure out your why and frequently remind yourself of it. Write it down and put it where you can see it. The stronger your why, the better.
Every day at a particular hour, you will do this hard thing. Pure focus, no multi-tasking. Take it easy at first and gradually lengthen the amount of time you spend on this. Enjoy it, too. You're a winner and you can do it.
Leave the doubts behind. When you're doing something hard, your brain will try to find ways to stop doing it. You'll want to look things up or find easy ways of doing the hard thing. Don't give in to these tempting arguments during your hard work sessions. .
If you keep improving yourself by doing hard things, you'll be getting better at your targeted skill. So don't spend too much time working around the hard task. Just do the hard thing instead.
A. This should be easy to figure out.
B. Change your thinking so the hard thing looks good.
C. But we don't do those things because they are hard.
D. Make a commitment and turn the hard thing into a habit.
E. If you are not clear about it, you'll lose motivation quickly.
F. Do whatever you want after or before, but stay focused during.
G. Life is hard sometimes, and you will have to do hard things at some point.
One of my major life-turning points happened during my exchange study in Finland. At the University of Economics in Prague where I studied it was extremely 1 to get on an Erasmus exchange trip abroad since the demand was 2 . Everyone wanted to go!
Regardless, I decided to sign up early for my last semester, just to see what the process was like to be better prepared for 3 again in a year. I did make it through all the three rounds and 4 got a spot at a University in Turku, Finland! I was 5 . The success brought its own 6 , but once you set your eyes on the goal, nothing can stop you.
And I had the time of my life in Finland. I met the most amazing people, traveled a ton, partied a lot, and 7 with friends from all over the world. 8 I was one of the few people there who really needed to pass all the courses and additionally write the papers, I 9 to run on an impossible sleep schedule of four hours per night. But I 10 it! My study in Finland opened up my 11 , too.
After the exchange study, I 12 my life in Finland. This adventure led me to choose a life of 13 made up of remote work and plenty of travelling. I couldn't have asked for a better 14 . And it gave me one of my favorite 15 that I can now share with others.
A Chinese ink painting exhibition, (feature) paintings of Professor Vermander of Fudan University, opened on Wednesday at the university in Shanghai, aiming to promote cultural exchanges China and France.
This year (mark) the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic (外交的) ties between China and France. The exhibition is part of the university's (celebrate) of this special occasion and will run through till April 25.
The exhibition exhibits more than 60 ink paintings (create) over the past decade by the French professor.
Through the artworks exhibited in the exhibition, focus on diverse themes such as animals, natural (landscape) and people, visitors are able to feel the artist's close relationship with nature and daily life.
" I like most in Chinese ink painting is the freedom it allows you. I am not skillful in Western painting as I have bad eyes, and it is not my character to be careful and plan everything as (usual) needed in Western painting. With Chinese calligraphy and ink painting, I could free my inner feelings," said Vermander.
Making his first visit to China in 1987, Vermander was attracted by Chinese calligraphy. After 1994, he changed to Chinese painting and has continued ever since. Over the three decades he has been in China, he has also been organizing and translating Chinese classics (promote) cultural exchanges.
1）写信目的；
2）提出建议。
注意：
1）写作词数应为80左右；
2）可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear Peter,
Yours sincerely,
Li Hua
Desire Is Different from Wish
The last ray of sunlight sh one through the window. A small figure sat at the corner of the room surrounded by a cloud of misery (痛苦) as he had been forbidden to go out by his mother for a whole day but he didn't make a serious mistake.
This young boy studied in the local school and dreamed to be an artist but his mother was against his dream. She thought the profession of artist couldn't aid a person to meet his daily expenses. The boy didn't want his mother to worry as he knew about the hard work his mother did in order to survive after his father died in an accident.
As each day passed his dream became more passionate and practiced more. One day the young boy wandered in the hill to gather inspiration from the nature. Then he stopped at a picturesque spot and watched those green grass at the bottom, but after a few seconds he fell asleep. In his dream he was creating a master piece of art that shook down the whole world. After some time he woke up and went back.
The following day he read about a painting competition that was being held in the town. He got the perfect opportunity to fulfill his desire but he didn't have the courage to ask his mother for money to buy acrylic paints (丙烯颜料) and some brushes for the competition. In the evening when his mother returned from work, he saw that his mother had a few notes and that money would be enough for him to buy those materials.
The next morning before his mom woke up he quietly took the money and headed to the place where the competition was being held. As the competition began, he was quite nervous but he calmed down after a few seconds. He drew the place that he saw in his dream. He was so focused at his own work that he lost the track of time but he submitted his work just a couple of seconds before the end.
注意：
1）续写词数应为150左右；
2）请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
When he went back home, he was frightened to see his mother.
After a week, there was a call for the child from the competition.
