Three girls watching Duckiebot - Science museum

Duckietown to join the UK Permanent Science Museum Collection!

Boston, October 2023: several Duckietown objects officially joined the Science Museum Group permanent Collection: the United Kingdom’s national archive of science, technology, engineering, and medicine! 

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Duckietown joins UK's Science Museum Group Collection

Duckietown is a trailblazer in providing accessible solutions for teaching and learning state-of-the-art autonomy, helping in the dissemination of the science and technology of modern robotics.

In 2019, the Science Museum of London picked up on the project and included Duckietown items: a Duckiebot (DB19), a segment of Duckietown, and a Duckietown traffic light, in their “Driverless: Who is in control?” exhibition.

Following the success of this exhibition, the Board of Directors of the Science Museum started considering including the DUckietown items in the permanent collection of their institution. 

We are proud to announce that, in August 2023, these Duckietown items have officially joined the Science Museum Group Collection – the UK’s national collection of science, technology, engineering and medicine.

Duckietown in the history books

Joining the permanent collection will:

 “ensure that the items – as rare and representative objects – are acquired, conserved, preserved and stored in order that they may be accessible to current and future generations for interpretation, loans to other institutions, research, education, and sometimes display in temporary or permanent exhibitions.

here are some details:

2023-216

E2019.0205.1

Duckiebot – small autonomous robot from Duckietown Project, 2018-2019

2023-222

E2019.0205.2

Traffic light kit from Duckietown Project, 2018-2019

2023-502

E2019.0205.3

City expansion pack from Duckietown Project, 2018-2019

EdTech awards 2021: Duckietown finalist in 3 categories!

Duckietown reaches the finals in the EdTech Awards 2021

The EdTech awards are the largest and most competitive recognition program in all of education technology.

The competition, led by the EdTech digest, recognizes the biggest names in edtech – and those who soon will be, by identifying all over the world the products, services and people that bet promote education through the use of technology, for the benefit of learners.

The 2021 edition has brought a big surprise to Duckietown, as it was nominated as a finalist in 3 different categories:

  • Cool Tool Award: as robotics (for learning, education) solution;
  • Cool Tool Award: as higher education solution;
  • Trendsetter Award: as a product or service setting a trend in education technologies.

Although a final is just a starting point, we are proud of the hard work done by the team in this particularly difficult year of pandemic and lockdowns, and grateful to you all for the incredible support, constructive feedback and contributions!

To the future, and beyond!

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Duckietown and NVIDIA work together for accessible AI and robotics education: Meet the NVIDIA powered Duckiebot

Duckietown and NVIDIA partnership for accessible AI and robotics education

NVIDIA GTC, October 6, 2020: Duckietown and NVIDIA align efforts to push the boundaries of accessible, state-of-the-art higher-education in robotics and AI. The tangible outcome is a brand new “Founder’s edition” Duckiebot, which will be broadly available from January 2021, powered by the new NVIDIA Jetson Nano 2GB platform.

Read the full NVIDIA announcement here.

Meet the NVIDIA powered Duckiebot

Autonomy is already changing the world. Duckietown and NVIDIA recognize the importance of hands-on education in robotics and AI to empower everybody today to understand and design the next generations of autonomy.

The result of this collaboration is a new NVIDIA powered Duckiebot, using the novel Jetson Nano 2GB board, that will enable local execution of machine learning agents in the Duckietown ecosystem. 

To celebrate this special occasion, the Duckiebot has been redesigned to include: new sensors (time of flight, IMU, encoders), a new custom-designed battery providing real time diagnostics (state of charge, remaining autonomy and other health metrics), and fun accessories like a screen to visualize key metrics. All of this while keeping the price accessible for anyone willing to experience the challenges of a real-life robotic ecosystem. 

A great team

“The new NVIDIA Jetson Nano 2GB is the ultimate starter AI computer for educators and students to teach and learn AI at an incredibly affordable price.” said Deepu Talla, Vice President and General Manager of Edge Computing at NVIDIA. “Duckietown and its edX MOOC are leveraging Jetson to take hands-on experimentation and understanding of AI and autonomous machines to the next level.”

“The Duckietown educational platform provides a hands-on, scaled down, accessible version of real world autonomous systems.” said Emilio Frazzoli,  Professor of Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zurich, “Integrating NVIDIA’s Jetson Nano power in Duckietown enables unprecedented access to state-of-the-art compute solutions for learning autonomy.”

Learn more

To know more about the technical specifications of the new NVIDIA powered Duckiebot, or to pre-order yours, visit the Duckietown project shop here.

The new Duckiebot will be also used in the “Self-driving Cars with Duckietown” Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) that will be held in March 2021 on edX. You can find more information about the MOOC here.