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the farmbots concept is very visual and would fit in nicely with Science and geography concepts.

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Industrial robots - include a discussion about AI

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Controlling household devices from your iPhone

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Controlling household devices from your iPhone

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Setting of alerts and recording shows on 

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Setting of alerts and recording shows on 

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Turning on/off lighting at a certain time

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Rain gauge: daily readings emailed to student and rain gauge emptied at same time each day by automation.

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Rain gauge: daily readings emailed to student and rain gauge emptied at same time each day by automation.

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Receive a text message if you leave your garage door open.  Receive a text message if movement is detected on your home security cameras.

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Our school is looking at starting an aquaponics setup. The students will be involved with the setup and reasoning.

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Our school is looking at starting an aquaponics

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automatic pet (fish/bird) feeder dispensers

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automatic pet (fish/bird) feeder dispensers

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Example....

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house controls via phone, or automated switches

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Auto check-in, bag drop, ticketing etc. there are many examples in the terminal.

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This unit focuses on packaging a parcel for posting. this provides an excellent opportunity to discuss the automated features use in Australia post.

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An automated system for farming a plot of vegetable

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An automated watering system for our community garden

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An automated watering system for our community garden

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Classes could discuss what they would automate and then investigate how homes are beginning to embrace automation to turn lights on while people are away on holidays, turn a child's computer off at bedtime, turning on a heater when the temperatures drop below a designated temperature.

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Home automation ideas to keep safe and monitor people entering and leaving the house

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Discuss the many things which would be automated on the way to the shopping centre and then all the things which would be automated within the centre. The list would be huge

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production and packaging of goods

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Students can use facial recognition or fingerprint scans upon entering the class after break times to check who is in class. The teacher would then have immediate feedback about who has not returned. This could send a message to the Office so that the missing person/persons would be paged via the school intercom system. No more skipping classes!!!

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Roll is marked before 9.15am. When 9.15am comes an automatic message is texted to parents to inform them of their child being absent and asking them to contact the school to explain.

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Soon students will complete NAPLAN online which will involve branching. If students do not pass a certain level they will no be granted access to the next section. Students performing well will be able to continue further.

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Soon teachers will be able to mark the roll without the dreaded name call in the morning. Students simply scan their finger or pupil and it will register that they are present in the classroom

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Say hello to Waymo

Fully self-driving vehicles hold the promise to improve road safety and offer new mobility options to millions of people. Whether they're helping people run errands, commute to work, or drop off kids at school, fully self-driving vehicles hold enormous potential to transform people's lives.

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Fully self-driving vehicles hold the promise to improve road safety and offer new mobility options to millions of people. Whether they're helping people run errands, commute to work, or drop off kids at school, fully self-driving vehicles hold enormous potential to transform people's lives.

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The use of automated text messages to a parent when a student is absent, helping to keep students safe.

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Online Newsletters for classes at school. Digital copies of news and magazines. Digital Books and Ordering online. Shopping online, Supermarket self Checkouts.

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Online Newsletters for classes at school. Digital copies of news and magazines. Digital Books and Ordering online. Shopping online, Supermarket self Checkouts.

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Trials for NAPLAN online are commencing this year and students will to the test this way from 2018. Most 3-6 students will complete the test this way in year 7 or 9 so this will impact on them directly.

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Automated feeders and watering systems and possible sensors or webcams to alert when needing to be refilled.

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Online Testing
Provide students with opportunity to complete assessment online with online generated results which streams them to different ability level questions.

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Explain to students that the introduction of self-serve checkouts was to increase supply of available checkouts  to the demand of customers. Explain to students that due to the costing of employees companies automated checkouts so that customers were able to purchase their own groceries.

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Introducing the kids to ordering their lunch online through the flexi schools software - and discussing with them a similar system which would work in our school tuckshop.  This program also extends to ordering school uniforms as well.

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Recently watched 'City in the Sky' and was fascinated by the automated baggage system at Dubai's airport.
Watch the first episode
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/city-in-the-sky/
or this youtube clip for the baggage system
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu9K8qCk0cY

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We use a system very similar to this at my school.  Instead of feeding the fish worms from the worm farm, we collect meat scraps at lunch time and suspend that in a container over the fish water.  The maggots grow and drop into the fish tank feeding the fish.

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Ryan Mets and Chris Greben didn't set out to revolutionize the way surfboards are purchased. The idea for their online surf shop Boardcave was actually conceived in 2010 through their surf blog.

"There was no information online to help people buy boards at that stage," said Mets. That was a problem, he said, as it meant surfers had to rely on shop assistants who too often recommend the wrong boards.

The right surfboard depends on multiple factors such as a surfer's size and ability. Using the wrong one makes surfing difficult and can jeopardize budding surfers, said Mets.

He explained, "If you start your surfing career on the wrong board, you're not going to be catching waves, and it's not going to be a very good surfing experience."

After surfers flooded their blog with inquiries, the pair quit their jobs and started developing technology to find the perfect board. The result is their patented Board Engine, which allows customers to search for and compare surfboards from leading brands on the site. Products are matched to customers' needs through a filtering process after they create a profile with key information like their weight and fitness.

"The more user data we gather, the more we refine surfboard recommendations," said Mets of the one-of-its-kind system.

Smart surfboards enter with a splash

Also using technology to help surfers is Disrupt Surfing, founded by Gary Elphick. Its proprietary platform launched online in 2014, enabling customers to design surfboards with 3D printing software.

The aim was to help surfers design boards tailored to their needs and satisfy demand for customization in an industry dominated by mass production. "The crux of the platform has always been about design," said Elphick.

Disrupt also uses data to help surfers design boards, going beyond profile characteristics such as height. "We recently introduced our first IoT [Internet of Things] play called Smart Surf," said Elphick. "It's all about capturing data analytics off surfboards."

This water-encased microchip sits inside the surfboard. Surfers can swipe a mobile phone over it to record their location - similar to how runners use GPS-enabled wearables to track their training.

The next generation of Smart Surf is also in the works. These smart surfboards will log data, such as speed and board pressure, when surfers are in the waves. "It's about actually capturing your riding style and using that data to feed back into the profile for your next equipment," said Elphick.

Winning Hearts and Minds

While surfers flocked to the platforms, some industry players were more wary. "It was a challenge getting local manufacturers on board in the beginning because a lot of them thought we were competing with them," explained Elphick.

Competition was especially unwelcome, as Australian surfboard manufacturers were facing pressure from cheap imported boards and the financial crisis, which dampened demand.

Even before these challenges the industry had long battled ebb and flow, with long periods without work common. One experienced hand-shaper described the downtimes, where factory workers would sit and twiddle their thumbs, and got sent home after three hours.

However, the industry is still dominated by small manufacturers, and the global surfing market is expected to swell to $13.2 billion by 2017, according to a global report on Surfing market by GIA.

Many of them tend to be averse to technology, said Mets. "I remember meeting someone who said, 'No one's going to buy surfboards online, that's a stupid idea!'" he recalled.

Disrupt and Boardcave had to win over industry players. "We're not trying to disrupt anything, we're purely developing technology as a tool to advance the industry," explained Mets. "We're not a manufacturing company; we build systems to streamline and take production into the cloud."

Boardcave noticed that manufacturers were struggling to ensure orders were in line with the estimated time of arrival (ETA), as manufacturers outsourced production to numerous specialists, complicating the supply chain.

So they built Boardcave's solution to streamline supply, connecting the different manufacturers to retailers and customers, to enable more accurate ETAs and timely delivery. Once an order is placed, an order timeline gets created, and the board is tracked through production in real-time with QR codes.

Meanwhile, Disrupt aims to help local manufacturers make custom boards at mass production prices. "How can we do fully customized boards for the same price as retail and make them locally? With the tech that we use," said Elphick. The idea is that Disrupt's solution leverages economies of scale - tapping global demand for custom boards and feeding larger order volumes to manufacturers to reduce the final price.

Judging by the numbers, both are making rapid headway. Boardcave's production volumes have increased by 261 percent in the last quarter, while Disrupt is seeing double-digit month-on-month growth. Both are also expanding into other surf markets in the US, Brazil and Europe.

The technologies that Boardcave and Disrupt are developing have massive implications for the surfing industry, enabling manufacturers and retailers to provide surfers with custom boards at affordable prices. But more exciting is the power of data, which these startups are leveraging to not only help surfers find and create perfect boards, but also improve their skills in the surf.
Top image credit: Nisa and Ulli Maier Photography.

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Ryan Mets and Chris Greben didn't set out to revolutionize the way surfboards are purchased. The idea for their online surf shop Boardcave was actually conceived in 2010 through their surf blog. "There was no information online to help people buy boards at that stage," said Mets.