UKREF the UK Robotics Education Foundation is a UK-based Organisation set up to help develop both the teaching of robotics and associated technologies in schools and beyond, and also the use of these technologies in teaching itself.

Our primary purpose is to provide training courses, workshops, school holiday technology camps as well as to organise competitions and conferences, as well as links to similar resources provided by other organisations. In addition we aim to provide a variety of online resources such as links to suppliers of equipment, books and software, online tutorials, robotics clubs and societies.

A key activity will also involve lobbying at local and national level to make more resources available to schools, colleges and universities, especially trying to encourage contributions from local, national and international companies. If the UK is to have a strong and vibrant high technology sector it is vital to encourage young people to develop a keen and lasting interest in science and technology, not only as consumers of technology and related services, but also as inventors, designers, developers, manufacturers and service providers.

UKREF arose out of a realisation, partly as a result of research done by First Technology Transfer Ltd. , that the degree of enthusiasm associated with robotics is far lower than that in other developed countries such as the USA and Japan, and that the best way of remedying this would be to provide resources to develop an understanding of robotics and computer programming amongs all teachers, not only science and technology teachers.

It also became painfully clear just how little funding for these purposes was available in the UK when compared, for example to that being made available in the USA.

Founders of UKREF:

UKREF was set up after an exchange of emails between Niall Mansfield, who is a book publisher based in Cambridge, and Andrew Eliasz, who runs a training and consultancy company, as well as a small technical bookshop and toyshop in Carshalton Surrey, with help and suggestions from friends and colleagues.

Join us:

Leave a message on: 020 8669 0769
send an email to awe@ftt.co.uk