Summary

Educational computerised, tethered floor-roving robot, made by Denning Branch International, Hobart, Tasmania, 1982. It uses LOGO programming language invented by Seymour Papert.

Denning Branch International, was the trading name for Branch & Associates. The Tasman Turtle was an easily controlled mobile robot which could 'feel' with its touch sensors and could 'talk' with its speech board (see included Digitalker vocab list). It featured speech recognition, speech sysnthesis, electronic compass, touch sensors, drawing pen, stepper motor motion control, infra-red and expansion ports.

This particular Tasman Turtle was owned and used by Dr. Liddy Nevile in her student research and classroom work in the 1980s. This object forms part of the Sunrise Collection which includes educational robots, software and multimedia recordings of teachers and students mainly in Victoria exploring new possibilities with computer programming. 'Computational thinking' in a constructionist environment was emerging in Victoria throughout the 1980s and 90s.

Physical Description

The robotic toy comprises a hemispherical case of transparent grey acrylic with a flat flange, to which a clear circular acrylic base, separated by a 15 mm gap, is joined at four points on the periphery with bakelite and spring-steel bump sensors. There is a small triangular label with a green logo and black, printed text on the top surface of the base. A freely-moving, light-brown moulded plastic ring, approximately 40 mm larger in diameter than the domed case, is positioned in the gap above the base. The ring is broken at one point and a short strip of green pastic tape is stuck at one side of the break. There are two black rubber wheels protruding through slots in the base and two domed timber supports joined to the base with metal screws. Internally there are two metal-cased motors, one to each wheel; a stack of three microprocessor circuit boards, multi-coloured cables and wires, a small speaker and two green and four red light-emitting diodes. A 25-pin male 'D-shape' connector socket is fixed near the top of the domed case. A circular shape 45 mm diameter of bright orangle plastic, with a superimposed smaller circle of blue paper, is fixed to the outer surface of the domed case.

Significance

The Sunrise Collection is comprised of microcomputer and robotics hardware and software as well as audio-visual and print materials that document their use as educational technologies by students and teachers in schools and other education settings during the 1980s and early 1990s. Although a very small number of Australian schools had explored computing as part of their educational offerings in the 1970s, it was during the 1980s, driven by technological innovation in micro computing and developments in computer education policies and funding, that computers and computing became a common feature of Australian schools. In this historical context, three features of the Sunrise Collection establish its significance.

First, the collection preserves some key technical hardware that was actually deployed in educational settings during this nascent period of computer education in Australia. Second, the collection documents how teachers, students and other stakeholders responded to and reflected upon their engagement with these technologies at the time. The images in particular capture the early experience of computers for students from a diversity of educational environments; Geelong Grammar preparatory school, MLC, Yooralla, Princes Hill Secondary School and Victorian Aboriginal Educational Association run camps. Third, the collection documents the development and implementation of a particular exploratory and progressive approach to educational computing in Australia. This 'Sunrise' approach challenged policy makers and educators to think of computers as presenting an opportunity to radically reform practices of learning and teaching rather than simply being a new technology to be integrated into existing practice.

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