Learning Robotics for Youngsters - The RoboParty Experience

Proceeding of the 9th International GAP Summit Scientific Research Congress. Held from 1-3 July 2022 at Adiyaman, TURKEY. ISBN: 978-625-8323-36-8.Published by IKSAD Publications 2022, 2022

At its most basic level, STEM education entails instructing students in four distinct disciplines: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (collectively shortened as STEM). Rather than training students in just one of these areas, STEM incorporates all four in an interdisciplinary and applied approach to better prepare students for careers and real-world applications. STEM-based courses are a great way to help students learn robotics, and robotics helps students learn STEM, visa-versa. Robotics and STEM are the keys to a great future for students. They have become an important part of the world we live in. Robotics is the intersection of science, engineering, and technology that produces machines, called robots, that substitute for (or replicate) human actions. "Educational robotics" is a pedagogical robotics discipline that is designed to introduce students to robotics and programming interactively from a young age. Thus, robotics is used to teach problem solving, programming, design, physics, math, and even music and art to students at all levels of their education. This instruction is guided by a learning theory that foresees that children's learning can be enhanced when they are involved in activities that allow them to construct artifacts. This theory, called constructionism, is connected with experiential and constructivist learning. This study found that most developed countries have reaped the benefits of educational robotics with the help of its resources and kits. The popularity of robotic kits and resources in education is significantly higher in developed countries, where school systems have undergone an educational revolution in the past decades (typically Western Europe and North America), while the kits are still on the edge of breaking into the market of developing countries (mostly in South Asia and Africa), which still prefer traditional educational methods. We present several resources that can help novice teachers develop an enhanced skill for implementing robotics into their instructions effectively. Some of these resources emphasise the relevance of LEGO education in allowing students to move from simple explorations to increasingly complex real-world challenges as they progress through different grades. LEGO provides a scalable learning system based on the familiar LEGO brick that is intuitive, inclusive, and adaptable. It offers a scalable design, making it easy to implement at the classroom, school, or district level. LEGO Education offers personalised professional development designed to inspire and engage as you learn, practice, and master competencies to facilitate playful, hands-on STEAM learning for maximum impact on student outcomes. It inspires teachers to learn, practice, and master competencies so they can facilitate hands-on, playful STEAM learning with their students.

While several national and international robotics competitions have been established to cater for enthusiasts or experts from universities or research laboratories, few have been developed which operate successfully at the secondary school level. At a time when universities are keen to encourage secondary school students into science and engineering disciplines, and schools are looking to bolster their technology programs, such competitions provide a win-win scenario. The major di#culties in establishing such a competition include #1# devising an inexpensive robot and associated task that challenges the student, #2# raising the skill level of teachers to a point where they are con#dent to run such an activity and #3# establishing a broad base of expertise to support large numbers of participants. In this paper we detail the development, features and outcomes of the Robot Bilby Competition. The use of workshops and school visits to impart the necessary skills to te...

Proceedings of the …, 2001

Students learn the most about robotics when they have hands-on opportunities to build and program. At the college level there are a myriad of options, in terms of materials, that can be used in a robotics course. Two highly successful courses, offered at the freshmen and senior level, have been taught at Tufts University using LEGO elements, the RCX (the programmable LEGO brick), and ROBOLAB, a graphical programming language based on LabVIEW. The limitations of the RCX (3 inputs and 3 outputs) do provide some restrictions in terms of robot capabilities. However, the benefit of rapid prototyping and ease of programming using ROBOLAB permits students to address a wider range of issues and topics. The freshmen robotics course allows students to get excited about engineering and learn about robotics with no previous building or programming experience. Freshmen were able to use the icon based software with little or no instruction and build and program robots in their dorm rooms. Freshmen projects ranged from robotic animals to a search and rescue for the lost "Mars Polar Lander". At the senior level, students were able to address distributive intelligence issues with multiple robots ranging from determining relative positioning to sharing acquired data. This paper will present theses two courses and the difficulties and successes associated with using the LEGO materials and the ROBOLAB software.

Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality, 2019

Robotics in education has special relevance in current digital society where students should know how to deal with technology. In this paper, it is presented an educational experiment in the mobile robotics domain. The referred experiment was part of a summer camp, which took place at the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança Portugal, being its technological aspects related with mobile robotics. Other than the technological aspects, the students participated in many different cultural and social activities, having the opportunity to know the city of Bragança and also to know different persons, mainly students, professors, researchers and laboratory technicians. The applied approach in the summer camp was a challenge based learning methodology, being involved in the experiment 3 professors, 4 monitors, working with a group of 16 secondary school students. The described experiment was planned as an activity of the RoboSTEAM-Integrating STEAM and Computational Thinking development by using robotics and physical devices ERASMUS+ Project.

2010

This paper presents the design of educational robotics activities at Master level based on the experience developed at secondary school level. The used educational approach is the constructionist theory, in which the robot is the sharable object triggering the learning challenge. All educational activities uses the same robot, i.e. the LEGO NXT robot. How this platform and the constructionist approach can be used as a tool for learning advanced concepts of robotics is shown, presenting both a university guidance activity and the introductory laboratory of a Robotics Msc course. The results of a questionnaire provide evaluation criteria to examine the achieved positive effects.

Electronics and Electrical Engineering, 2012

At this moment, the importance of technology in all the areas of knowledge is undeniable. Students must acquire competencies in technology during their primary and secondary studies. In this chapter we present the ENXEÑO workshop developed by the University of Vigo and oriented to K-12 students from schools in the surrounding area. The experience pursued a twofold target of providing an introductory scope of the Electrical and Computer Engineering degree as well as approaching technological knowledge by means of a through play experience. Pros and cons of this innovative learning methodology are analyzed in this chapter. The experiments done during the workshop are described in detail both in contents and organization. Ill. 6, bibl. 9, tabl. 4 (in English; abstracts in English and Lithuanian).

Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 2016

Lincoln has spent the last eight years developing and implementing a comprehensive educational robotics program for youth ages 9-14. The program was delivered in informal (out-of-school) learning environments through robotics camps, clubs, and competitions and provided robotics experiences to over 5,000 youth and 400 educators. The goal of the project was to positively impact the youths' science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) knowledge and attitudes-and to foster an interest in STEM careers. Results of extensive research and evaluation showed that youth participation in the robotics activities increased their STEM content knowledge (particularly engineering and computer programming), their perceived problem solving skills and their interest in engineering careers. Youth also perceived that the robotics activities were different from those in school, reporting that the robotics camp was more interesting and involved more hands-on activities.

Robotics is becoming extremely popular amongst the youngsters, because it is fun, you can practice with hands-on and above all you get real results. Since most students have to develop practical works in their schools, robotics works are becoming very popular. But robotic is a multidisciplinary area of knowledge and therefore the school teachers might not have the know-how in all required fields. The Robotics Group at University of Minho (Guimarães, Portugal), created a new robotics event called RoboParty© where they actually build robots from scratch (mechanics, electronics, programming, etc.) in 3 days (24 hours a day) supervised continuously by experts on the various fields. At the end, they take the robot home with them and they can continue using and improving it later on.

—It is increasingly important that next generation of students must acquire problem solving, critical thinking and collaborative skills to succeed in their career aspirations in the 21st century. Technology plays a crucial role in assimilation of these skills. Among flourishing arrays of technologies, robotics provides challenges and opportunities to the learners in developing innovative ideas, disruptive thinking and higher order learning skills. In recognizing these potentials, educational authorities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) undertook an important step in distributing Lego Mindstorms kits to schools to encourage teachers to use in their teaching. This paper explores the educational use of robotics in schools and how teachers can integrate this new technology into the curriculum. The paper also suggests the effective strategies in using robotics as an educational tool and how it will impact students' interests in STEM related subjects. Some recommendations to enhance learning activities in the classrooms are provided.

Advances in intelligent systems and computing, 2019

Robotics education has made great strides to enable the next generation of engineers and workers with early education and outreach. This early education effort is able to engage students and promote interest, however an integrated pathway to and through college is needed. This pathway needs to build upon early experiences with opportunities to advance across age groups. This paper presents the authors experience developing robotics curriculum across age groups. Middle and high school education has been implemented in a summer camp environment utilizing two co-robotic platforms, a water sensing robot called GUPPIE and an assistive robot named Neu-pulator, engaging 201 total students between Summer 2014-2017. The university course is a senior level technical elective introducing autonomous systems through a mobile robotic platform, a smart car, with 72 total students in Spring 2017 and 2018. In this work, the survey results gathered from Summer 2017 pre-college and Spring 2018 college level activities are presented. Overall observations and lessons learned across age groups are also discussed to better create a pathway from young learners to practicing engineers. The key to success of robotics programs at any age are hands-on, exciting activities with sufficient expert support so that students are able to learn in a frustration free environment.