WIP: Development of a Student-Centered Personalized Learning Framework to Advance Undergraduate Robotics Education

This paper presents a work-in-progress on a learn-ing system that will provide robotics students with a personalized learning environment. This addresses both the scarcity of skilled robotics instructors, particularly in community colleges and the expensive demand for training equipment. The study of robotics at the college level represents a wide range of interests, experiences, and aims. This project works to provide students the flexibility to adapt their learning to their own goals and prior experience. We are developing a system to enable robotics instruction through a web-based interface that is compatible with less expensive hardware. Therefore, the free distribution of teaching materials will empower educators. This project has the potential to increase the number of robotics courses offered at both two- and four-year schools and universities. The course materials are being designed with small units and a hierarchical dependency tree in mind; students will be able to customize their course of study based on the robotics skills they have already mastered. We present an evaluation of a five module mini-course in robotics. Students indicated that they had a positive experience with the online content. They also scored the experience highly on relatedness, mastery, and autonomy perspectives, demonstrating strong motivation potential for this approach.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, conferenc

STEAM games are good for learning: A study of teachers professional development in the Philippines

In a study on digital game-based learning in five high-poverty elementary schools in the Philippines, the teachers’ professional development experiences were investigated. Research conducted for the study was part of a university-industry partnership with the developer of a new platform designed to give teachers and students experience of integrated Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) curriculum in an innovative digital game-based format with elements of coding, robotics and project-based learning. Findings suggest that teachers found it highly effective for engaging students more in learning, with fewer student absentees recorded across the five-week intervention. While noteworthy satisfaction with the program was expressed by teachers about the in-class effectiveness of digital game-based learning, and with the professional learning provided to up-skill themselves in the platform prior to implementation of the program, it was found that significant contextual and language improvements could enhance the overarching aims of this digital game-based resource for STEAM teaching and learning

The Robotics Academy: An Immersive Learning Game for Training Industrial Roboticists

Emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, digital fabrication, spatial computing, and immersive media such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), are changing the employment landscape across a broad range of industries. It is anticipated that these technologies will enhance research and innovation, increase productivity, and spur new types of occupations and entrepreneurship. In the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) fields, automated building design with advanced software facilitating mass customization will change how buildings are designed. Robotics and automation, particularly in prefabrication and large-scale 3D printing of buildings is expected to change how buildings are built. Automation technology will also transform how work is managed and conducted in the AEC sector. Therefore, it is imperative to prepare students for future changes brought by automation. The Robotics Academy project is a cloud-based training platform designed to support AEC students in learning industrial robotics. This platform uses advances in cloud computing, VR, and learning games to create a personalized and engaging experience for developing programming and robotics operations skills. The Robotics Academy\u27s immersive learning environment aims to offer a solution for teaching robotics in a safe simulated workspace that delivers creative training while minimizing risk. This virtual modality also allows the students to acquire knowledge remotely and without relying on accessing a robotics lab. This paper outlines the process of designing the Robotics Academy\u27s pedagogical approach, its curriculum development, and its delivery method as a VR application. The paper will also describe plans for its future development as a fully customizable and immersive learning game for training students for future jobs in industrial robotics

Teaching humanoid robotics by means of human teleoperation through RGB-D sensors

This paper presents a graduate course project on humanoid robotics offered by the University of Padova. The target is to safely lift an object by teleoperating a small humanoid. Students have to map human limbs into robot joints, guarantee the robot stability during the motion, and teleoperate the robot to perform the correct movement. We introduce the following innovative aspects with respect to classical robotic classes: i) the use of humanoid robots as teaching tools; ii) the simplification of the stable locomotion problem by exploiting the potential of teleoperation; iii) the adoption of a Project-Based Learning constructivist approach as teaching methodology. The learning objectives of both course and project are introduced and compared with the students\u2019 background. Design and constraints students have to deal with are reported, together with the amount of time they and their instructors dedicated to solve tasks. A set of evaluation results are provided in order to validate the authors\u2019 purpose, including the students\u2019 personal feedback. A discussion about possible future improvements is reported, hoping to encourage further spread of educational robotics in schools at all levels

Integrating mobile robotics and vision with undergraduate computer science

This paper describes the integration of robotics education into an undergraduate Computer Science curriculum. The proposed approach delivers mobile robotics as well as covering the closely related field of Computer Vision, and is directly linked to the research conducted at the authors’ institution. The paper describes the most relevant details of the module content and assessment strategy, paying particular attention to the practical sessions using Rovio mobile robots. The specific choices are discussed that were made with regard to the mobile platform, software libraries and lab environment. The paper also presents a detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis of student results, including the correlation between student engagement and performance, and discusses the outcomes of this experience

Overview of technologies for building robots in the classroom

This paper aims to give an overview of technologies that can be used to implement robotics within an educational context. We discuss complete robotics systems as well as projects that implement only certain elements of a robotics system, such as electronics, hardware, or software. We believe that Maker Movement and DIY trends offers many new opportunities for teaching and feel that they will become much more prominent in the future. Products and projects discussed in this paper are: Mindstorms, Vex, Arduino, Dwengo, Raspberry Pi, MakeBlock, OpenBeam, BitBeam, Scratch, Blockly and ArduBlock

Building ArtBots to attract students into STEM learning

There is an increasing worldwide demand for people educated into science and technology. Unfortunately, girls and underprivileged students are often underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education programs. We believe that by inclusion of art in these programs, educational activities might become more attractive to a broader audience. In this work we present an example of such an educational activity: an international robotics and art week for secondary school students. This educational activity builds up on the project-based and inquiry learning framework. This article is intended as a brief manual to help others organise such an activity. It also gives insights in how we led a highly heterogeneous group of students into learning STEM and becoming science and technology ambassadors for their peers

Teaching Software Engineering through Robotics

This paper presents a newly-developed robotics programming course and reports the initial results of software engineering education in robotics context. Robotics programming, as a multidisciplinary course, puts equal emphasis on software engineering and robotics. It teaches students proper software engineering -- in particular, modularity and documentation -- by having them implement four core robotics algorithms for an educational robot. To evaluate the effect of software engineering education in robotics context, we analyze pre- and post-class survey data and the four assignments our students completed for the course. The analysis suggests that the students acquired an understanding of software engineering techniques and principles