2,531 research outputs found
Introduction: The Third International Conference on Epigenetic Robotics
This paper summarizes the paper and poster contributions
to the Third International Workshop on
Epigenetic Robotics. The focus of this workshop is
on the cross-disciplinary interaction of developmental
psychology and robotics. Namely, the general
goal in this area is to create robotic models of the
psychological development of various behaviors. The
term "epigenetic" is used in much the same sense as
the term "developmental" and while we could call
our topic "developmental robotics", developmental
robotics can be seen as having a broader interdisciplinary
emphasis. Our focus in this workshop is
on the interaction of developmental psychology and
robotics and we use the phrase "epigenetic robotics"
to capture this focus
Using Scratch to Teach Undergraduate Students' Skills on Artificial Intelligence
This paper presents a educational workshop in Scratch that is proposed for
the active participation of undergraduate students in contexts of Artificial
Intelligence. The main objective of the activity is to demystify the complexity
of Artificial Intelligence and its algorithms. For this purpose, students must
realize simple exercises of clustering and two neural networks, in Scratch. The
detailed methodology to get that is presented in the article.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, workshop presentatio
Combat Robotics Hackathon
The Combat Robotics Hackathon team’s mission was to create a framework for an engaging and reproducible event that can be expanded beyond WPI to other universities. The mission had two main objectives: create resources and plans for introducing 3D Printing and Computer Aided Design (CAD) and run a successful combat robotics hackathon event. The hackathon event was run in A term 2018 and was a great success. The forty-five participants made fifteen robots by the end of the weekend. Most of the participants improved their 3D printing and CAD skills and all of them enjoyed the hackathon
A Comparison of Platform Configurations for Robotics Development within ROS2, Raspberry Pi, andWebots
Background: The field of robotics continues to expand with new, progressive technologies. The vast ecosystem of robotics, with its countless routes, is initially challenging to navigate. It is even more so during a season of virtual instruction. Creating strategic entrance points for the incoming students merits consideration. Purpose: Our aim is to provide a way for students to explore three critical areas in robotics: the physical robot (hardware), the simulated robot (digital twin), and the operating system and code (controller). Method: We explore options for integrating two advanced robot development frameworks (i.e. Robot Operating System 2 (ROS2) and Webots) in combination with the widely used beginners computing platform (i.e. Raspberry Pi) to facilitate introducing students to the field of robotics, while also providing them a path to advanced robot topics. Results: Two configurations for integrating ROS2, Webots, and the Raspberry Pi are presented. The advantages and concerns for each are discussed, along with pointers for mitigating concerns. Conclusion: The integration of these frameworks and platform, along with virtualizing the physical robot as a digital twin, opens a gateway for students to enter the field of robotics. We also envision our ideas supporting paths for improving online distance learning, developing robot networks, and reducing field testing time
Advancing Robotics at the Harry Fultz Institute
This project advanced the robotics club at the Harry Fultz Institute in Tirana, Albania by applying various teaching methods, including self-directed learning and group work. We worked alongside Professor Enxhi Jaupi and 6 teams of 5 high school students to understand, design, and construct robots to complete complex tasks. During this time, students were taught fundamental concepts of robotics, such as DC motors, computer-aided design (CAD), and programming. The biggest obstacle to project completion remained the long shipping time for parts. Two solutions proposed to address the long delay in part arrival are pre-selecting student projects or structuring the club around a final competition. The main future goal is to establish the school as the center of robotics in Albania
MaestROB: A Robotics Framework for Integrated Orchestration of Low-Level Control and High-Level Reasoning
This paper describes a framework called MaestROB. It is designed to make the
robots perform complex tasks with high precision by simple high-level
instructions given by natural language or demonstration. To realize this, it
handles a hierarchical structure by using the knowledge stored in the forms of
ontology and rules for bridging among different levels of instructions.
Accordingly, the framework has multiple layers of processing components;
perception and actuation control at the low level, symbolic planner and Watson
APIs for cognitive capabilities and semantic understanding, and orchestration
of these components by a new open source robot middleware called Project Intu
at its core. We show how this framework can be used in a complex scenario where
multiple actors (human, a communication robot, and an industrial robot)
collaborate to perform a common industrial task. Human teaches an assembly task
to Pepper (a humanoid robot from SoftBank Robotics) using natural language
conversation and demonstration. Our framework helps Pepper perceive the human
demonstration and generate a sequence of actions for UR5 (collaborative robot
arm from Universal Robots), which ultimately performs the assembly (e.g.
insertion) task.Comment: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2018.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19JsdZi0TW
Part 1 - Overview and tools
The embedded systems (ES) formation require a broader set of knowledge, abilities and skills including informatics and electronics concepts in order to develop highly creative and imaginative applications based in analytical studies. Moreover, in an effort to improve the education quality it needs to be followed with intense hands-on laboratories. This paper presents a new approach for embedded systems courses appropriate for both high school and undergraduate classrooms, that has been conceived and designed to accomplish these goals, while motivating and equipping this next generation of engineers to rise to future challenges. The course structure was defined in order to be easy to understand and provide a logical flow along the topics, as it mostly progresses from simple topics to more advanced ones. The developed materials include slides for class room teaching, explanatory documents for student and educators future reference, laboratories, tests, programs and application examples after each chapter. Each module is dedicated to a specific aspect of the MSP430 device, including the description of a range of peripherals. This is the first part of the paper presenting the outline of the course. Particularly, this paper identifies the course need, presents its structure, and the initial subjects covering an introductory overview in logic design and embedded processors and a description of the available
software and hardware development tools for the MSP430.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Implementing teacher-centered robotics activities in science lessons: The effect on motivation, satisfaction and science skills
In studies on the use of robotic in science education, students are generally expected to design and program robots in specially designed robotic laboratories and during extracurricular activities. Although researchers claim that the student-centered approach and active student participation is more effective, teachers generally have to apply traditional teaching strategies in the field of science education due to the high number of students, a lack of materials, insufficient time and lack of professional teaching skills. Robotics activities can be performed in a traditional classroom environment and within a teacher-centered lesson structure. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of teacher-centered robotics activities performed in science lessons on students' motivation, to determine their satisfaction with the activities and to collect their opinions about the activities. A parallel mixed-methods design was used for data collection. The results of the study indicated that teacher-centered robotics activities increased the motivation of students to participate in science lessons. Moreover, when the interviews with the students were examined, all of them commented that engaging in robotics activities improved their science skills. In addition, the majority of students were satisfied with the robotics activities and had positive feelings about them, believing that they helped them to learn and were enjoyable and interesting
First exposure to Arduino through peer-coaching: Impact on students' attitudes towards programming
In this paper we report the work that jeKnowledge (Júnior Empresa da Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologias da Universidade de Coimbra), a student-led initiative, has done in the ‘jeKnowledge academy’ courses to actively engage Portuguese high-school students in STEM education through hands-on projects based on the low-cost Arduino platform. F2F activities, based on a peer-assisted learning strategy, were complemented with tutorials and more advanced project suggestions in a blog. Pre and post surveys on students'' attitudes towards programming and peer-coaching were administered to pre-university and first year college participants, finding an overall increase in the Likert scale for all the programming-related constructs under study (confidence, interest, gender, usefulness and professional) after the introductory course. As regards the peer-based learning approach, younger students seemed to be more eager to be taught in a less formal way than their older counterparts. The course resulted in high degrees of satisfaction for both the student tutors and their tutees
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