The principles of Educational Robotic Applications (ERA): a framework for understanding and developing educational robots and their activities

The original educational robots were the Logo Turtles. They derived their rationale from constructionism. How has this changed? This paper postulates ten principles that underpin the effective utilisation of robotic devices within education settings. We argue that they form a framework still sympathetic to constructionism that can guide the development, application and evaluation of educational robots. They articulate a summary of the existing knowledge as well as suggesting further avenues of research that may be shared by educationists and designers. The principles also provide an evaluative framework for Educational Robotic Applications (ERA). This paper is an overview of the ideas, which we will develop in future papers

ИНФОРМАТИЗАЦИЯ ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ В СИСТЕМЕ ОТДЫХА И ОЗДОРОВЛЕНИЯ ДЕТЕЙ КАК СПОСОБ РАЗВИТИЯ РОБОТОТЕХНИКИ

At present, informatization of education is gradually gaining increased applicability in the process of education development. Due to the accelerated rate of science and technologies development, versatile specialists implementing new types of technologies, flexible to tendencies and up-to-date information, who come to their own conclusions and qualified to absorb new skills are appeared to be in-demand in modern society. Educational robotics is a developing field of national domestic education which provides a solid foundation for systems thinking, integration of computer science, mathematics, and natural sciences into engineering creativity. Informatization of education gained through the fulfillment of intellectual and creative children’ potential revealed by means of robotics and resulted in motivation, individualization, social engagement. The present issue is considered from the point of view of extracurricular activities established with due regard to theoretical and methodological background of information technologies accomplishment in the global educational field and experimentally determined advantages of robotics development in children’ health care and recreation system. The present survey embodies observation, practical results, analysis aimed at the development of creative activity, inventive skills. It allows us empirically prove the effectiveness of the implementation of robotics classes in the form of hobby clubs in children’ health care and recreation system. The data obtained reflect receptive audience of youngsters being interested in robotics-related classes which has become an integral part of children’ health care and recreation system. The children were excited while visiting the robotics-related classes throughout the children's recreation camp shift. During classes they tried their best in learning and put their knowledge into practice, as a consequence, different, types of robots have been developed. Robotics-related classes as an integral part of children’ health care and recreation system facilitate inventive and creative skills development.En la actualidad, la informatización de la educación está ganando gradualmente una mayor aplicabilidad en el proceso de desarrollo de la educación. Debido a la velocidad acelerada del desarrollo de la ciencia y las tecnologías, los especialistas versátiles que implementan nuevos tipos de tecnologías, flexibles a las tendencias e información actualizada, que llegan a sus propias conclusiones y están calificados para absorber nuevas habilidades, parecen estar en demanda en la sociedad moderna. La robótica educativa es un campo en desarrollo de la educación doméstica nacional que proporciona una base sólida para el pensamiento de sistemas, la integración de la informática, las matemáticas y las ciencias naturales en la creatividad de ingeniería. La informatización de la educación obtenida a través del cumplimiento del potencial intelectual y creativo de los niños se reveló mediante la robótica y resultó en motivación, individualización, compromiso social. El tema actual se considera desde el punto de vista de las actividades extracurriculares establecidas teniendo en cuenta los antecedentes teóricos y metodológicos del logro de las tecnologías de la información en el campo educativo global y las ventajas determinadas experimentalmente del desarrollo robótico en el sistema de recreación y cuidado de la salud de los niños. La presente encuesta incluye observación, resultados prácticos, análisis dirigidos al desarrollo de la actividad creativa, habilidades inventivas. Nos permite probar empíricamente la efectividad de la implementación de clases de robótica en forma de clubes de pasatiempos en el sistema de cuidado de la salud y recreación de los niños. Los datos obtenidos reflejan una audiencia receptiva de jóvenes interesados en clases relacionadas con la robótica, que se ha convertido en una parte integral del sistema de cuidado de la salud y recreación de los niños. Los niños estaban emocionados mientras visitaban las clases relacionadas con la robótica en todo el turno de campamento de recreación para niños. Durante las clases, hicieron todo lo posible por aprender y pusieron en práctica sus conocimientos. Como consecuencia, se han desarrollado diferentes tipos de robots. Las clases relacionadas con la robótica como parte integral del sistema de recreación y cuidado de la salud de los niños facilitan el desarrollo de habilidades inventivas y creativas.В настоящее время в процессе развития системы образования становится актуальной проблема информатизации образования. В связи с высокими темпами развития науки и техники, в современном обществе возникает острая потребность в специалистах, способных работать с новыми видами технологий, быстро ориентироваться в обстановке и изучении актуального материала, обладающих вариативностью, способных мыслить самостоятельно и быстро усваивать новые знания. Образовательная робототехника является развивающимся направлением развития отечественного образования, закладывающий прочные основы системного мышления, интеграции информатики, математики, естественных наук с развитием инженерного творчества. Информатизация образования через раскрытие интеллектуального и творческого потенциала детей с использованием возможностей робототехники. обеспечивающей мотивацию, индивидуализацию, социализацию. Теоретико-методологическая база применения информационных технологий в мировом образовательном пространстве и доказательства опытно-экспериментальным путем преимущества развития робототехники в системе отдыха и оздоровления детей позволяет рассмотреть данную проблему во внеучебной деятельности. Основу исследования составляют методы наблюдения, упражнения, анализа, направленные на развитие творческой активности, изобретательских навыков, экспериментальные методы позволяют нам эмпирическим путем доказать эффективность внедрения в систему отдыха и оздоровления детей занятий по робототехнике на уровне хобби-клубов. На основе полученных данных можно сделать вывод о том, что робототехника вызвала огромный интерес у подрастающего поколения в системе отдыха и оздоровления детей. Ребята были заинтересованы посещением хобби-клуба по робототехнике на протяжении всей лагерной смены, пытались как можно больше узнать и применить полученные знания на практике, что характеризовалось созданием новых интересных и, довольно, сложных видов роботов. Занятия по робототехнике в системе отдыха и оздоровления детей дает положительный результат, способствует развитию творческих и изобретательских навыко

Multi Agent Systems

Research on multi-agent systems is enlarging our future technical capabilities as humans and as an intelligent society. During recent years many effective applications have been implemented and are part of our daily life. These applications have agent-based models and methods as an important ingredient. Markets, finance world, robotics, medical technology, social negotiation, video games, big-data science, etc. are some of the branches where the knowledge gained through multi-agent simulations is necessary and where new software engineering tools are continuously created and tested in order to reach an effective technology transfer to impact our lives. This book brings together researchers working in several fields that cover the techniques, the challenges and the applications of multi-agent systems in a wide variety of aspects related to learning algorithms for different devices such as vehicles, robots and drones, computational optimization to reach a more efficient energy distribution in power grids and the use of social networks and decision strategies applied to the smart learning and education environments in emergent countries. We hope that this book can be useful and become a guide or reference to an audience interested in the developments and applications of multi-agent systems

Design study of an earthquake rescue robot

This thesis describes the design of a brush robot for earthquake rescue and for traversing pipes with varied cross sectional shape. Earthquake rescue is a very dangerous, difficult and challenging task, in which emergency services rescue people who are trapped in man-made structures, such as collapsed buildings after an earthquake. The building collapse may have been caused by natural or man-made events. This technology is also applicable to tunnel collapse and land slips. The focus of this work is finding the location of victims and provision of primary life support and communications. To illustrate the concept of the robot, the thesis first discusses the current development of rescue robots and pipe robots. Then the thesis focuses on the description of a brush based pipe robot, developed by the University of Durham, which would be used as the basis of an earthquake rescue robot. The concept of the robot was illustrated and compared with other current rescue robots and pipe robots. After outlining the advantages of this robot concept, a robot body shape change theory was proposed and theoretical simulations were used to verily the practicality of the robot shape change theory. The thesis also illustrates the design of the working principle and design of a robot sensor, which was subsequently used in the robot shape change experiments. The robot body shape change experiments and the experimental results are described and discussed. The experimental results illustrate the robot concept and support the robot body shape change theory. Chapter 6 focuses on the brush unit traction investigation, bristle theory and mathematical model. Furthermore, the bristle theory and mathematical model were used to explain the variation of traction force in the traction experiments

A hands-on manufacturing curriculum for high school students

The UTeachEngineering program in the Cockrell School of Engineering of The University of Texas at Austin has developed a high school engineering curriculum, Engineer Your World (EYW), with the intent of interesting students in pursuing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers. However, EYW currently contains no curriculum modules on manufacturing. In fact, a literature review shows very few high school manufacturing curricula, and these typically require state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities, thus making the curricula unaffordable to many schools. Thus, there is a need to develop a new manufacturing curriculum module to provide all schools with the opportunity to teach the breadth of the core concepts of manufacturing without being limited by constraints, such as finance, materials, facilities, etc. This thesis presents the details of such a module. The hands-on approach for teaching manufacturing bridges the gap between theory and practice. Students first learn manufacturing techniques in detail, and then manufacture a simple product using simple setups designed to provide concrete experience with a particular manufacturing process. The hypothesis is that, after completing the module, students’ understanding of manufacturing is increased compared to that before the module. This thesis describes the curriculum and its evaluation. The capstone module of the curriculum features an inexpensive surrogate manufacturing machine that can be assembled quickly by teachers or students to provide hands-on experience. The capstone module of the curriculum was tested with students from an engineering class in a high school in Austin, TX, USA. A pre-test/post test was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum. It was found that the curriculum was simple to understand and implement and also provided insights into manufacturing which are similar to what could be attained with a module using more expensive manufacturing equipment.Mechanical Engineerin

A theoretical and practical approach to a persuasive agent model for change behaviour in oral care and hygiene

There is an increased use of the persuasive agent in behaviour change interventions due to the agent‘s features of sociable, reactive, autonomy, and proactive. However, many interventions have been unsuccessful, particularly in the domain of oral care. The psychological reactance has been identified as one of the major reasons for these unsuccessful behaviour change interventions. This study proposes a formal persuasive agent model that leads to psychological reactance reduction in order to achieve an improved behaviour change intervention in oral care and hygiene. Agent-based simulation methodology is adopted for the development of the proposed model. Evaluation of the model was conducted in two phases that include verification and validation. The verification process involves simulation trace and stability analysis. On the other hand, the validation was carried out using user-centred approach by developing an agent-based application based on belief-desire-intention architecture. This study contributes an agent model which is made up of interrelated cognitive and behavioural factors. Furthermore, the simulation traces provide some insights on the interactions among the identified factors in order to comprehend their roles in behaviour change intervention. The simulation result showed that as time increases, the psychological reactance decreases towards zero. Similarly, the model validation result showed that the percentage of respondents‘ who experienced psychological reactance towards behaviour change in oral care and hygiene was reduced from 100 percent to 3 percent. The contribution made in this thesis would enable agent application and behaviour change intervention designers to make scientific reasoning and predictions. Likewise, it provides a guideline for software designers on the development of agent-based applications that may not have psychological reactance