QuadLab: A Project-Based Learning Toolkit for Automation and Robotics Engineering Education

It is frequently claimed that the students must have an active role in building and transforming their own knowledge, and the teacher's labor is to provide the students the necessary tools in order to reach specific learning objectives, included in a course program. This paper presents an aerial robotic system as a toolkit, and proposes a series of activities focused on the learning in automation and robotics. These proposed activities have been designed based upon the project-based learning methodology, and they facilitate the achievement of the learning objectives presented by Spanish automation committee(CEA) in conjunction with The International Society of Automation (ISA) to satisfy the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) standard. The toolkit and the activities are oriented to impulse the practical teaching, giving the student additional motivation and, in consequence, improving his or her active role. Besides, the toolkit and the activities give the teacher a tool in which it is possible to assess the students learning process

QuadLab : a Project-Based Learning Toolkit for Automation and Robotics Engineering Education

It is frequently claimed that the students must have an active role in building and transforming their own knowledge, and the teacher's labor is to provide the students the necessary tools in order to reach specific learning objectives, included in a course program. This paper presents an aerial robotic system as a toolkit, and proposes a series of activities focused on the learning in automation and robotics. These proposed activities have been designed based upon the project-based learning methodology, and they facilitate the achievement of the learning objectives presented by Spanish automation committee(CEA) in conjunction with The International Society of Automation (ISA) to satisfy the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) standard. The toolkit and the activities are oriented to impulse the practical teaching, giving the student additional motivation and, in consequence, improving his or her active role. Besides, the toolkit and the activities give the teacher a tool in which it is possible to assess the students learning process.This work was supported by the Robotics and Cybernetics Group at Technical University of Madrid (Spain), and funded under the projects ROTOS: Multi-robot system for outdoor infrastructures protection, sponsored by SpainMinistry of Education and Science (DPI2010-17998), and ROBOCITY 2030, sponsored by the Community of Madrid (S-0505/DPI/000235)

Teaching image and video processing with a practical cases-based methodology at the University of Alicante

At universities, the courses about computer vision and image processing have been usually taught using a classical methodology based on textbooks, notes and practical exercises which are explained on a blackboard, although sometimes the teachers use video projector and PC presentations for showing slides with static contents; mainly slides with text, figures and photos. However, this teaching model is focused in teacher instead of students and consequently, this approach is not effective when the teacher seeks to achieve cognitive objectives which involve a student's critical thinking. That is, student should be able to develop skills such as acquired knowledge about how filters, operators, methods and techniques for image processing are implemented by computer vision software libraries. Besides, student should be motived to use that background in order to solve practical and real problems in which it is advisable both a study and an analysis of features based on image processing. This manuscript will present the development, implementation, and assessment of a practical-cases-based engineering course, more specifically in image and video processing course at the University of Alicante. All course lectures and hands-on laboratory activities have the main goal that student acquires not only image-specific technical skills but also general knowledge in data analysis to discover phenomena in pixel regions of images and video frames. This way, our teaching-learning process accomplishes both knowledge assimilation and skill developments using a strategy continuous evaluation. In addition, this work will present a learning analysis based on a comparison of student results by considering the prior knowledge (at the beginning) and acquired knowledge as well as experience (at the end of the course) in issues related to specific subject. The image and video processing course is a compulsory subject of Degree in Multimedia Engineering at the University of Alicante, in Spain. It is taught during 14-week period of the third academic year and it also has a workload of 6 ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) distributed as 30 hours of computer and laboratory practices and 30 hours of theory class. Nowadays, 80 students are enrolled in this course

Design of human-robot tasks in academic environment

Este artículo expone la necesidad de adaptación del currículo universitario a las nuevas tecnologías, en concreto en aspectos de robótica colaborativa. Y se incide cómo, a través de la disciplina interacción persona-ordenador, es posible aportar aspectos de diseño de interacción con la finalidad de mejorar el rendimiento de sistemas persona-robot. La principal contribución de este artículo es el contexto interdisciplinar, que transcurre inicialmente desde la ergonomía e interacción para fusionarse con aspectos de ingeniería y tecnología.This article exposes the need to adapt the University curriculum to new technologies, in particular collaborative robotics. In addition, this article shows how, through the field of human-computer interaction, it is possible to provide interaction design approach with the purpose of improving the performance of human-robot systems. The main contribution of this article is an interdisciplinary context, which initially goes from ergonomics and interaction to merge with engineering and technology aspects.El desarrollo de este trabajo ha sido posible con el soporte económico del programa ERDF Operational Program of Catalonia 2014-2020.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version