Igor M. Verner

Fire-fighting mobile robotics and interdisciplinary design-comparative perspectives

The objective of this paper is to illustrate the benefits of an autonomous fire-fighting robot design competition as an effective tool for undergraduate education. It presents experiences at the United States Air Force Academy, USAF Academy, CO; Pennsylvania State University-Abington; and Trinity College, Hartford, CT, together with the results of the contest surveys conducted in collaboration with The Technion*Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa. The primary goal of the design project is to create an autonomous mobile robot that navigates through a maze searching for a fire (simulated by a burning candle), detects the candles flame, extinguishes the flame, and returns to a designated starting location in the maze. The fire-fighting design contest promotes interdisciplinary design and teamwork. To accomplish the stated goal, students must integrate knowledge gained from such classes as engineering design, circuits, controls, signals and systems, computer programming, mathematics, and engineering mechanics. Within the three institutions, the contest has been successfully utilized as a foundation for a wide range of educational goals. These activities include freshman design, robotics courses, K-12 outreach, senior design projects, and undergraduate research.

Robot contest as a laboratory for experiential engineering education

By designing, building, and operating autonomous robots students learn key engineering subjects and develop systems-thinking, problem-solving, and teamwork skills. Such events as the Trinity College Fire-Fighting Home Robot Contest (TCFFHRC) offer rich opportunities for students to apply their skills by requiring design, and implementation of autonomous robots that are tested during competition. Started in 2003, the TCFFHRC Robotics Olympiad offers junior-high and high school students, working alone or in teams, to demonstrate their knowledge by taking a challenging 50-minute written examination in four key areas related to robotics: mechanics, sensors, software, and electronics. The Olympiad comprises a second evaluation medium that supplements a regular contest survey, which has been in place since 1999. The contest survey solicits information about motivation and progress in subject areas from all contest participants--a large and diverse group that includes junior-high and high school students, working engineers, university students, and team supervisors/guides. As a further evaluation step, we have conducted supplementary case studies of courses and curricula at Trinity College and at the Technion. Assessment indicates that the TCFFHRC has achieved its primary goal: to foster and improve robotics education on an international scale.

Progress in Robotics

This volume is a selection of papers of six international conferences that are held under the umbrella of the 12th FIRA RoboWorld congress, in Incheon, Korea, August 16-18, 2009. From the 115 contributed papers 44 papers are included in the volume, which is organized into 6 sections: humanoid robotics, human robot interaction, education and entertainment, cooperative robotics, robotic system design, and learning, optimization, communication. The volume is intended to provide readers with the recent technical progresses in robotics, human robot interactions, cooperative robotics and the related fields.

Educational Robotics: An Insight into Systems Engineering

SUMMARY The need for engineering educators to influence reform of science-technology education in schools and, especially, contribute in stating technology as a new school subject is argued. The approaches to applying systems theory in education are outlined. An introductory ‘Robotics and Real Time Control Systems’ course has been developed as a possible approach to systems education and insight into engineering. The course concept and the master plan, based on the ‘threaded’ metacurricular approach, are proposed. The stages of design process for the course curriculum are considered. The course has been implemented in a number of high schools in Israel. An example of one project performed by a student team is presented.

ROBOT MANIPULATIONS: A SYNERGY OF VISUALIZATION, COMPUTATION AND ACTION FOR SPATIAL INSTRUCTION

This article considers the use of a learning environment, RoboCell, where manipulations of objects are performed by robot operations specified through the learners application of mathematical and spatial reasoning. A curriculum is proposed relating to robot kinematics and point-to-point motion, rotation of objects, and robotic assembly of spatial puzzles. Various instructional methods are supported by the RoboCell robot system, such as interactive demonstrations, modeling, computer simulations and robot operations, providing diverse activities in spatial perception, mental rotation and visualization. Pre-course and post-course tests in two middle schools and a high school indicated significant student progress in the tasks related to the categories of spatial ability which were practiced in the course.

Elementary science lesson delivered by robot

This paper juxtaposes science lessons on the topic “Levers” given to two sixth grade classes, one in a Tokyo elementary school assisted by an android robot SAYA, and the other at the science museum MadaTech in Haifa aided by a humanoid RoboThespian. The one hour lessons had the same outline including theoretical explanation, in-group experiments with lever balances, and assessment activities. The classes were instructed and managed by the robot-teachers through preprogrammed behaviors and remote operation. We juxtapose the features of the educational interaction in the lessons elicited by using the same questionnaire, assessment test and video analysis.

Machine Control – A Design and Technology Discipline in Israel's Senior High Schools

This paper presents a concept of the Machine Control discipline developed through the past decade as part of the technological education reform in Israel. The discipline has been widely implemented in senior high schools as an optional matriculation subject. Principles, contents, experience, evaluation and challenges of the curriculum are discussed. Specific features of the discipline in rural, technological and general school environments are presented and illustrated by examples. Arguments in support of a cross-national comparison of specific technology programs are given.

Conceptualising Educational Approaches in Introductory Robotics

This paper considers ‘Introduction to Engineering Design–Mobile Robotics,’ a first year course in the undergraduate engineering programme at Trinity College. A highlight of the course is a team-based semester-long project in which students design and build fire-fighting robots and participate in the international robot competition. Course contents, hands-on learning experiences, and assessment methods are described. Course assessment and evaluation showed that it exposed first-year students to practical and philosophical dimensions of engineering design, successfully addressed many basic ABET outcomes, and elicited a positive student reaction.

Educational features of robot contests: the RoboCup-98 survey

Typical features of entry-, junior- and advanced-level robot contests are presented. The RoboCup educational survey method is considered. Characteristic data on the team members, their activities and motivation to participate in the program, as indicated by the questionnaire results, are discussed. New initiatives directly related to education are derived.

ROBOT PROJECTS AND COMPETITIONS AS EDUCATION DESIGN EXPERIMENTS

This paper proposes the Education Design Experiment (EDE) as an instructional framework for robotics education and demonstrates how it is implemented in the Trinity College Fire-Fighting Home Robot Contest (TCFFHRC) projects. The overarching goal of the EDE is to examine how best to implement, evaluate, and conceptualize the robotics education process while designing, building and operating robot systems in the learning environment. We discuss experiential cycles in which evaluation of robot contest projects leads to upgrading contest assignments which inspire teams to develop innovative, new fire-fighting robots. The paper presents results of the 2004 and 2005 TCFFHRC surveys and theoretical Olympiad, the new challenging assignments offered by the 2005 contest rules and their implementation in the new robot systems developed by students at Trinity.