Effective Practices In Robotics Education

Abstract

Linked to the authors' 2004 ASEE Annual Conference CoEd workshop on Educational Robotics, this paper evaluates educational strategies and activities from the perspective of four engineering educators who have extensive first-hand experience in integrating robotics in the curriculumfrom first year courses through senior design projects-and in assessing the educational impact of robotics projects and competitions. We show that one particular assignment, the development of autonomous mobile robots, ties together interdisciplinary design, experiential learning, teamwork assessment and other topical educational subjects in powerful and unique ways. We identify best practices taken from our experiences, focusing on (a) undergraduate experiences in fire-fighting robotics and in the AUVSI Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition; (b) integrating robotics into the first year engineering design courses, advanced research project teams, and senior design projects; (c) robot design as a medium to promote teamwork; (d) methods of evaluation and assessment of robotics curricula and projects; and (e) recent trends in robot hardware and software for education.