Learning with Yourself: a Tangible Twin Robot System to Promote STEM Education

Abstract

This paper presents a customized programmable robotic system, TanTwin (Tangible Twin), designed to promote STEM education for K-12 children. Firstly, TanTwin is implemented based on a wheel-robot with standard LEGO bricks. With several deep neural networks, a child can convert a captured portrait of himself/herself into standard LEGO bricks, therefore he/she can build a tangible twin robot of him-selflherself automatically. Besides, to adapt to the customized appearance, the corresponding visual element and content of the robotic system were also changed by a rule-based adaption algorithm. To demonstrate the effectiveness of TanTwin and to investigate whether tangible twin robots could contribute to children's learning, we conducted a controlled experimental study to compare learning with a TanTwin and with a standard robot system through measuring students' cognitive learning outcomes. The pre-/post- knowledge test results indicated that learning with a tangible twin robot leads to significantly better learning outcomes. Given the results, we validate our system and customization technology can promote STEM education.