Medical Robotics in K-12 Education

摘要

Medibotics, the merging of medicine, robotics, and Information Technology, is a program that uses LEGO™ Mindstorms for school kits with NXT software to introduce students and teachers to engineering and Information Technology through the use of robotics. The curriculum, developed for the Medibotics program, was a collaboration of university faculty and secondary school teachers, incorporating Information Technology, engineering, and robotics into classroom lessons by teaching students to design and build robots to solve biomedical engineering problems. Teachers receive intensive professional development in the integration of the Medibotics curriculum and the robotics kits into their classroom instruction and in methods to develop standards-based lesson plans as the curricula are aligned with the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards (NJCCCS) and national standards in science and mathematics. A workbook of lessons for building robots to perform simulated computer-assisted surgeries, with elements of actual medical procedures, has been developed. This chapter describes the rationale behind this program, its structure, and evaluation.