INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITIES •

Educational Robotics—Primary and Secondary Education

By Damien Kee

The use of robotics in educa-tion, in particular primary andsecondary education, has seena rapid growth over the last

few years. The hands-on approach,coupled with accessible and affordablerobot kits, has greatly aided the teachingof science, technology, engineering, andmathematics (STEM) concepts withinthe curriculum.

The use of robots in the classroomspans a wide variety of topics, of whichonly a snapshot of what is possible isprovided here:l mathematics of gearingl levers, pulleys, and simple machinesl electronicsl sensors and actuatorsl software flowcharting and artificial

intelligencel dataloggingl automated systems.

Three of the robot kits have beenwidely used by Fischertechnik, VEX,and LEGO (Figure 1).

More information can be found attheir respective Web sites:l VEX: http://www.vexrobotics.com/l LEGO Mindstorms: http://mind

storms.lego.coml Fischertechnik: http://www.fischer

technik.de/en/.

AlternativesAlternatives to these popular kits fallinto two categories: expensive/modularand inexpensive/single configuration.l Expensive/modular kits such as the

Kondo (kondo-robot.com/EN) andBioloid (robotis.com/xe/bioloid_en)kits have impressive specificationswith sophisticated processors inter-facing to, and in some cases, a dozenservomotors and multiple sensors.The modular nature allows the kits tobe assembled in a variety of configu-rations to explore a wide range of edu-cational concepts. Typical budgetaryconstraints present in the vast major-ity of schools limit the use of these.

l Inexpensive/single configuration ro-bots prove far more popular in thecost-sensitive education market buttypically have only one predominantconfiguration. Although there is nodoubt that there are significant educa-tional outcomes possible, the lack ofphysical modularity tends to restrictthe type of activities possible. The Cre-ate Roomba from iRobot (spark.iro-bot.com) and BoeBot (parallax.com/go/boebot) are two such examples.Although all educational robotics

kits service a particular section of thecurriculum, the LEGO Mindstorm sys-tem is arguably the most commonlyused. It has the easiest learning curve ofall systems, hiding away complex cir-cuits and electronics, to allow students

to concentrate on mechanical buildingand high-level software programming.The modular nature allows it to bereconfigured into an almost unlimitednumber of different configurations.

HardwareThe current LEGO Mindstorms systemprovides a central processing unit capa-ble of three outputs and four inputs.Geared dc servomotors with encodersalong with touch, sound, light, and ultra-sonic sensors are provided as standardwith the base kit. Additional outputs andinputs are available for third-party ven-dors such as servomotor controllers anda variety of sensors (Figure 2) (pH, accel-erometer, dynamometers, color, etc.).

SoftwareThere are several software languagesthat can communicate with the Mind-storms system, and LEGO encouragespeople to develop their own. However,the official software is built on LabViewand incorporates a graphical user inter-face. This approach makes it intuitive tostudents and can be used for studentsof eight years and younger (Figure 3).

Implementation in anEducational SettingThere are two significant approachesused to implement robotics in an edu-cational setting. They are discussed inthe following subsections.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2011.943231

Date of publication: 8 December 2011

16 • IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2011

•Editorial CommentsRobots have become a widely used teaching tool for children ranging from the primary grades through secondary school. Educationalprograms have spawned extracurricular robotics competitions such as RoboCup Junior and First Lego League, which now involve thou-sands of kids worldwide. Many of the educational curricula and competitions involve a specific robot base or robots with a whole libraryof prefabricated parts, all manufactured by a single company. Freelance writer Damien Kee describes how these products havebecome embedded in the educational market.

Alex Zelinsky

Embedded Withinthe CurriculumRobotics provides the opportunity tolearn a wide variety of STEM concepts

(see above) that are required by curric-ulums around the world. By using therobot as a tool in a specific lesson plan,educators are able to actively engageand motivate their students, givingtangible and observable representa-tions of the concepts they are teaching.For example, the concept of pi be-comes far more relevant to studentswhen they are required to move theirrobot to a certain distance.

Extracurricular ActivityIn addition to its direct use in the cur-riculum, robotics has also found its

place as an extracurricular activity inlunchtime or after-school clubs. Thesetend to be less explicitly focused onthe curriculum and more focused onthe creation of a final product, be itfor a competition or for a display anddemonstration to the student’s imme-diate community.

CompetitionsThe First LEGO League (FLL) andRoboCupJunior are two significanteducation competitions that focus onrobotics. The FLL restricts the compet-itors to the LEGO robotics products

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(a) (b) (c)

Figure 1. Three robot kits: (a) VEX, (b) Fischertechnik, and (c) LEGO Mindstorms. (Photo courtesy of Steven Canvin from LEGO Mindstorms.)

Figure 2. Main LEGO Mindstormshardware.

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18 • IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2011

and sets an annually changing seriesof challenges for the students to solve(move a piece here, switch a leverthere, and collect several pieces andreturn to base). Each year, a sociallyrelevant theme is used, and in additionto the robot part of the competition,students are expected and encouragedto undertake a research project in thatparticular field.

RoboCup Junior offers three mainleagues in which the students can com-pete: dancing robots, rescue robots, andsoccer robots. These challenges do notchange significantly from year to year,and students are constantly being moti-vated to improve their robots. Any robotsystem is allowed; however, it is com-mon for the participants to start usingthe LEGO Mindstorms system beforemoving onto more complex systems.

Additional ReadingThis article only scratches the surface ofthe possibilities and applications of ro-botics in education. For more informa-tion, please investigate the following links.

l Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Academy:http://www.education.rec.ri.cmu.edu/

l Tuft’s Center for Engineering Edu-cation and Outreach: http://www.ceeo.tufts.edu/

l FLL: http://www.firstlegoleague.org/

l RoboCup Junior: http://www.rcj.robocup.org/.

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Figure 3. An NXT-G software.

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION SOCIETY•OFFICERSPresidentKazuhiro Kosuge,Tohoku University (Japan)

President-ElectDavid E. Orin,The Ohio State University, USA

Past PresidentBruno Siciliano,Universit�a di Napoli Federico II (Italy)

Founding PresidentGeorge Saridis, 1931–2006

Vice President,Publications ActivitiesPeter Luh,University of Connecticut (USA)

Vice President,Conference ActivitiesNikolaos Papanikolopoulos,University of Minnesota (USA)

Vice President,Financial ActivitiesWilliam R. Hamel,University of Tennessee, Knoxville (USA)

Vice President,Industrial ActivitiesAlex Zelinsky,CSIRO (Australia)

Vice President,Member ActivitiesStefano Stramigioli,University of Twente (TheNetherlands)

Vice President,Technical ActivitiesJohn M. Hollerbach,University of Utah (USA)

TreasurerXiaoping Yun,Naval Postgraduate School (USA)

SecretaryKevin Lynch,Northwestern University (USA)

IEEE Division XDirectorVincenzo Piuri,University of Milan

Editor-in-Chief, IEEE Trans. onAutomation Science & EngineeringNukala Viswanadham, Indian Schoolof Business (India)

Editor-in-Chief, IEEE Transactions onRoboticsSeth Hutchinson, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign (USA)

Editor-in-Chief, IEEE Robotics &Automation MagazinePeter I. Corke, Queensland Universityof Technology, Brisbane (Australia)

IEEE International Conference onRobotics and AutomationGeneral Chair, ICRA 2011Zexiang Li, Hong Kong University ofScience & Technology (China)

Program Chair, ICRA 2011Yuan Fang Zheng, The Ohio StateUniversity (USA)

General Chair, ICRA 2012N. Papanikolopoulos, University ofMinnesota (USA)

Program Chair, ICRA 2012Paul Oh, Drexel University

ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEETerms ending in 2011Nancy AmatoTexas A&M University (USA)

Fumihito AraiTohoku University (Japan)

Antonio BicchiUniversity of Pisa (Italy)

Aude BillardEPFL (Switzerland)

Hideki HashimotoUniversity of Tokyo (Japan)

C.S. George LeePurdue University (USA)

Terms ending in 2012Martin BussTechnical University of Munich(Germany)

Vijay KumarUniversity of Pennsylvania (USA)

Danica KragicKTH, School of Computer Science andCommunication (Sweden)

Jean-Paul LaumondLAAS-CNRS, Gepetto Lab (France)

Hugh Durrant-WhyteThe University of Sydney (Australia)

Jing XiaoUniversity of North Carolina—Charlotte (USA)

Terms ending in 2013Peter Ian CorkeQueensland University ofTechnology, Australia

Toshio FukudaNagoya University, Japan

Cecilia LaschiScuola Superiore Sant’Anna, ARTSLab (Italy)

Bradley J. NelsonETH Zurich, Switzerland

Lynne E. ParkerUniversity of Tennessee-Knoxville (USA)

Shigeki SuganoWaseda University, Japan

Student Member

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DECEMBER 2011 • IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE • 19