Turning Competitions into Global Collaboration through Educational Robotics (original) (raw)

Winning Robotics Competition Strategy: Theory of Creating Projects in Robotics Education

R&E-SOURCE

The subject of robotics in education has a significant impact on the development of skills of students. Studying the main factors motivating robotics to participate in competitions, project competitions, and win prizes is always relevant. There are many competitions in robotics. In particular, one of the competitions for developing robotics in education is WRO. However, it is essential to know and research several factors that can lead to a place in a competition and support young coaches and participants. Higher education institutions that already have courses in educational robotics can benefit from the proposed approach, which allows them to develop new projects with robotics elements.

ROBOTICS EDUCATION, LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIONS FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS STUDENTS: WHY ARE WE LEFT BEHIND

Proceeding of the 4th International Palandoken Scientific Studies Congress. 28- 29th April 2022, Ankara / Turkey, 2022

Computers have gotten more affordable, faster, and compact in recent years. It is becoming fashionable for ICT communities to share their knowledge. As a result of these breakthroughs, the industrial focus has shifted to the use of automated technologies, notably robots and artificial intelligence, to improve human and commercial tasks. Work, education, industry, farming, and mobility, as well as financial services, are all transforming as a result of robotics. Robotics education has proven to facilitate the development of abstract thinking and collaborative problem-solving abilities while its competitions expose students to valuable soft skills like communication, collaboration, and time-management in a fun and authentic way. Thus, this study intended to investigate unresolved issues that made Nigerian children left behind in the participation in robotics education and its competitions. The study is quantitative and adopted survey research design. About 4,641 responses were retrieved out of a total population of 15,627 elementary to senior secondary school teachers. The data obtained was keyed into Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) 25, and the result of Cronbach's alpha coefficient of reliability of 0.716 indicates that the instrument is highly reliable. The result reveals that the lack of funds, lack of technological know-how, need for training and retraining through professional development, lack of resources for integrating coding and programming, lack of uninterrupted regular electric power were the major issues preventing effective robotics education and its competitions. Moreover, the need to have a local contest before venturing into an international contest and the requirement for regular supervision by the Ministries of Education is revealed by the results of this study.

Educational Robotics: Platforms, Competitions and Expected Learning Outcomes

IEEE Access

Motivated by the recent explosion of interest around Educational Robotics (ER), this paper attempts to re-approach this area by suggesting new ways of thinking and exploring the related concepts. The contribution of the paper is fourfold. First, future readers can use this paper as a reference point for exploring the expected learning outcomes of educational robotics. From an exhaustive list of potential learning gains, we propose a set of six learning outcomes that can offer a starting point for a viable model for the design of robotic activities. Second, the paper aims to serve as a survey for the most recent ER platforms. Driven by the growing number of available robotics platforms, we have gathered the most recent ER kits. We also propose a new way to categorize the platforms, free from their manufacturers' vague age boundaries. The proposed categories, including No Code, Basic Code, and Advanced Code, are derived from the prior knowledge and the programming skills that a student needs to use them efficiently. Third, as the number of ER competitions, and tournaments increases in parallel with ER platforms' increase, the paper presents and analyses the most popular robotic events. Robotics competitions encourage participants to develop and showcase their skills while promoting specific learning outcomes. The paper aims to provide an overview of those structures and discuss their efficacy. Finally, the paper explores the educational aspects of the presented ER competitions and their correlation with the six proposed learning outcomes. This raises the question of which primary features compose a competition and achieve its' pedagogical goals. This paper is the first study that correlates potential learning gains with ER competitions to the best of our knowledge.

Robotics competitions in engineering eduction

2009 4th International Conference on Autonomous Robots and Agents, 2000

Internationally engineering education has had to become more pro-active in attracting students with the technical knowledge, skills and motivation enabling them to excel in four or more years of study with the ultimate goal of addressing the ever-growing demand for qualified engineers from the industry. General public perceptions that engineering is a difficult career field while offering inadequate financial rewards as compared to alternative fields have resulted in significant reduction in student numbers, particularly among high quality students across all the engineering, sciences and technical disciplines. This paper presents the experience of using robotic competition events to motivate school students and help them appreciate what is involved in an engineering design and development fields.

Robotic Competition Based Education in Engineering (RoC-BEE

on the engineering education. During the preparations for the competition the students have to plan, synthesize (mechanical/ electrical/ electronics/ programming aspects), design, fabricate, assemble, test and debug the robots. The project embeds in them not only all aspects of engineering product development, but also teaches them management techniques essential for proper coordination of the team of 15-20 students.

Secondary School Robotics Competition

While several national and international robotics competitions have been established to cater for enthusiasts or experts from universities or research laboratories, few have been developed which operate successfully at the secondary school level. At a time when universities are keen to encourage secondary school students into science and engineering disciplines, and schools are looking to bolster their technology programs, such competitions provide a win-win scenario. The major di#culties in establishing such a competition include #1# devising an inexpensive robot and associated task that challenges the student, #2# raising the skill level of teachers to a point where they are con#dent to run such an activity and #3# establishing a broad base of expertise to support large numbers of participants. In this paper we detail the development, features and outcomes of the Robot Bilby Competition. The use of workshops and school visits to impart the necessary skills to te...

Robotic Competitions: Motivation for Engineering

2003

This paper discusses the motivation behind the Royal Society of New Zealand funded project "New Zealand Robotic Olympics: Quickest, Strongest, Smartest". The paper introduces successful robotic contests that are incorporated into the curriculum of mechatronics engineering programmes at Massey University and the University of Waikato identifying their role in motivating study in an open ended manner. The paper also identifies several international robotic competitions and shows how the "New Zealand Robotic Olympics" complements these international efforts.

Secondary School Robotics COIIlpetition

2013

While several national and international robotics competitions have been established to cater for enthusiasts or experts from universities or research laboratories, few have been developed which operate successfully at the secondary school level. At a time when universities are keen to encourage secondary school students into science and engineering disciplines, and schools are looking to bolster their technology programs, such competitions provide a win-win scenario. The major difficulties in establishing such a competition include (1) devising an inexpensive robot and associated task that challenges the student, (2) raising the skill level of teachers to a point where they are confident to run such an activity and (3) establishing a broad base of expertise to support large numbers of participants. In this paper we detail the development, features and outcomes of the Robot Bilby Competition. The use of workshops and school visits to impart the necessary skills to teachers, and the ...

Robotic Competitions: Motivation for Engineering Programmes

2002

This paper discusses the motivation behind the Royal Society of New Zealand funded project "New Zealand Robotic Olympics: Quickest, Strongest, Smartest". The paper introduces successful robotic contests that are incorporated into the curriculum of mechatronics engineering programmes at Massey University and the University of Waikato identifying their role in motivating study in an open ended manner. The paper also identifies several international robotic competitions and shows how the "New Zealand Robotic Olympics" complements these international efforts.

Robotic competitions: short term pain for long term gain

In the last two decades many extracurricular robotics competitions have been established for university students, but there has been little academic research on whether they are beneficial or detrimental to their target audience. By focusing in-depth on one such competition, National Instruments Autonomous Robotics Competition (NIARC), this paper examines the student experience, academic performance changes and identifies other outcomes, that are influenced by robotic competitions. Although the results cannot be generalised to all students in all such competitions, the paper identifies important factors that need to be considered when deciding to promote these competitions to students. The student narrative shows that the competition has positively contributed to their studies, with a GPA analysis of Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) students suggesting improvements for team members in the long term.