Educational Robotics and Computational Thinking Development in Preschool

Abstract

Programming robots playing with the environment is an ongoing research project aimed at developing a robot and intervention program capable of enhancing young children's cognitive abilities and computational thinking skills. Using a robot sensitive to color and distance, children are able to use everyday objects in order to interact with it and program its movements. An eleven session intervention program using this robot was designed with the objective of creating playful learning instances were children would practice abilities associated with what is generally thought of as computational thinking. We'll assess children's computational thinking, fluid intelligence, working memory, planning, sequencing, number recognition and magnitude comparison, vocabulary, mental rotation, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility to test for cognitive effects of the intervention. An active control in which children interact with the robot by remotely controlling it was used.