Building Inclusiveness in a PBL Based Online Robotics Competition: Challenges and Outcomes

Abstract

e-Yantra conducts an annual online competition, e-Yantra Robotics Competition (eYRC) which incorporates a Project-Based Learning (PBL) methodology to train students to implement a robotics project in a step-by-step manner over a five month period. The competition is designed to provide all the resources - robot, accessories, and a project - to each participating team to make the competition accessible to students from the remotest parts of India. Every year the goal is to increase the number of participating teams selected through an online selection test. Even though multiple teams from a college qualify, we restrict the number of teams from a college to the number of unique "Themes" -- projects abstracted into rulebooks -- assigned in the competition. In eYRC-2013, 72 teams (out of 232 teams) who had qualified through the selection test could not be included in the competition, as we had only 5 unique Themes. In 2014, we started a parallel competition, eYRC+ Pilot to include all the qualifying teams. In this paper we describe the methodology used in this competition where we experimented with a Theme involving an advanced topic -- Image Processing - such that we could assign the same theme to more number of teams. Our analysis of performance of teams show that contrary to our hypothesis, the learning outcomes of teams in the various tasks assigned in the competition are comparable to that of teams participated in the eYRC themes. Analyzing the effectiveness of the competition in imparting PBL, based on feedback received from the teams, we find that eYRC+ is as effective as eYRC. We present our analysis and how we have applied it in the current edition of the competition eYRC-2015.