Guiding the Development of Undergraduate Educational Robotics

Abstract

Educational robotics, in which students program a physical robot to interact with the real world, can provide tangible active learning opportunities that are often linked to increases in student computational thinking, creativity, and motivation. To date, ER has focused on the use of robots to augment learning of adjacent fields (e.g., mathematics, programming, digital media) for K--12 students. As a result, we lack ER guidelines for: (1) supporting college robotics students learning the discipline of robotics itself and (2) college robotics students, who may possess distinct abilities and needs compared to K--12 students. To address this gap, we present a semester-long exploration of a college-levelIntroduction to Robotics course. Through student feedback, we identified three themes: (1) Positive learning opportunities, (2) Dealing with uncertainty, and (3) Successful results with simple solutions. and provide guidelines for improving ER in the context of college students learning to program and debug robots for the first time. We detail these themes and provide guidelines for improving ER in the context of college students learning to program and debug robots for the first time.