Robotics in education: a tool for recruiting, engaging, retaining and educating students

Abstract

Robotics is being used in the Montana Tech Computer Science Department in a variety of ways: to increase awareness of the field, to assist us in recruiting students, to engage our existing students, and to provide an advanced research and development experience for our upper level students. The use of robotics in our Computational Thinking course has shown statistically significant effect in the tested increase in logical and mathematical thinking as measured with a pre-test and post-test, which has been administered over the last three years that the course has been offered. Other robotics projects that are underway will take time before results are expected, including the implementation of our NAOCam project, since it is still in its design phase. Thus far, though, our results are promising, and we are optimistic that as additional robotics efforts are completed, those results will also be positive.