Robot contest as a laboratory for experiential engineering education

Subscribe (Full Service)


	Search: The ACM Digital Library The Guide

	Feedback

Robot contest as a laboratory for experiential engineering education

Full text

Pdf (223 KB)

Source

Journal on Educational Resources in Computing (JERIC) archive
Volume 4 , Issue 2 (June 2004) table of contents
Special issue on robotics in undergraduate education. Part 1

Article No. 2

Year of Publication: 2004

ISSN:1531-4278

Authors

Igor M. Verner	Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa
David J. Ahlgren	Trinity College, Hartford, CT

Publisher

ACM New York, NY, USA

Bibliometrics

Downloads (6 Weeks): 9, Downloads (12 Months): 89, Citation Count: 0

Additional Information:

abstract references index terms collaborative colleagues

Tools and Actions:	Request Permissions Review this Article Save this Article to a Binder Display Formats: BibTeX EndNote ACM Ref

DOI Bookmark:	Use this link to bookmark this Article: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1071620.1071622 What is a DOI?

ABSTRACT

By designing, building, and operating autonomous robots students learn key engineering subjects and develop systems-thinking, problem-solving, and teamwork skills. Such events as the Trinity College Fire-Fighting Home Robot Contest (TCFFHRC) offer rich opportunities for students to apply their skills by requiring design, and implementation of autonomous robots that are tested during competition. Started in 2003, the TCFFHRC Robotics Olympiad offers junior-high and high school students, working alone or in teams, to demonstrate their knowledge by taking a challenging 50-minute written examination in four key areas related to robotics: mechanics, sensors, software, and electronics. The Olympiad comprises a second evaluation medium that supplements a regular contest survey, which has been in place since 1999. The contest survey solicits information about motivation and progress in subject areas from all contest participants--a large and diverse group that includes junior-high and high school students, working engineers, university students, and team supervisors/guides. As a further evaluation step, we have conducted supplementary case studies of courses and curricula at Trinity College and at the Technion. Assessment indicates that the TCFFHRC has achieved its primary goal: to foster and improve robotics education on an international scale.

REFERENCES

Note: OCR errors may be found in this Reference List extracted from the full text article. ACM has opted to expose the complete List rather than only correct and linked references.

	1	Acroname. 2005. Acroname products. Web page last assessed April 2005 <http://www.acroname.com/>.
	2	Ahlgren, D. J. 2001. Fire-fighting robots and first-year engineering design: Trinity College experience. In Proceedings of the ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (Reno, NV).
	3	Ahlgren, D. and Verner, I. 2002 An international view of robotics as an educational medium. In Proceedings of the Inernational Conference on Engineering Education (Manchester, UK).
	4	Australian. 2005. Australian Science Olympiads. Web page last assessed April 2005 < http://www.aso.edu.au>.
	5	Braitenberg, V. 1984. Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. 1984.
	6	Gleason. 2005. Gleason Research. Web page last assessed April 2005 http://www.gleasonresearch.com/
	7	Harel, I. and Papert, S. eds. 1991. Constructionism. Ablex, Norwood, NJ. 1991.
	8	International. 2005. International Science Olympiads. Web page last assessed April 2005 <http://olympiads.win.tue.nl/>.
	9	Kafal, Y. and Resnick, M. eds. 1996. Constructionism in Practice: Design, Thinking, and Learning in a Digital World. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ. 1996.
	10	Kolb, D. 1984. Experiential Learning. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. 1984.
	11	Leifer, L. 1995. Evaluating product-based-learning education. http://www-cdr.stanford.edu/~leifer/publications/Osaka95/Osaka95.html.
	12	Fred G. Martin, Robotic Explorations: A Hands-on Introduction to Engineering, Prentice Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2000
	13	Murphy, R. 2001. Competing for a robotics education. IEEE Robotics & Automation Mag. 8, 3 (2001), 44-55.
	14	Pack, D., Avanzato, R., Ahlgren, D., and Verner, I. 2004. Fire-fighting mobile robotics and interdisciplinary design - Comparative perspectives. IEEE Trans. on Education 47, 3 (2004), 369-376.
	15	Parks, D., Onwuegbuzie, A., and Cash, S. 2003. Development of a measure for predicting learning advancement through cooperative education: Reliability and validity of the PLACE scale. J. Cooperative Education 36, 1 (2003), 23-31.
	16	Science Olympiad. 2005. National Science Olympiad. Web page last assessed April 2005. <http://www.soinc.org/>.
	17	Sharp. 2005. Electronics components. Web page last assessed April 2005. <http://sharp-world.com/products/device/ctlg/esite23/table/>.
	18	Sklar, E., Parsons, S., and Stone, P. 2004. RoboCup in higher education: A preliminary report. In RoboCup 2003. D. Polani et al. eds. Lecture Notes on Artificial Intelligence 3020, Springer Verlag, New York, 296-307.
	19	Trinity College. 2005. Fire fighting robot contest. Web page last assessed April 2005. <http://www.trincoll.edu/events/robot/>.
	20	Verner, I., and Waks, S. 2000. Educational features of robot contests: The RoboCup'98 survey. Advanced Robotics 14, 1 (2000), 65-74.
	21	Verner, I. and Ahlgren, D. 2002. Fire-fighting robot contest: Curricula in college and high school. ASEE J. Engineering Education 91, 3 (2002), 355-359.
	22	Verner, I. and Hershiko, E. 2003. School graduation project in robot design: A case study of team learning experiences and outcomes. J. Technology Education 14, 2 (2003), 40-55.