Participating in an International Robot Contest As a Way to Develop Professional Skills in Engineering Students

Session S3F Participating in an International Robot Contest as a Way to Develop Professional Skills In Engineering Students

Julio Pastor, Irene González, F.J Rodríguez Department of Electronics. Universidad de Alcalá; [email protected]

Abstract – The article analyses the design of robots that Anyone?” project designed a robot, based on Pioneer and were developed by engineering students for a robot contest Nomad, that was qualified to serve appetizers was realized with the aim of strengthening a set of basic skills that (AAAI’s Robot Competition). [4] also organized an would be useful for the future professional lives of the experience making robots for RoboCup with students in participants. To this end, the results of a survey given to their last year of Information Engineering, Electrical the participants of the international competition Eurobot Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. In [5] a fourth 2007 are presented. Participants were asked their opinions year course at the Osaka Prefectural Collage of Technology on why they participated in the competition, what they was formed where students have to make an orchestra gained in their personal and professional lives for having consisting of robots that play musical instruments. participated as well as positive and negative aspects of the The design of mobile robots is also used in more experience. elementary teaching as an element for the integration of understanding and as a motivational tool for the students. An example of this is the work of [6] which incorporates the INTRODUCTION design of robots in the first year of study to introduce Mobile robots began to be designed in the 1970’s for big concepts that will be taught in other courses and as an budget space applications. Given the decrease in hardware introduction to engineering design. In [7] the design of prices and the increase in calculating capacity of computers robots was introduced half way through the first year in in recent years, the design of mobile robots has increased many different lab classes in the Department of electrical exponentially since the 1990’s, which has seen new uses in Engineering at the Technical University of Texas. In [8], an domestic applications (vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, etc.) introductory course on Electrical Engineering and Computer military applications (mine detectors, inspection, etc.) Science in the first year at CMU, the characteristics of the industrial applications (transport, security, etc.) and social students, the objectives of the class, the orientation of the applications (helper robots, pets, etc.) course content and the theoretical and practical content were In recent years, the design of autonomous mobile analyzed. In [9] it is commented that De Massey and robots has been introduced for teaching at different levels. Waikato Universities in New Zealand have introduced the This has given rise to the appearance and organization of degree of Mecatronics in which projects (in first, second and robot competitions that have served to give an objective to third year) culminating in robot competitions are part of the this type of design. For example, RoboCup (initially curriculum. Another example that can be mentioned is the conceived as a robot football competition) [1] was initially European competition: Eurobot [10]. associated with a congress for investigation that centered on The design of robots has also been introduced in non- artificial intelligence and serves the purpose of the academic studies as a way of promoting an interest in development of technologies that can be used in other areas technology in a fun and interesting way. For this, there are of knowledge. specially designed competitions such as RoboCup Junior In this same line, there are many university experiences [11], FIRST [12, 13], Robo Festa [2, 9, 14], Eurobot Junior that orient the coursework of the last years of study to [10], etc. facilitate the design of a specific robot that aims to have There are also robot competitions in Spain that are optimal results in a competition. The construction of the oriented towards university students [15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, robot and the participation in the competition add an 21] and non university students alike [22, 23, 24] as well as important element of motivation for the university student. activities for young people and hobbyists [25] For example, in [2] senior and masters engineering students In the following sections, the results of a survey taken (Mechanical, Electrical, Management and Software) by engineering students who participated in the finals of the participated in two tests which centered on the design of a international competition Eurobot 2007 will be presented robotic football team to compete in RoboCup. In [3], an [10]. The objective of the study intends to demonstrate that experience where students from the “Hors d’Oeuvres, the participation in robot competitions can be used as a way 978-1-4244-1970-8/08/$25.00 ©2008 IEEE October 22 – 25, 2008, Saratoga Springs, NY 38th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference S3F-9 Session S3F of improving personal skills that are useful in the future are organized by the University of Alcalá in the competition: professional lives of the students. To these ends, the Alcabot-Hispabot [15, 16]. following sections will introduce the most significant aspects In each edition of Eurobot, a specific challenge takes of robot design as an educational tool and the peculiarities of place. The challenge for 2007 was called “Recycle Rally” the Eurobot competition. [27] (Fig.1). In this challenge, two robots faced each other in a field of play with the mission of classifying plastic bottles, THE PARTICIPATION IN ROBOT COMPETITIONS AS AN soda cans and batteries and placing them into their EDUCATIONAL TOOL respective containers. The robots therefore had to be able to The design of autonomous mobile robots has certain search for the ‘waste’, identify it, transport it, find the characteristics that make it especially interesting. A robot is correct container and place it inside. made up of different subsystems and each one stems form a In the 2007 Eurobot final, which took place in La Ferté- different area of engineering: sensor system that captures Bernard (France), 50 teams from 22 countries and 330 environmental information (transducers and signal students (the majority from university) were involved. The adaptation electronics), locomotion system (motors for countries that competed in Eurobot were: Algeria, Austria, movement and its electronic drivers), mechanical structure Belgium, Canada, Greece, Denmark, France, Germany, (mechanical design and manufacture of pieces), electronic Hungary, Italy, Norway, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, control subsystem (embedded computer that executes the Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Tunisia and the United control program), a low level algorithm (control program Kingdom. that takes care of velocity control of the motors and movement commands to the different moving parts of the robot) and a high level algorithm (that takes care of the robot’s intelligence, planning of behavior, the generation of routes, actions etc.). Communications, remote control, power system (with batteries) etc. can also be added to the list. Each of these subsystems forms an area of engineering knowledge in itself, and is reflected deeply in coursework for Electronic Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Telecommunications and computer Science among others. In addition, the process of constructing robots in order to participate in a competition encourages group work, promoting the formation of teams among students and the development of communication and organizational skills FIGURE 1. such as time management and work under pressure. At the PLAYING FIELD FOR THE “RECYCLE RALLY” CHALLENGE, EUROBOT 2007. same time, students learn how to deal not only with how to solve a problem but how to deduce how their opponents SURVEY OF EUROBOT 2007 PARTICIPANTS might solve the same problem. This serves to increase intellectual maturity as well as the capacity to deal with new During the 2007 Eurobot final that took place in France, the situations and adversaries [26]. participants were given a survey on their opinions of the event. The survey was structured in two blocks or levels of THE COMPETITION OF AUTONOMOUS MOBILE ROBOTS analysis. Of all the teams that participated in Eurobot 2007, 63 valid surveys were obtained from 21 teams from 13 EUROBOT different countries. This represented 62% of the countries Eurobot [10] is an international competition of that participated and representatives of 42% of the teams that autonomous robots that is put together for European and non participated in the competition. European engineering students alike, although the The main objective, that is to say the first block of the competition always takes place in a European country. survey, tries to find out which skills and abilities were When compared to other international competitions, Eurobot developed during the process of making the robot for [1] is characterized by the presentation of a new challenge Eurobot. The set of skills that were taken as a reference and and the changing of the rules each year. In addition, the shown in the formulation of the questionnaire for the post challenges are relatively complex, requiring strong analysis of the survey were selected from the European teamwork in order to achieve good results. project: Tuning [28]. In relation to the questions asked to the In the international final, there is a maximum of three participants about the skills: the study was looking, in part, robots per country. In most cases, these participants are to detect participants who considered those skills more chosen beforehand in local competitions in each country in relevant and useful to their professional future on one hand order to select the three robots that will compete in Eurobot. and to detect whether the experience of making robots for In Spain, the trials that select the three best Spanish robots Eurobot had contributed to the development of these skills on the other.

978-1-4244-1970-8/08/$25.00 ©2008 IEEE October 22 – 25, 2008, Saratoga Springs, NY 38th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference S3F-10 Session S3F The second block of the survey centered on getting to future professional development and for the development of know other aspects that were related with the competition, a robot for Eurobot. such as the reasons the students participated, what they got When looking at the percentages in table 2, it can be out of the experience on a personal and professional level, confirmed that almost all of the skills are valued as relevant what aspects were most important for finishing the robot on for both professional life and Eurobot. It is interesting to time, the negative aspects of participating etc. note, however, that the participants more highly evaluated the importance of skills that had to do with the development Development of personal skills of their professional future. In this sense, the skills that are The new European Space of Higher Education, in addition to most relevant for the participants are the ability to generate looking for comparable university systems, looks for a new ideas, creativity and innovation. Adaptability, that is to mutual recognition of degrees as well as the mobility of say the ability to adapt to new situations, was also highly students and professors. Specifically, it aims to prepare the valued. new degree holders for rapid social, economic and Although all of the skills are highly valued as technological changes in a globalized world. For this, it is determinants for the completion of the robot, the skills that necessary that university students obtain, in addition to a were put into practice the most were: the ability to put good technical base, specific personal abilities that are of knowledge into practice and adaptability to new situations. great importance for their future professional development. Moreover, creativity the capacity to generate new ideas, the These abilities, which are also known as basic or desire for success and the ability to learn were also highly general skills are analyzed in more depth in the international valued. The ability to solve problems and make decisions, project Tuning [28] and in other national studies and the ability to work under pressure, motivation, teamwork the manuals such as the elaboration of white papers in some ability to investigate the ability of analysis and synthesis, the degrees [29, 30]. ability to be critical and self critical and an enterprising spirit In Table 2, a list of skills is presented that shows the were also found to be quite valuable. percentage of responses along a 5-point scale (1 – Nothing The skills that seem to be improved the least are the 2 – Little 3 – Medium 4 – Much 5 – Very Much) with sensitivity to environmental subjects, written and oral respect to how significant participants thought it was to both communication skills and knowing a second language.

TABLE 2. LIST OF SKILLS DEVELOPED BY THE PARTICIPANTS OF EUROBOT 2007 (IN %) COMPETENCES AND ABILITIES Professional Future Developed in EUROBOT 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 Ability for analysis and síntesis. 0 1 13 35 51 1 8 34 28 28 Skills in organization and planning. 1 2 21 29 46 4 10 29 35 24 Oral and written communication skills in your native language. 2 16 27 24 31 22 16 37 10 14 Knowledge of a second language. 7 6 13 28 46 23 12 29 22 14 Elementary computing skills. 5 2 29 29 36 14 9 29 20 27 Problem solving. 1 7 15 31 53 7 12 17 30 43 Decision - making 0 1 12 36 45 3 6 17 28 40 Motivation. 1 6 14 27 53 5 10 23 30 40 Work under pressure. 1 5 26 31 38 3 3 20 27 45 Information management skills. Ability to look for information from several sources and analyze it. 1 4 26 34 32 5 3 25 27 29 Critical and self-critical abilities. 1 7 25 42 25 6 7 34 23 30 Teamwork. 1 2 8 35 53 2 10 14 31 42 Interpersonal skills. 0 5 26 45 25 6 8 30 34 22 Ability to work in an interdisciplinary team. 4 1 22 40 33 8 13 23 24 31 Ability to communicate with experts in other fields. 1 1 31 35 32 12 12 24 27 26 Appreciation of diversity and multiculturality. 0 13 30 39 18 11 14 24 25 27 Ability to work in an international context. 4 4 25 41 27 13 9 28 30 20 Ethical commitment. Social responsibility. 4 12 47 19 18 13 15 31 27 13 Sensitivity towards environmental subjects. 5 16 35 24 20 23 20 26 14 17 Negotiation abilities. 1 7 34 33 24 14 17 25 25 18 Leadership. 1 8 27 37 27 12 17 30 29 13 Ability to put knowledge into practice. 0 4 13 33 50 2 6 14 22 55 Ability to learn. 2 2 15 28 53 6 6 19 28 45 Ability to adapt to new situations. Adaptability. 1 2 13 28 56 3 5 26 16 53 Ability for generating new ideas. Creativity. 1 1 13 25 59 2 2 20 26 49 Research skills. 2 1 24 31 40 1 5 20 34 34 Understanding of cultures and customs of other countries. 6 13 39 26 16 16 19 27 21 16 Ability to work of independent form. Autonomy in the decisions. 1 8 25 30 35 8 12 26 24 30 Project design and management. 0 1 28 31 40 5 15 33 20 28 Initiative and enterprising spirit. 1 1 23 44 31 6 4 28 36 26 Concern for quality. 0 4 18 37 42 2 12 29 35 23 Will to succeed. 1 2 12 31 54 2 5 13 31 49 Ability for managing change programs and change initiatives. 0 5 25 43 27 7 12 19 34 28 Ethical commitment. Social responsibility. 4 12 47 19 18 13 15 31 27 13

978-1-4244-1970-8/08/$25.00 ©2008 IEEE October 22 – 25, 2008, Saratoga Springs, NY 38th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference S3F-11 Session S3F The skills that the participants considered most relevant When considering the results, the factors that are most to their professional future were innovation (the creation of critical for the participants are related to the organization, new ideas) and adaptability. These were the same skills that planning and management of time, followed by then were identified as determinate for the completion of a robot necessity of a personal effort to dedicate time to the project for Eurobot. and the motivation to do so. It can be clearly seen that purely technical factors are seen as much less important than Reasons for participation in the competition either organizational or personal factors. In addition to the evaluation of the skills developed, the participants gave their opinions about what motivated them TABLE 3. IMPRTANT FACTORS FOR SUCESSFUL PARTICIPATION to take part in the competition. For the most part, social and Organizational level 34% personal reasons were what motivated the participants. The Organizational factors and time management 25% Teamwork 9% most prevalent reasons were: a desire to have a good time Personal level 40% (19%), competition (13%), a personal challenge (11%) and Objective evaluations to associate with people that have the same interests (10%). Individual effort 13% Academic reasons (final project or requirement of a course) Technical abilities (previous experience) 5% and the desire to participate in Eurobot were cited by 9% of Personal abilities 8% the participants respectively. 7% of the participants cited the Subjective evaluations Motivational factors 12% fact that they had passed previous national competitions as a Interpersonal relationships 2% reason for going. Another 7% of the participants participated Technical level 22% in the competition in order to learn and to gain experience. General design 5% Factors that influence design 4% Aspects important for success Technical factors of subsystems 7% The factors cited as being most important for success in the External factors 2% Factors of process 4% competition, with success understood as “completing the Economic level 2% robot in time for the competition”, were quite varied Economic factors 2% although they roughly fit into the categories of table 3. Other 2% The most important factors can be divided into 5 large Academic factors 1% groups: factors related to organizational aspects, which Luck 1% covers time management and team work (on an organizational level); personal factors such as individual Looking at the results of table 3 reaffirms that the effort and previous experience as well as personal abilities participants, in general, value the set of personal factors as like the ability to solve problems, self control, patience, the most valuable in being successful in the competition. It being motivated, the desire to do well and interpersonal can however be noted that 25% of the participants consider relationships; technical factors like general design and other organizational aspects and time management as the most factors that influence design like reliability, simplicity and relevant in guaranteeing optimal functioning of the robot in reusability as well as purely technical factors related to the the competition. different subsystems of the robot and external factors like It is also important to say something about the negative instrumentation and adequate work space or factors that aspects that were identified in the survey. The importance have to do with process like integration, testing and given to work under pressure and the excess of work could documentation; economic factors and other factors like be biased because the survey was taken during the academic factors and luck. competition. While the challenge is taking place, the participants tend to be working on the robots during all available time. This is especially true when unexpected Reasons for Participating 6% problems come up.

7% 19% Evaluation of the experience

7% Leisure/Fun The influence of participation in the competition has had a Competitivity Personal Challenge fundamental role in the professional and personal lives of the Relations with others 9% participants in the survey. In table 4, it can be seen that 80% Academical Reasons 13% Eurobot of the participants consider that the experience of Motivation National Qualifications constructing robots has promoted professional development Others 9% through technical knowledge (40%) and personal skills Knowledge (31%) like the ability to work, organizational abilities, 11% teamwork, communication skills, self confidence etc. Other 9% less influential factors that are mentioned make reference to 10% FIGURE 3. REASONS FOR PARTICIPATING the prestige of having participated in Eurobot. 20% of the participants relate that the experience of having participated

978-1-4244-1970-8/08/$25.00 ©2008 IEEE October 22 – 25, 2008, Saratoga Springs, NY 38th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference S3F-12 Session S3F in Eurobot has given them an opportunity to relate with and Only 7% of the students indicated that they participated in get to know people as well as serving as a training and order to learn and to get experience. motivational experience Analyzing the results related with the opinion of the participants, in relation to the factors most influential in TABLE 4. INFLUENCE OF THE EXPERIENCE IN PERSONAL AND obtaining a successful result as well as the negative aspects, PROFESSIONAL LIFE it can be said that organization and the planning of time – Professional 80% factors that tend to be important for success and who’s Technical knowledge 40% Knowledge and learning 31% deficit tends to give rise to a poor work/results ratio for the Experience 46% team – are the factors that are most decisive. Technical abilities 23% We can also be sure of the amount motivation the students had to participate in the construction of a robot for Prestige for participating in Eurobot 5% Eurobot as reflected in the amount of time, dedication and

Personal skills 31% effort that was put into their projects. Ability to work well 7% With respect the amount of influence the participation Organizational skills 26% had in their professional and personal lives, the majority of Ability to work in teams 26% students believe that it was positive: they were able to obtain Other personal skills 41% technical knowledge and experience as well as having improved skills that can serve them in their future Nothing professional 4% professional lives. Personal 20% Training and motivation 39% Getting along with others 61% ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

RESEARCH CONCERNS AND LIMITATIONS The study that is referred to in the article was funded by the project “Evaluation of the improvements in the promotion of The results presented in present study have some inherent aptitudes and skills of the engineering students that limitations that are necessary to consider. The first one is participated in autonomous mobile robot competitions” with that the questionnaire was given to people during the contest reference EA2007-0040 within the Program of Studies and while they were working hard in their robots and many of Analysis of the Department of Universities – Ministry of them were or had been working under pressure. Education and Science. It is also important to consider that the survey is not the We would also like to thank the Eurobot Association for result of a simple random sample process, the questionnaire their collaboration in the study for having allowed and was given to almost all teams to be spread inside team facilitated the giving of the survey and of course the members so the answers are from people that had the interest participants of Eurobot 2007 for having responded and time to fill it. Consequently, it is not correct to make an statistical error estimation as if it were a simple random REFERENCES sample process. [1] RoboCup World Championship Official Site. Available: Another limitation of the study is that it is based on http://www.robocup.org. participant’s perception of their situation and not based on [2] M. Asada, R. D'Andrea, A. Birk, H. Kitano and M. Veloso. "Robotics objective information as their performance in future courses. in edutainment," Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on This is difficult to measure because almost each person is Robotics and Automation, 2000, pp. 795-800 vol.1. from a different country with a different educational system. [3] B.A. Maxwell and L.A. Meeden. "Integrating robotics research with Moreover, 75% of the participants are over 22 years old so undergraduate education," Intelligent Systems and Their Applications, they are finishing their engineering grade. IEEE [see also IEEE Intelligent Systems] vol. 15, pp. 22-27, 2000. [4] M. Daniels and L. Asplund. "Multi-level project work; a study in ONCLUSIONS C collaboration," 30th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference, 2000, pp. F4C/11-F4C/13 vol.2. The process of designing robots to participate in a competition like Eurobot gives incentive to engineering [5] T. Kaneda, S. Fujisawa, T. Yoshida, Y. Yoshitani, T. Nishi and K. students by improved general skills and abilities that are Hiroguchi. "Subject of making music performance robots and their ensemble," Frontiers in Education Conference, 29th Annual, 1999, pp. important for their professional future. 12B4/1-12B4/6 vol.2. After analyzing the reasons for having participated, it can be [6] N. Chen. "A vision-guided autonomous vehicle: an alternative seen that in the majority of cases, they are related with micromouse competition," Education, IEEE Transactions on vol. 40, factors of personal motivation. It seems that the simple fact pp. 253-258, 1997. of wanting to participate explains in and of itself the [7] D.J. Mehrl, M.E. Parten and D.L. Vines. "Robots enhance engineering potential for enthusiasm and motivation for robotics that can education," Proceedings of Frontiers in Education Conference 1997, be found in the students that participate in the competitions. 1997, pp. 613-618.

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