Robotics Courses for Children As a Motivation Tool: the Chilean Experience Javier Ruiz-Del-Solar, Senior Member, IEEE, and Roberto Avilés
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474 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, VOL. 47, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 2004 Robotics Courses for Children as a Motivation Tool: The Chilean Experience Javier Ruiz-del-Solar, Senior Member, IEEE, and Roberto Avilés Abstract—Encouraging children’s interest in science and tech- They first started working with school children in solar en- nology, as well as increasing their technological literacy, may be ergy experiments, which later was connected to the robotics regarded as one of the educational paradigms of this century. The work of Tilden [1], then at Los Alamos National Laboratories. authors of this paper, affiliated with the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Chile, Santiago, have designed Thus, they set the basis of their first practical courses on Biology, schemes to contribute to both goals and set guidelines for curric- Electronics, Aesthetics, and Mechanics (BEAM) robotics, car- ular and extracurricular school activities related to technology. In ried out in October 2000 and January 2001. Motivated by the this context, this paper reviews their experience concerning prac- positive results of these experiences, they then explored the use tical robotics courses for children developed since 2000. More than of the Parallax Board of Education [2] in a practical course for 700 children and 90 school teachers have already attended these robotics courses, and the model is now being implemented in sev- school teachers during July 2001. In this course, the Parallax eral schools and institutions in Chile. The robotics courses evolved board was used for teaching the essential elements of data ac- to their present form from ideas developed during the late 1990s, quisition, sensors, and robotics. mostly in the United States. Some preliminary assessment data is The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cam- presented to support this approach. Current projects are also out- lined. It is believed that the authors’ experience might be of interest bridge, experience in developing the Intelligent Brick for the to engineering schools elsewhere. LEGO MindStorms set as an expression of the “constructionist Index Terms—BEAM (Biology, Electronics, Aesthetics and Me- learning” ideas of Papert and collaborators of the MIT Artificial chanics), LEGO robotics, robotics as a motivation tool for children. Intelligence Laboratory [3]–[5] widened the scope. Practical ways developed in the Robotics Academy at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, to work with children using the I. INTRODUCTION LEGO MindStorms set [6] as a tool in education, presented an HE AIM of this paper is to share experience derived from interesting path to follow. Thus, several practical courses of T working with school children using robotics as a tool for robotics were offered, using LEGO MindStorms during 2002, fostering their interest in science and technology. Robotics is 2003, and 2004. a highly motivating activity for children. It allows them to ap- The urgent need to educate in science and technology has to proach technology both amusingly and intuitively, while dis- be understood in the context of a developing country like Chile. covering the underlying science principles. Indeed, robotics has Regardless of the considerable investment in education during emerged as a useful tool in education since, unlike many others, the last decade, these school students still perform poorly on the it provides the place where fields or ideas of science and tech- average when compared with those from developed countries nology intersect and overlap. From this starting point, a range of [7], [8]. Although Chile ranks reasonably well in some areas of activities have been developed largely through practical robotics the basic sciences, the results are not encouraging in technology courses with the long-term goal of motivating children to pursue when measured by the number of published papers [9] or the university careers in science and technology, to increase their number of patents [10]. A key policy to improve awareness and technological literacy, and to have, at least, technology-friendly opportunities in science and technology is sustained investment adults. in the use of information technologies applied to education [11]. The authors’ experience started in 1999, when facing the The authors have chosen to focus their efforts on establishing challenge of designing new and attractive laboratory work new technological spaces for the younger students and oppor- for undergraduate students at their engineering school. They tunities for their mentors. So far, more than 700 children and thought, possibly, that original and well-designed experiments 90 school teachers have attended at least one of the courses could become, in their simpler versions, tools to illustrate what on robotics, lasting from two to five days. As a side effect, engineering means and does in answer to legitimate questions some Chilean schools are already planning to set their own posed by talented children and high-school students visiting robotics laboratories under the authors’ guidance. Thus, other the campus. engineering schools can reproduce such highly rewarding experiences and strengthen their communities’ potential. The Manuscript received March 13, 2003; revised October 16, 2003. This work basic elements seem to be motivation, a solid background was supported in part by the Fundación Andes, Chile, and the Technological In- ternship Program of Comisión Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONICYT), in engineering, and the will to learn through the process of Chile. working with children. The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Chile, Santiago 837-0451, Chile (e-mail: [email protected]). Several initiatives have been carried out in different countries Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TE.2004.825063 with the goal of fostering the interest of children in science and 0018-9359/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE RUIZ-DEL-SOLAR AND AVILÉS: ROBOTICS COURSES FOR CHILDREN AS A MOTIVATION TOOL 475 technology using robotics. Some of these efforts have been de- The government policies in public education seek quality and veloped in the United States, Canada, Mexico, England, Ger- equity for economically deprived students when competing with many, France, Japan, Korea, India, Israel, and Australia, for ex- those from the private system. While the opportunity gap has di- ample. In South America, robotic activities for children were minished in the last six years, recent studies reveal that Chile is found in Brazil [12], Argentina [13], and Peru [14]. Some global still far from having a high-quality educational system [11]. In- initiatives, such as FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of deed, the students do not perform well on an average when com- Science and Technology) [15] and RoboCup Junior [16], look pared with those students from other countries, especially in sci- for sponsors of local, regional, and international robotics events ence tests [8]. However, the authors are optimistic. Some current (contests for young students). Most of the previously mentioned initiatives show that improvements do exist. As an example, the initiatives are developed at a school level and not in universities. project ENLACES [20], designed to connect all public schools However, in [17], some applications of LEGO robotics are de- to the Internet, has achieved a 100% networking of high schools scribed for undergraduate and graduate education. and 50% of basic schools. This paper is organized as follows. Section II addresses the problem of encouraging children’s interest in science and B. Reverting the Situation technology. Section III describes the robotics courses that the As an engineering school, the main contributions should authors have organized for both children and teachers of basic come from its own strengths. Then, a natural approach focuses and high schools. Section IV presents current projects and the on encouraging children’s interest in science and technology know-how to transfer works from the university environment and advising curricular and extracurricular school activities to Chilean schools and educational corporations. Finally, in in science-and-technology-related areas. In this context, the Section V, some conclusions and projections of the work are robotics courses make a contribution in both directions, beyond given. initiatives like summer schools for 1500 K10–K12 children and training courses for math and physics high school teachers that II. PROBLEM DEFINITION the engineering school organizes yearly. The following five factors determine the economical growth Robotics and children come together nicely and provide a of countries currently: good starting point. Then, the use of robotics in the classroom presents many advantages. For example, through the Techno- 1) innovation and technical progress; logical Education Guidelines from Chile’s Ministry of Educa- 2) institutions and governance; tion, one observes that the K8 program works on systems, their 3) an openness and integration into the world economy; mechanisms, and internal circuits, while the K10 program fo- 4) a stable macroeconomic environment; cuses on services, the use of computers, teamwork, and written 5) the joint influences of distance, geography, and costs of reports. These requirements are easily embedded into the activ- trade [18]. ities giving shape to the robotics courses. As shown by different rankings of competitiveness [19], coun- tries failing to support innovation and develop, or at least in- III.