AERobot: An affordable one-robot-per-student system for early robotics education
Michael Rubenstein, Bo Cimino, Radhika Nagpal, Justin Werfel
Abstract
There is a widely recognized need for improved STEM education and increased technological literacy. Robots represent a promising educational tool with potentially large impact, due to their broad appeal and wide relevance; however, many existing educational robot platforms have cost as a barrier to widespread use. Here we present AERobot, a simple low-cost robot that can be easily used for introductory programming and robotics teaching, starting from a primary or middle school level. The hardware is open-source and can be built for ∼$10 per robot, making it possible for each student to have (and keep) their own robot, while still encompassing a rich sensor suite enabling a variety of activities. A free, open-source graphical programming environment allows students without previous programming experience to command the robot. We report on the results of three sessions of a one-week pilot course held in the summer of 2014 by STEM summer camp i2 Camp.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{icra2015_aerobotanafforda,
title = {AERobot: An affordable one-robot-per-student system for early robotics education},
author = {Michael Rubenstein and Bo Cimino and Radhika Nagpal and Justin Werfel},
booktitle = {ICRA 2015},
year = {2015}
}