EDUCATION DESIGN EXPERIMENTS IN ROBOTICS IGOR M. VERNER, TECHNION--ISRAEL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,
[email protected] DAVID J. AHLGREN, TRINITY COLLEGE, HARTFORD, CT USA,
[email protected]
ABSTRACT We propose the Education Design Experiment (EDE) as a framework for education and research in robotics and we discuss its implementation in Trinity College Fire-Fighting Home Robot Contest (TCFFHRC) projects. We show how evaluation of robot contest projects leads to upgrading of contest assignments, which in turn inspire teams to develop innovative fire-fighting robots. The paper presents results of the TCFFHRC evaluation surveys as well as the theoretical Olympiad, both challenging assignments guided by new contest rules.
KEYWORDS: Robotics, education, methodology, framework, experiment, design, Olympiad. 1. INTRODUCTION The Trinity College Fire-Fighting Home Robot Contest (TCFFHRC) [1] has been coordinated by Trinity College through national and international collaboration with universities, schools and industry since 1995. The contest has Junior, High School, Senior, Expert, and Walking divisions, and it awards prizes for invention and cost effectiveness. In 2003 the contest offered the first robotics Olympiad test associated with a major robotics contest. Regional events using the TCFFHRC rules have been held in Beijing, Buenos Aires, Calgary, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Tel Aviv, Toronto, Seattle, Shanghai, and Singapore. The Technion Department of Education in Technology and Science has been participated in the program since 1999, with focus on curriculum design, evaluation and assessment studies of the contest projects. The TCFFHRC surveys conducted by the authors have become integral part of the program [2, 3]. Here we will discuss the methodology of education design experiments and how it is used for evaluation of new TCFFHRC initiatives and projects.
2. EDUCATION DESIGN EXPERIMENTS The term Education Design Experiment (EDE) denotes an educational research methodology that utilizes the similarity of educational and engineering process [4, 5]. The EDE objective is, through creation, testing, and revision, to “engineer” a new learning environment and to implement, evaluate, and conceptualize educational processes that develop in the environment. The education design experiment removes certain biases of the traditional educational study: • The primary motivation for the experiment is to improve the educational process and examine efficiency of the proposed approach. • The environment, instruction, and learning are studied as the whole. • The investigated factors and research methods are goal-oriented and can be changed during the experiment. • The EDE explicitly delimits the range in which its results are significant. The EDE is a suitable framework for research in which the learning environment is developed along with the educational process and its characteristics largely determine the efficiency of learning. The design experiment requires creating an interdisciplinary team that integrates subject matter specialists, instructional designers, and educational researchers, and it can be applied to individual, class, and educational program levels. Following [5], the EDE consists of three stages: preparation, experiment, and retrospective analysis. The cyclic model of experiential learning proposed by Kolb [6] is suitable for describing
activities and iterations of education design experiments and integrating them in the robot design process [7, 8]. According to this model, the experiential learning cycle consists of four steps: (1) carrying out a particular action; (2) perceiving effects of the action through observation and reflection; (3) understanding the general principle under which the particular instance falls through abstract conceptualization; and (4) application through action in a new circumstance within the range of generalization.
3. FIRE-FIGHTING HOME ROBOT CONTEST: NEW OPPORTUNITIES In this section we focus on the 2005 TCFFFHRC rules changes and their impact on projectbased learning by Trinity College students including both first-year engineers and members of the Trinity College Robotics Study Team (RST). The competitors’ goal is to design an autonomous robot that can put out a fire in a model house (Fig. 1). Contest rules define objectives and constraints for the robot design. For example, robots able to avoid furniture-like objects during their runs receive a 25% reduction in score. This and other premiums provide challenging new design opportunities for teams. a)
b)
Figure 1. a) 2005 Standard Level arena; b) Expert Division arena. In 2004 the TCFFHRC Technical Advisory Committee focused on changes that would keep the fire-fighting theme while offering new challenges. The rules changes broadened problemsolving opportunities, giving teams new chances to develop creative designs, and increased the level of challenge. Major changes to the rules included the following. 1. New Arena. A new Standard Arena (SL arena) was derived from the former contest arena for use in the Senior Division and the SL High School Division. The SL arena adds rugs, wall decorations, and elective staircase that allows robots to shorten path length by going over a staircase in place of navigating around a non-connected room (Figure 1a). New problems presented by the new SL arena included: (1) developing a drive system able to propel the robot across the new rugs; (2) developing and placing sensors able to perform range finding in the presence of (highly reflective) mirrors; (3) choosing an optimal path—either across the staircase or around the floating room; and (4) achieving good wall-following behavior with walls of varying colors and brightness levels from pure white to nearly black. 2. New Extinguisher. In past years the most popular fire extinguisher used by contestants was fan with a d.c. motor that could be turned on and off under program control. Since fans are not effective extinguishing agents in real fire-fighting situations, starting in 2005 robots that use nonair extinguishers receive a time reduction of 20%. This rule change encouraged teams to invent new extinguishing methods including robotic snuffers and computer-controlled CO2 streams.
3. Robot Swarms. The 2005 Expert Division rules admitted robot swarms for the first time. Since 2003 the Expert Division has used a two-story arena. There is a fire on each floor. In this arena a 3m x 3m first floor is connected to a 2m x 2m second floor by a 15-degree ramp (Fig. 1.b). The 2004 rules added a search-and-rescue task that requires robots to search for a baby and to drop a beeper at the baby’s location. Swarms allow efficient task division, and allowing swarm robots encourages participants to pursue work in a leading research area of robotics. 4. Concept Arena As a possible future direction the 2005 contest offered a Concept Arena (Fig. 3) designed by Joseph L. Jones of iRobot, Inc. The Concept Arena has several paths to the candle, each with a different degree of difficulty. The winning robot has the shortest run time. Wall-following robots can navigate from the start (S) via a long route around the periphery. Other robots might combine wall following with obstacle detection along a shorter path, through the obstacle field, and robots that can open the door or climb the staircase can take even shorter paths. The shortest route goes through the 5 cm x 5 cm “mouse hole”. The concept arena encourages invention at each level of difficulty; each increases the challenge in designing mechanical, electrical, sensing, software, components.
Figure 3. Concept Arena (courtesy Joseph L. Jones)
Figure 4. 2005 Concept Robot David
5. IMPACT OF RULES CHANGES In this section, we consider the impact of two of the rules changes above, the swarms and the concept arena. A robot swarm is a complex of several robots that, ideally, form a cohesive entity working toward a common goal. A fire-fighting swarm might efficiently complete the tasks set out on the Expert Division rules—to extinguish two flames, find a mark a doll representing a child in danger, and explore the second floor of the Expert Division arena. Design of a robot swarm was a goal of the Trinity College Robotics Study Team (RST) during the 2004-2005 academic year. The RST invents robots to compete in the TCFFHRC and in the AUVSI Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition [9]. The RST swarm group designed a swarm of four robots having the same mechanical design. The robots used the same microcomputer board (OoPic), ranging sensors (Sharp GP2D120), and IR phototransistors for flame detection. The team developed codes using a C++ compiler provided with the OoPic computer. The learning environment for this project included elements of conventional classroom instruction as well as peer-to-peer learning. The RST met in a seminar each week throughout the academic year. The swarm group gave weekly progress report at these meetings and received feedback from the instructor and from other students. Insights of experienced RST members were especially valuable when considering mechanical design, sensors, and software. The RST swarm group had access to a 100 m2 design laboratory equipped with a fire-fighting maze, test instruments, and PC network for software development. In the 2005 Expert Division event, none
of the eight registered teams developed a successful swarm. This experience showed that development of a successful swarm is a complex and time-consuming job that requires careful design, reliable hardware, and considerable skill in programming. The second RST group developed a tiny robot that could go through Concept Arena mouse hole. This design group considered both tethered and battery-powered designs. The team designed 3-D CAD models (SolidWorks) and built physical models. In the end it was decided to develop a self-contained robot. The team used the Mentor Graphics PADS tools to design a custom 3 cm x 5 cm computer board with a Microchip PIC16F874, dual H-bridge, programming port, and sensor ports. Sensors included a flame detector and a Sharp GP2D12 ranger. During the contest, David followed the wall to the mouse hole, probed for the opening, and raised a fire sensor and extinguisher as it passed through the hole. Of the three rules changes described in this paper, the options provided by new Concept Arena provided the greatest opportunities for learning and application of engineering design methods. Students truly engaged the complete engineering design cycle, from brainstorming, consideration of alternative designs, development of prototypes, use of CAD modeling tools, construction practice, programming, and verification. Moreover, the learning environment was inherently interdisciplinary as the problem presented interlocking design problems related to mechanics, electronics, computer hardware, interfacing, and software. The concept team reported that the project taught them to function as a team, help to develop leadership skills and the ability to set priorities, plan projects, make decisions, and work toward a common goal.
6. EVALUATION OF LEARNING OUTCOMES Two hundred twenty eight participants completed the 2004 contest survey forms, including 137 contestants of the school divisions (60.1%), 63 of the senior and expert divisions (27.6%), and 28 supervisors and instructors (12.3%). The survey form included three sections: general, academic achievement, and work skill development. The general section requested for student's name, country, school, grade, team name, and form of participation in the project. The work skill development section listed main subsystems of a fire-fighting robot and asked the student to specify his/her contribution to development of each of the subsystems. Our discussion focuses on the academic achievement section of the survey. This section presented a list of 30 disciplines, abilities, skills and attitudes (28 items for school divisions). The questionnaire asked the student to estimate his/her progress in each of them due to robotics studies and participation in the fire-fighting robot project. The team instructor was asked to estimate the progress of his/her students. The scale included four levels: none, some, medium and considerable progress. The answers about students' progress in disciplines indicate the following features: • The majority of high school and university students reported about their considerable or medium progress in the disciplines, especially in electronics, programming, sensors, control, and systems design. The university students reported on higher progress in computer communication, microprocessors and programming, while the high school students dealt more with mechanics. • Evaluations of the group of team instructors (of both divisions) are in good average agreement with students' estimates. Instructors' grades were lower for progress in electronics and AI but higher in programming and mechanics. For evaluation purposes, we divide the abilities and skills into two groups. For the first group, development of abilities and skills is inspired by the project. This "project-inspired" group includes abilities such as: ability to set priorities and leadership skills. Abilities and skills of the second group, such as ability to apply mathematics, writing skills, etc., are inspired by the curriculum. Some of our findings are as follows: • Absolute majority of high school and university students reported on their significant (considerable or medium) progress in all listed project-inspired abilities and skills due to their
robotics studies and the fire-fighting robot project. The students' evaluations are compatible with that given by the team instructors. • Students' evaluations of progress in the curriculum-inspired abilities and skills are significantly lower than in the project-inspired group. They are incompatible with instructors' estimates. This finding points the need of improving robotics curricula. For our experience and opinion, robotics studies can and should contribute to development of the curriculum-inspired abilities. • High-school students reported on significantly higher improvement of their abilities to apply mathematics and physics than the university students. Survey data on changes of students' attitudes effected by robotics studies and the fire-fighting robot project show that the fire-fighting robotics program continues to be a strong motivator of learning science and technology and interest in engineering. The 2005 survey evaluated attitudes towards the rules changes by asking participants to rate their contribution in to making the contest more interesting, more realistic, and more challenging. We asked about the new arena layouts, new operating modes, new task accomplishment methods, non-air extinguishers, and the concept arena. The survey used a five-level scale: strong, considerable, average, limited, and none. The results revealed that the changes in contest rules were supported by most of the participants. More than 90% regarded all the changes as strong, considerable, or average. Seventy percent of respondents considered the non-air extinguisher to be realistic and challenging through a strong or considerable rating, and 60% expressed strong or considerable interest in the Concept Arena. From this result, we expect increased interest in this new competition.
7. ROBOTICS OLYMPIAD The Robotics Olympiad was offered in pilot form as part of the 2003 TCFFHRC and then in 2004 as a regular component of the contest. To our knowledge this is the first time that a theoretical round has been included as part of a major robot competition. The goals of the TCFFHRC Olympiad included the following: To measure student knowledge beyond that indicated by robot performance To promote academic achievement in robotics subjects To provide a bonus to augment robot performance scores To reward the most knowledgeable individuals and teams To provide an incentive for future Olympiad participation. 45 students participated in the 2004 Olympiad individually or in teams. The exam consisted of eleven multiple-choice or semi-closed questions. Each question presented a real problem that could arise during the robot project and required a solution based on theoretical background and practical experience in robotics. The following sample question appeared on the 2005 exam. Question: A candle with a steady flame is located at x =0 (see figure below). A light sensor placed at d = 0.5 away form the candle reads a light intensity of 0.4 foot-candles. If the same sensor is moved horizontally to a point where it reads 0.1 foot-candles, the distance from the candle to this point equals (1) 0.1 m (2) 1 m (3) 3 m (4) 4 m (5) 8 m
The Olympiad results indicate that the questions presented a challenge for all participants. The teams performed better on the exam than individuals, but the improvement was not marked. In fact, one of the junior (middle school) students performed at nearly the same level as the high school individuals and teams, displaying that interest and knowledge in robotics can begin at an early age among highly motivated youngsters. The 2003 and 2004 TCFFHRC Olympiads were successful in engaging junior and high school students in a significant competitive event outside the robot performance competition.
8. CONCLUSION In this paper we proposed the education design experiment methodology in which robot development goes hand in hand with curriculum development. We applied this methodology to fire-fighting robotics at two levels: when upgrading contest rules, and in team-based robot projects inspired by the rules. Surveys indicated that the new rules increased interest in the contest and posed new technical challenges. Each rule change initiated an educational design experiment that required students to develop new projects and instructors to revise curricula. We noted the success of a Trinity College group that designed a tiny robot able to operate in the Concept Arena, but we noted that the fire-fighting swarm remains an unsolved problem. These successes and failures indicate that educational design experiments improve robotics instruction and the associated learning environments. The theoretical Olympiads indicated that understanding of science and engineering concepts can be developed by applying them to designing, building, and operating robots, and they emphasized the importance of learning for understanding in robotics education.
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