Learning with robots in a remote access laboratory.

Engineering for primary school children: Learning with robots in a remote access laboratory Alexander A. Kist

Andrew Maxwell

Peter Gibbings

Faculty of Engineering and Surveying Faculty of Engineering and Surveying Faculty of Engineering and Surveying University of Southern Queensland University of Southern Queensland University of Southern Queensland Toowoomba, Australia 4350 Toowoomba, Australia 4350 Toowoomba, Australia 4350 +617 4631 5419 +617 4631 1875 +617 4631 4553

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

Roderick Fogarty

Warren Midgley

Karen Noble

Faculty of Education University of Southern Queensland Toowoomba, Australia 4350 +617 4631 5411

Faculty of Education University of Southern Queensland Toowoomba, Australia 4350 +617 4631 5403

Faculty of Education University of Southern Queensland Toowoomba, Australia 4350 +617 4631 1201

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

ABSTRACT Benefits of Remote Access Laboratory technology have been widely acknowledged in engineering education literature. This paper introduces a cross disciplinary project involving academic from the Faculty of Engineering & Surveying and the Faculty of Education and demonstrates how the benefit of remote access technologies can be extended to other non engineering disciplines. Remote access technology was employed in a workshop for primary school children called Robot RAL-ly. The participants designed a racing course for remote-control robots, and then moved to a different room to manoeuvre the robots through other teams‟ courses using the RAL technology. At the end of the workshop, the children participated in a co-constructed focus group discussion. The key focus of this paper is to describe the Robot RAL-ly initiative from a multi-disciplinary perspective and highlight positive outcomes for both disciplines. The project demonstrates that cross disciplinary projects benefit all parties. Engaging primary school children with Engineering topics not only provides valuable insights for engineering education but also helps to make engineering more accessible to potential future students.

Keywords remote access laboratory; cross disciplinary; Robot RAL-ly

1. INTRODUCTION The integrated use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in teaching and learning is both a public expectation and an official requirement for schools in Australia [1].

However, there is a need for further research into ways in which ICTs can be used as a significant enhancement, rather than just embellishment, to teaching and learning experiences [2]. In this paper, we describe a project in which remote access technology developed for university engineering students was employed in a project seeking to explore the pedagogical applications of that technology to enhance student learning for primary school children. The Remote Access Laboratory (RAL) was developed by a team of engineering academics at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) to provide distance students with practical learning experiences equivalent to that of their on-campus peers. Collaborating with a team of academics from USQ‟s Faculty of Education, this RAL technology was employed in a workshop for primary school children. The children were aged between 7 and 12 years, and included both boys and girls. The workshop consisted of a three-hour program in which the children designed a racing course for remote-control robots, according to specific guidelines. The children needed to employ mathematical skills and knowledge in order to ensure the course was of the correct length, included the correct number of turning corners and so forth. The children then employed a different set of skills to build their courses according to the plans they had designed. After testing the courses, they moved to a different room to manoeuvre the robots through other teams‟ courses using the RAL technology. The three-hour workshop was video-recorded and an analysis of the video recordings clearly indicates that the children were actively engaged and on-task throughout the entire workshop. This is an important educational achievement of itself. At the end of the workshop, the children participated in a coconstructed focus group discussion. Whilst the focus of this paper is to describe the Robot RAL-ly initiative from a multidisciplinary perspective, a thematic analysis of this focus group recording indicates that the remote manipulation of real objects provides children in this age-group with opportunities for rich learning experiences. The project will continue to explore ways in which this technology can be used to provide opportunities for

WEE2011, September 27-30, 2011, Lisbon, Portugal. Editors: Jorge Bernardino and José Carlos Quadrado.

586

students in a variety of different contexts, including remote and disadvantaged areas. The Robot RAL-ly project demonstrates one way in which activities can be designed to engage school children with the engineering disciplines of maths, science and technology. This is a high priority for countries such as Australia where there is a widely recognised skills shortage in these fields [3]. It also provides opportunities for children to develop the cognitive, teamwork and problem-solving skills required by modern professional engineers. The remainder of the paper is organised as follows: Section 2 introduces the RAL initiative in more detail and Section 3 discusses robots and the activity setup. Section 4 outlines the pedagogical approach and Section 5 describes the learning activity in detail. Section 6 concludes the paper.

2. THE REMOTE ACCESS LABORATORY SYSTEM Practical activities form an integral part of engineering education. The Faculty of Engineering and Surveying (FoES) at the University of Southern Queensland has a unique student cohort. Approximately 76% of students study in a distance mode off campus. To provide these students with practical learning opportunities equivalent to their on-campus peers is difficult and relies largely on residential schools where external students attend practical laboratory sessions on campus. This can be an imposition to students, but it also means that academic content and related practical stills are taught at different times. To address these issues, the FoES has undertaken a project to develop infrastructure that allows mediated access to software and hardware experiments. RAL will benefit students in many ways such as increasing flexibility of program delivery, providing a cost and time effective service to students, linking students to allow them to co-create knowledge and to foster collaboration, enhancing the connection between practical and theoretical knowledge, and increasing availability of laboratory equipment. Technology to enable remote laboratories in the context of university education is not new, e.g. [4]. Most published activities focus on individual solutions to specific experiments in science or engineering disciplines. A number of initiatives also address the problem on a larger scale and have developed infrastructure solutions comparable to USQ‟s initiative. The iLab [5] project has developed a software toolkit to enable and promote the sharing of laboratories via the Internet and the Australian Labshare [6] project aims “to create a (nationally) shared network of remote laboratories that results in some combination of: higher quality labs; greater student flexibility; improved educational outcomes; improved financial sustainability; enhanced scalability in terms of coping with student loads; and are developed and run by those with the appropriate expertise”. Key differences between these projects and USQ RAL includes the way experiments are accessed as well as support of software and hardware experiments. The RAL system also seamlessly integrates with the learning management system. Kist and Gibbings [7] indentifiy three key challenges that have to be address to make practical activities available online. These include:

  

learning objectives, learning activity design and development; an apparatus, i.e. an experiment or rig, to undertake the learning activity; controlled by computers; mediated, scheduled and authenticated access to computers that control experiments.

The RAL system primarily addresses the last point and enables educators to concentrate on the first two aspects. On a technical level, the RAL system consists of two key functional subsystems: A remote desktop control solution and a system that enables arbitration, authentication, booking and management of online experiments. The former is based on a commercial Oracle Secure Global Desktop infrastructure; the latter is based on a set of custom php scripts that directly integrate with the learning management system Moodle. Key pedagogical aspects of remote access laboratories in the context of engineering education remain open. For example, [8] asserts that learning objectives and outcomes do not significantly differ between proximal and remote laboratories, whereas, [9] suggests that different learning outcomes result from different access modes. Using remotely accessible activities in disciplines other than engineering and science poses a new set of challenges. To date, research and literature on the use of remote access laboratories has focussed largely on their application to engineering education and the sciences. No work has yet been done on how such learning laboratories may afford valuable learning outcomes in other faculties or disciplines. As the RAL system is available as a university core system, a project is underway to reach out to other disciplines to extend the benefits offered by the remote access mode, with a view to creating more equitable opportunities for student learning across the university. The collaboration between engineering & surveying; and education academics and the resulting Robot RALly concept was one outcome of this effort.

3. ROBOTS AND ARENAS The robots and network interfaces used for the Robot RAL-ly consisted of the physical robotic devices; the wireless communication network; remote access host computers; and the RAL networking infrastructure. The robots utilised as part of this experiment were unmodified Meccano™ SpyKee WiFi enabled track-based robots using embedded processors (200HMz ARM9, 32Mb SDRAM, 4Mb Flash memory) executing the stock open-source Linux kernel as provided. The robots were constructed and assembled representing the standard Humanoid form factor as detailed in the documentation for this device to provide a familiar and emotive appearance (where other documented alternatives were “Lunar Vehicle”, and “Scorpion”, as well as any other user-created freeform alternative). Interfacing connections provided on this platform included a low-resolution camera (QVGA, 15 frames/second), microphone and speaker, LED lighting, 9.6V NiMH battery and infrared optics allowing automatic docking with a corresponding charging base station. 587

The track-based robots accepted network connections over a WiFi based network using either ad-hoc or infrastructure modes. For initial configuring and testing, the robots were connected using the default ad-hoc method; however during the Robot RAL-ly event the robots were configured to connect to an infrastructurebased wireless networking node operating under IEEE 802.11g using WPA2 security to prevent by-passer intrusion into the robot network. All additional computing infrastructure required for this event was mounted into a custom low profile 19" mobile rack. Three main systems were contained within this rack, being the WiFi infrastructure routers, RAL computers and small form-factor netbooks. Two infrastructure WiFi routers provided wireless networking to both the SpyKee robots on one SSID (Service Set IDentifier – a unique name for each network), with a second WiFi router and SSID reserved for backup robots (WowWee Rovio type) however these backup units were subsequently not required during the event.

network conditions to be utilized when remote control through the RAL was attempted at a later time. Two separate room spaces were prepared for the event. The first was the “track-arena” and was approximately 11m by 7m, and included a theatre lectern and projector. The second was the “remote-arena”. The track-arena room housed the race track, as well as the robots, and their support infrastructure. Within this room, two race tracks of approximately 4m x 4m were prepared using pool-“noodles” (floating buoyancy assistive devices) which were taped to the floor using PVC based tape as each team constructed their race course. Other technical additions to this room were four elevated IP network cameras (VGA, 5 frames/second) located around each track to provide each team with two remote views of their respective course.

Also provided in the infrastructure rack were two PC type computers with WiFi and Ethernet connections providing interfacing between the RAL system (via ethernet) and the robots (via infrastructure WiFi). In addition, two net-books (Samsung NF210 type) were provided to allow portable control of the robots by the teams. Effectively, when teams could physically see their robots the net-books were used, whilst where “distant” remote control of the robots was required, the RAL PC computers were utilised through the RAL infrastructure.

The second remote-arena room was physically separate to the track-arena, and located on a different floor of the building so as to provide an acceptable remote experience (no line of sight, or audible connection). This room was configured with a projector, as well as two 54" LCD large format displays. The projector view (and associated computer) was used to view and remotely control one of the RAL PC's located in the track-arena running the robot control software, and interfacing over the infrastructure WiFi provided in that space to the desired SpyKee robot. The large format LCD displays were then used to display the IP-cameras of the race track of interest. This permitted robot drivers with both a first person view (through the robot webcam), and a 3rd person view of the room.

Control of the robots was achieved using custom software provided by Meccano™ which established a network connection to each robot over the selected wireless network, provided transmission of control commands, as well as receiving the video stream, and provide bi-directional VoIP-like audio between the robot and the controlling computer.

Control of the robot in the remote-arena space was provided using a Logitech DiNovo Mini bluetooth miniature keyboard, which provided a wireless “D-pad” like interface, replicating the control mechanism the teams had previously used in the track-arena. Teams were then able to view and control their robots remotely, permitting time trials to be conducted.

At the beginning of the Robot RAL-ly event, each team was provided with one robot, the corresponding charging station, and a net-book. In order to provide a degree of empathy, each robot been designated a call-sign name, being "Macro" and "Polo", a word-play of the famous Venetian explorer. These names also had a duplicity of significance; where the robots themselves were explorers in the context of the Robot RAL'ly; and secondly the names of the robots were used as a focal point to attract the teams attention through the use of an Australian water-sport custom of calling out "Marco" with all other participants subsequently echoing "Polo". Each team was also provided with a small flag bearing each robot‟s name, with teams encouraged to manipulate and personalize the pose of the SpyKee's articulated arms to carry this flag. In practice, this simple naming scheme and freedom to customize facilitated an “ownership” of each robot by the team, and served to bring the children, robots, and co-ordinators together.

One identified issue with the above arrangement was that of robot battery life, where a non-removable battery had been installed by design. Future instances of the ROBOT RAL-ly will see this modified, where custom sockets will be re-engineered into the robots to provide direct access to both the 9.6V NiMH battery for rapid-charging, as well as bypass of the internal battery with an external battery "brick" mounted onto the robot‟s exterior. This would allow for continuous operation of the robot during extended race events, and eliminate instances where robots are unavailable due to power management problems.

Once teams were issued with their robot package and net-books, the initial stages of familiarization (“Drive-it”) began where teams famiarised themselves with the particulars of the control software provided, as well as physical locomotion features and limitations of the robots. During this stage, no instructions other than a basic orientation of features, was provided. Participants then used their net-books to access their respective robot over the provided infrastructure WiFi node in order to allow the very similar IP

4. PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH In order to explore the pedagogical possibilities of the RAL technology for primary school education, a team of academics from USQ‟s Faculty of Education designed and implemented a pilot learning activity for a group of thirteen primary school children. The children were aged between 7 and 12 years, and included both boys and girls. The design of the activity was informed by current curriculum priorities and pedagogical practices endorsed by the Queensland Studies Authority (QSA), which is the statutory body overseeing education in Queensland, Australia.

588

The curriculum intent for this learning activity was based on the QSA documents for the Key Learning Area (KLA) of „Technology‟. One of the learning foci of this KLA, for year 7 students, is for students to “individually and collaboratively develop their ability to work technologically by generating, assessing and communicating design ideas and by selecting and using resources, tools and techniques, to design and make products to meet specifications” [10]. These particular aspects of the curriculum – helping children develop their abilities to select and use resources to make productions to meet specifications, and so forth – are referred to elsewhere in the QSA curriculum documentation as „Ways of Working‟ [11]. These Ways of Working are quite similar in the curriculum documents in all other states of Australia [12], thereby reflecting a common understanding of the importance of this aspect of children‟s learning about technology. The design of this learning activity was also informed by a constructivist approach to learning. This approach argues that children should be actively engaged in constructing their own knowledge and understanding through a variety of curriculum design and pedagogical approaches. According to this approach, teachers should select activities that build on prior experiences, that are seen by students to be purposeful and interesting, and that provide opportunities for children to learn how to do things, rather than simply to learn facts [13]. These dimensions were all incorporated into the design of the pilot learning activity. Another pedagogical perspective that is important to highlight is the approach that is referred to in the literature as Problem-Based Learning [14]. This approach is founded on two key assumptions about learning: that learning occurs in and through experience, and that learning happens by participating in a community of learning. One problem-based learning approach, inquiry-based learning, has been particularly influential in science and technology education [15]. There are a number of different frameworks for designing inquirybased learning activities. Three that closely aligned with the purposes of the pilot learning activity are TELSTAR, Backward Design, and Authentic Learning. TELSTAR [16] is an acronym which represents the following sequence of stages for an inquiry-based learning activity: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7.

Tune in Explore Look for information Sort the information Test Act Reflect

As explained in the next section on The Learning Activity, the 3rd and 4th stages – look for and sort information – were not included in the pilot learning activity. There were two principal reasons for this. Firstly, there was not enough time in the allocated period for children to look for and sort information. Secondly, in keeping with the curriculum intent of helping children design and make

products to meet specifications, most of the information required by students was provided in the design brief. Backward Design [17] is another inquiry-based planning approach which has as its central tenant that the final intended task or product of a learning activity should drive the design of the whole activity. In other words, if writing a newspaper article is the intended final product, the learning designer or lesson planner would work backwards from this intending product to determine firstly what skills and knowledge students would need to achieve the task (writing a newspaper article) and then design discrete learning activities that will provide opportunities for students to learn that knowledge and develop those skills, culminating in the successful achievement of the task, or development of the product. This approach lends itself very well to the curriculum intent of helping children develop the skills to make products according to specifications, as the specifications of the final product form the final product, which will drive the learning activity design. Authentic Learning [18] is another concept that is commonly associated with inquiry-based approaches to learning. Authentic learning can be used to describe any learning activity that is constructed and situated in such a way as to be as similar as possible to the real-world situation in which the learning will eventually be used. Thus, if one of the purposes of learning to count is to equip children to handle money, then one authentic learning activity might be a role-play in which children use toy money to buy and sell things at stores set up around the classroom. Another important theoretical construct informing the design of this learning activity relates to current understandings about the way in which learning tasks for school children should be designed. The first of the ten professional standards for Queensland teachers [19] requires teachers to design and implement “engaging and flexible” learning experiences. The Inquiry-based approach also has engaging and flexibility learning experiences as a central foundation.

4. THE LEARNING ACTIVITY The learning activity designed for this pilot project was constructed around two key learning resources. The first was a single page design brief that provided the participants with specific detail of the product they were being asked to design. Secondly, a PowerPoint presentation containing slides which provided participants with scaffolded and developmental instructions, key questions to help guide learning and classroom management strategies to ensure smooth transitions between phases of the lesson. At the commencement of the lesson, students were divided into two groups (six and seven respectively), each having a diversity of gender and age. Each group was guided by an adult facilitator whose role it was to reinforce the learning instructions provided and clarify any questions participants may have had about the learning activity. A third facilitator was tasked with the responsibility of managing the timing of the entire learning activity and providing verbal instructions on each phase of the learning process, guided by the PowerPoint presentation. 589

The activity was scaffolded into phases, mirroring the intent of TELSTAR as described in the Pedagogical Approach discussion in this paper whilst attempting to engage students with catchy, easily understood activity phases. These phases were; 1.

Drive It

2.

Plan It

3.

Make It

4.

Test It

5.

Swap It

6.

Race It

7.

Discuss It

The initial phase, Drive It, was specifically designed to immediately engage the students in what they were about to do. This approach takes into account the developmental needs of the learners, providing them with concrete experience before moving to the more abstract processes used later in the activity, and to allow them to develop an understanding of the capabilities of the robots they were designing for. In this phase, students explored the steering, starting and stopping characteristics of their robots, each group member having time „play‟ with and explore what these machines could and could not do. During the second phase, Plan It, the participants were provided with the task and design brief. The task sheet clearly articulated the goal students were setting out to achieve in the activity. Both groups were asked to „design a circuit, between 20 and 24 metres long that can be navigated by a robot. The circuit must have two edges at least 60 centimetres apart, containing between 7 and 12 corners (all corners will need to have straight edges, no curves). Swimming pool noodles and gaffer tape will be your construction materials.‟ Groups, with guidance from the facilitator, then discussed and drew design ideas for their track. The third phase, Make It, initiated without direction during the Plan It phase. As design ideas were discussed, participants automatically used the construction resources to test the viability of ideas presented. Some were incorporated and others rejected. Participants regularly tested these construction ideas with the robots as construction took place and adapted the designs when limitations of the robots made design aspect inappropriate. Though planned as part of the learning activity, this fourth phase, Test It, was initiated by the participants as the construction process was undertaken. As tracks were completed in the trackarena, a more formalised testing process was undertaken by the participants to ensure the final track layout meet the design brief and was appropriate for navigation by the robots being used. During phase five, Swap It, participants were taken from the track-arena room in which the tracks were designed and moved to the remote-arena room from which they would conduct the Robot RAL-ly. This room provided participants with the multiple angle live video feeds of the tracks they had constructed displayed on large flat-panel LCD screens. The video feed from the robot was projected onto a large screen in front of the „driver‟s seat‟ and the small “D-Pad” controller, linked via the RAL system to the robot, provided the steering mechanism. Each group was now tasked with the challenge of navigating the course constructed by the opposing group.

Phase six, Drive It, required each member of each team to navigate their robot around the opposing team‟s course. Participants were encouraged to provide verbal feedback to the drivers, but each driver needed to manipulate the robot themselves. Lap times were recorded for each participant and team averages calculated to determine the „winner‟. At the conclusion of the Robot RAL-ly, participants took part in the final phase of the activity, Discuss It. During this phase of the activity, a focus group discussion, in the form of an emerging conversation, co-constructed between the researchers and the participants, took place. The aim of this discussion was to gain an idea of the participant‟s perceptions of their experience during the learning activity and to explore their thoughts about other uses they could see for the RAL system.

5. CONCLUSIONS Through the use of the RAL technology, it becomes possible to create opportunities for primary school children to engage in complex engineering experiences linked to their curriculum outcomes that they may not otherwise have experienced (due to access, affordability of equipment, etc). While there is much work to be done regarding research into the best ways to expose children to engineering skills and concepts, what is immediately apparent from the initiative outlined here is that, regardless of age, children possess the curiosity and dispositions necessary to successfully engage with complex engineering problems. While the Robot RAL-ly occurred in the university context, it is possible for students from various geographical locations to engage remotely with the university to undertake similar projects. Engagement with schools enables the university to become more integrated and community engaged. Such efforts are seen as mutually beneficial in terms of increasing access and participation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). The Robot RAL-ly illustrates the strength of a multi-disciplinary approach to teaching and learning and highlights the ways in which academics working collaboratively can better engage children in mathematics, science and engineering fields. Introducing children to engineering with hands-on, problemsolving activities not only increased their knowledge about themselves as learners, but also led to an increase in their overall self-efficacy about STEM fields. Importantly, this multidisciplinary research team (authors) became more collectively mindful of one another‟s knowledge, skills and abilities, leading to a future focus that is strengths-based. A critically reflective process post experiment produced a rich dialogue with the children, but equally led to further in-depth conversations between the academics, in terms of future pedagogical and technical developments. It is through this collaboration that the focus remains on trying to develop engineering skills and „thinking like an engineer‟ in an informal learning context, rather than on focusing on math and science and stimulating interest in engineering through more structured, formal subject-based approaches to STEM.

6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work has been funded by USQ Learning and Teaching Performance Fund (LTPF) grants in 2010 and 2011.

590

7. REFERENCES [1] Fetherson, T., Becoming an Effective Teacher. Thomson, Melbourne, Australia, 2007 [2] Goodison, T., Integrating ICT in the classroom: A case-study of two contrasting lessons. British Journal of Educational Technology, 34, 5.(2003), 549-566. [3] Tytler, R., Re-Imagining Science Education: Engaging Students in Science for Australia‟s Future. Australian Education Review, 51 [4] Aktan, B., Bohus, C., Crowl, L., & Shor, M. Distance learning applied to control engineering laboratories. IEEE Transactions on Education , 39 (3), 1996. [5] Harward, V., del Alamo, J., Lerman, S., Bailey, P., Carpenter, J., DeLong, K., et al. The iLab Shared Architecture: A Web Services Infrastructure to Build Communities of Internet Accessible Laboratories. Proceedings of the IEEE , 96 (6), 2008. [6] Lowe, D., Murray, S., Lindsay, E., & Liu, D., Evolving Remote Laboratory Architectures to Leverage Emerging Internet Technologies. IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies, 2 (4), 289-294, 2009. [7] Kist, A.A. , Gibbings, P. Inception and management of remote access laboratory project. 21st Annual Conference of the Australasian Association for Engineering Education, 5-8 Dec 2010, Sydney, Australia. [8] Trevelyan, J., Lessons Learned from 10 Years Experience with Remote Laboratories. International Conference on Engineering Education and Research. Ostrava: VŠB-TUO, 2004.

[9] Lindsay, E., The Impact of Remote and Virtual Access to Hardware upon the Learning Outcomes of Undergraduate Engineering Laboratory Classes. Melbourne: Unpublished PhD, The University of Melbourne, 2005. [10] Technology Learning and Assessment Focus Years 3-9, Available online at www.qsa.qld.edu.au [11] Technology Essential Learnings Year 7, Available online at www.qsa.qld.edu.au [12] Fleer, M., Jane, B. Design and technology for children (3rd ed).Frenchs Forest, Australia: Pearson, 2011. [13] Skamp, K. Teaching primary science constructively (3rd ed.). Melbourne, Australia: Thomson, 2008. [14] Eggen, P. D., Kauchak, D. P. Strategies and models for teachers: Teaching content and thinking skills (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, 2006. [15] Llewellyn, D. Inquire within: Implementing inquiry-based science standards. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, 2001. [16] Queensland Department of Education. Social Investigators: An Approach to Active and Informed Citizenship for Years 8-10, Brisbane, Australia, 1994. [17] Wiggins, G., McTighe, J. Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.2005. [18] Fetherston, T. Becoming an effective teacher. Melbourne, Australia: Thomson Learning, 2011. [19] Queensland College of Teachers. Professional standards for Queensland teachers (p. 7). Available online at www.qct.edu.au/standards/index/

591