Book Review
By Wendell H. Chun Colorado School of Mines
Robots for Kids Robots for Kids: Exploring New Technologies for Learning, Allison Druin and James Hendler, eds., Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, 2000, ISBN 1-55860-597-5, 350 pp., US$44.95.
T
he editors of Robots for Kids correctly observe that robotic toys and robots for entertainment have under-
gone a quiet revolution. This revolution has been fueled by the advancement of the computer and the increase in processing capability that has followed Moore’s Law. Consequently, more and more robots are finding their way into homes and—perhaps more important—classrooms. Alison Druin and James Hendler’s book features reports from this revolution’s front lines.
Three perspectives on a revolution Robots for Kids comprises three main sections: 1. four examples of robot technologies designed for kids (Chapters 1–4), 2. five descriptions of how educators use robots in various settings (Chapters 5–9), and 3. a final narrative that attempts to predict the future (Chapter 10). Each chapter ends with Kid’s View, an essay by a child involved in some aspect of robotics. Chapter 1 describes Fred Martin’s work at the MIT Media Lab with Lego Mindstorms, a commercial product that combines Lego building pieces with a microcomputer. As an educator familiar with Mindstorms and Martin’s research, I enjoyed reading about the evolution of the programmable brick and the cricket. The cricket is a programmable microcomputer but is smaller, lighter, and less expensive than the earlier versions that went by the name of brick or thinking tag. Martin and his colleagues provide helpful insight into their methodology and way of thinking. This includes details on the cricket bus system, communication between components, and sensor options that could be used to build interesting projects. In Kid’s View, Sharone (age 12) presents a very sophisticated Dragon Helper; she will be an exceptional engineer if she chooses this career path. Chapter 2 details the development of Sony’s Aibo ERS110, probably the most advanced robotic system available to the general public. Robot designers will appreciate the level of detail of both the hardware and software imple88
mented on this product. The system design is complete with both a functional architecture and a layered software architecture. As the photographs of the robot dog’s facial expressions illustrate, its motions, reactions, and simulated emotions captivate children’s attention; Sony has achieved its goal of making Aibo entertaining. Thomas (age 10) in Kid’s View says it best when he infers that making a robot is not easy, except for having fun. The Personal Electronic Teller of Stories (Chapter 3) is another excellent idea for helping educate kids. It provides stuffed animal parts to construct a robotic animal and an accompanying software component that lets children tell a story about their robotic creations. This product is interactive on a computer and opens a door of creativity by giving children the opportunity to create a special pet and embellish its personality. The PETS kit benefits from leveraging off its intergenerational design team by providing instant feedback from the children who are using the product to grownups who are developing it. Cooperative inquiry is a positive attribute, as 11-year-old Rebecca testifies in Kid’s View. In Chapter 4, Richard Maddocks’ description of designing and developing a toy vehicle that switches configurations from a standard four-wheel design to an inline design will particularly interest mechanical and manufacturing engineers. The essay’s focus is primarily mechanical; however, a description of the experiences of electronics and software development for a similar toy would be valuable. Chapter 5 concentrates on students with mild to moderate learning difficulties that affect memory, auditory perception, visual perception, oral language, and thinking. This chapter has merit from an educational research perspective as a case study for implementing technology in the classroom, but the authors lack a basic understanding of robotics. Globally replacing robot with computer would not drastically change the chapter’s message. However, Alex (age 7) in Kid’s View understands exactly what he wants his robot to do. Chapter 6 describes a pilot workshop in Argentina that tries to introduce advanced technologies to kids. Again, the authors show little understanding of robots but do provide keen social insights into how children, their parents, and technical projects interact. Hanne (age 11) in Kid’s View makes the profound statement that robots can be easy and hard; this thought resonates with everyone in robotics.
1094-7167/01/$10.00 © 2001 IEEE
IEEE INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS
The KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) Institute for Practical Robotics (Chapter 7) has developed programs that successfully promote robotics. Two examples are the Botball competitions (www.kipr.org/botball/index. html) and the Robotics in Residence (RinR) program, which sends professional roboticists to schools to work side by side on a common project. Such programs are the perfect primer for math, engineering, and computer science in grade schools. Kids will gain the educational background that could lead to a fruitful technical career path later in life. The institute’s powerful hypothesis is that robotics is one of the great integrating disciplines that educators can use in a framework to teach science. This chapter clearly describes the goals, principles, and skills required to advance robotics with students. This is supported with relevant examples that motivate students and build camaraderie among the team. This concept is epitomized in Lauren’s (age 8) robot (Kid’s View again), which is a combination of different animals. Mentors from the Xerox Research Center in Palo Alto (Chapter 8) have shown that competition, pride, and commitment allow students to be confident and successful. For three years, these mentors have been partnering with Henry M. Gunn High School in competing in the FIRST (For Inspiration in Science and Technology) Competition. This chapter is very well written and relates the experiences of the students and their commitment to the effort. They have addressed a variety of social issues such as curriculum barriers and emotions brought on by the competition. The message here is that there are no losers. You can see from Kids’View that Kate (age 12) has developed a special interest robotics. The syllabus and activities demonstrated in Robin Murphy and Michael Rosenblatt’s Robocamp (Chapter 9) are quite pertinent to teaching robotics. They take a unique approach to conveying complex ideas to younger students. The activities of building a robot mouse, drawing the analogy of a robot and its biological behavior with animals at the zoo, understanding the operations of mechanical gears, and using rope to learn about the different robot gaits are innovative learning techniques. They incorporate key insights into the real, everyday issues that all roboticists must face. At the chapter’s end are appendices containing a daily teaching syllabus and information on appropriate videos, applicable robotics Web sites, and commercial robot kits. These
appendices are a valuable resource to anyone teaching robotics, and highlight fundamental lessons to be learned. In Chapter 10, author and lecturer Ray Hammond gives his vision of an intelligent electronic companion that virtually grows up with your child. Such a development is very plausible, given the advancement of raw processing capability and machine intelligence in general. Abstractions, languages, and virtuality will undoubtedly impact our future, similarly to how television has changed our world. Throughout these changes, the Turing Test is still the standard for testing the advancement of intelligent technologies; it will be interesting to see if we’ll need to change the test and if Hammond’s predictions do come true. In Kid’s View, Bob (age 12) presents a more frightening future. His short story characterizes a synthetic being named Hobatu with such realism and detail that this morbid droid could virtually leap out of the story and into real life.
It’s for everyone (sort of) I found Robots for Kids perplexing. As a robot researcher and educator, I enthusiastically started this review. As I read the book, I tried to determine its intended audience, but I couldn’t. The book contains much good material; however, its content is so diverse that if you read it from cover to cover, it appears disjointed and choppy. This is due to the varying writing styles of the authors and the varying technical depth between chapters. Readers will benefit from reading selected chapters based on their particular interests. For example, robot researchers will more likely appreciate the intricacies of the Sony architecture illustrated in Chapter 2, which is written more like papers found at technical conferences. In contrast, but to a lesser degree, Chapter 1, which chronicles the history of Lego Mindstorms, holds little value for robot researchers or hobbyists. However, I found it interesting from a historical-development perspective. The rest of the book also will hold little interest for researchers and hobbyists. The robot experiences with Botball and RinR, FIRST, and Robocamp (Chapters 7–9) have merit for kindergarten through grade 12 educators. In describing FIRST, Mark Yim and Mark Chow provide significant insight into how kids interact with new and emerging technologies. They also help remind us that education is a two-way street between teachers and students. To effectively inte-
grate robotic technologies (primarily for grades K–9), educators could start by adapting the Robocamp curriculum to an introductory class on robotics and robotic principles. Murphy and Rosenblatt seem very attuned to teaching to a younger audience. However, this book can be a little advanced for the average K–12 teacher or parent. The main message these readers should get from this book is that Mindstorms, Aibo, and PETS are available to kids interested in robotics and interactive devices. For education researchers, the case studies at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and the MIT Media Lab’s work in Argentina (Chapters 5 and 6) will be beneficial because they address general teaching principles. And for all advocates (from parents to teachers to legislators) of science and math for kids, the essay on projects at the KISS Institute for Practical Robots (Chapter 7) should be mandatory reading. I feel that all readers will also enjoy the Kid’s View essays, which add further testimony to the value of combining robots and children.
I
personally found Robots & Kids exciting because it fills a void by presenting a collection of robots for educational purposes. It will serve as a sourcebook for other educators, from which they can take ideas to tailor to their own projects. The chapters represent a combination of specific solutions to specific challenges with answers to the broader areas of learning with technology. The essays in the Kid’s View further reinforce the ideas that the mind of the child is a wonderful thing and that technology can have a lasting impact on their personal lives and values. This book’s audience will be a mixed bag, but the book will find its niche. Wendell H. Chun is adjunct faculty at the Colorado School of Mines, where he teaches seniorlevel introductory and advanced robotics. He is also a member of the technical staff at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, conducting research on robotics, perception, and autonomy. He has a BSME from the University of Hawaii and completed the graduate Program in Engineering Design at the Carnegie Bosch Institute that supported the walking robot Dante to explore Mt. Erebus. He has been the cochairman and editor of the SPIE Mobile Robots Conference and the program chairman for SPIE’s Robotics & Intelligent Systems Symposium, and has served on the Board of Trustees for the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. Contact him at Lockheed Martin, P.O. Box 179, Denver, CO 80126;
[email protected].
The KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) Institute for Practical Robotics (Chapter 7) has developed programs that successfully promote robotics. Two examples are the Botball competitions (www.kipr.org/botball/index. html) and the Robotics in Residence (RinR) program, which sends professional roboticists to schools to work side by side on a common project. Such programs are the perfect primer for math, engineering, and computer science in grade schools. Kids will gain the educational background that could lead to a fruitful technical career path later in life. The institute’s powerful hypothesis is that robotics is one of the great integrating disciplines that educators can use in a framework to teach science. This chapter clearly describes the goals, principles, and skills required to advance robotics with students. This is supported with relevant examples that motivate students and build camaraderie among the team. This concept is epitomized in Lauren’s (age 8) robot (Kid’s View again), which is a combination of different animals. Mentors from the Xerox Research Center in Palo Alto (Chapter 8) have shown that competition, pride, and commitment allow students to be confident and successful. For three years, these mentors have been partnering with Henry M. Gunn High School in competing in the FIRST (For Inspiration in Science and Technology) Competition. This chapter is very well written and relates the experiences of the students and their commitment to the effort. They have addressed a variety of social issues such as curriculum barriers and emotions brought on by the competition. The message here is that there are no losers. You can see from Kids’View that Kate (age 12) has developed a special interest robotics. The syllabus and activities demonstrated in Robin Murphy and Michael Rosenblatt’s Robocamp (Chapter 9) are quite pertinent to teaching robotics. They take a unique approach to conveying complex ideas to younger students. The activities of building a robot mouse, drawing the analogy of a robot and its biological behavior with animals at the zoo, understanding the operations of mechanical gears, and using rope to learn about the different robot gaits are innovative learning techniques. They incorporate key insights into the real, everyday issues that all roboticists must face. At the chapter’s end are appendices containing a daily teaching syllabus and information on appropriate videos, applicable robotics Web sites, and commercial robot kits. These
appendices are a valuable resource to anyone teaching robotics, and highlight fundamental lessons to be learned. In Chapter 10, author and lecturer Ray Hammond gives his vision of an intelligent electronic companion that virtually grows up with your child. Such a development is very plausible, given the advancement of raw processing capability and machine intelligence in general. Abstractions, languages, and virtuality will undoubtedly impact our future, similarly to how television has changed our world. Throughout these changes, the Turing Test is still the standard for testing the advancement of intelligent technologies; it will be interesting to see if we’ll need to change the test and if Hammond’s predictions do come true. In Kid’s View, Bob (age 12) presents a more frightening future. His short story characterizes a synthetic being named Hobatu with such realism and detail that this morbid droid could virtually leap out of the story and into real life.
It’s for everyone (sort of) I found Robots for Kids perplexing. As a robot researcher and educator, I enthusiastically started this review. As I read the book, I tried to determine its intended audience, but I couldn’t. The book contains much good material; however, its content is so diverse that if you read it from cover to cover, it appears disjointed and choppy. This is due to the varying writing styles of the authors and the varying technical depth between chapters. Readers will benefit from reading selected chapters based on their particular interests. For example, robot researchers will more likely appreciate the intricacies of the Sony architecture illustrated in Chapter 2, which is written more like papers found at technical conferences. In contrast, but to a lesser degree, Chapter 1, which chronicles the history of Lego Mindstorms, holds little value for robot researchers or hobbyists. However, I found it interesting from a historical-development perspective. The rest of the book also will hold little interest for researchers and hobbyists. The robot experiences with Botball and RinR, FIRST, and Robocamp (Chapters 7–9) have merit for kindergarten through grade 12 educators. In describing FIRST, Mark Yim and Mark Chow provide significant insight into how kids interact with new and emerging technologies. They also help remind us that education is a two-way street between teachers and students. To effectively inte-
grate robotic technologies (primarily for grades K–9), educators could start by adapting the Robocamp curriculum to an introductory class on robotics and robotic principles. Murphy and Rosenblatt seem very attuned to teaching to a younger audience. However, this book can be a little advanced for the average K–12 teacher or parent. The main message these readers should get from this book is that Mindstorms, Aibo, and PETS are available to kids interested in robotics and interactive devices. For education researchers, the case studies at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and the MIT Media Lab’s work in Argentina (Chapters 5 and 6) will be beneficial because they address general teaching principles. And for all advocates (from parents to teachers to legislators) of science and math for kids, the essay on projects at the KISS Institute for Practical Robots (Chapter 7) should be mandatory reading. I feel that all readers will also enjoy the Kid’s View essays, which add further testimony to the value of combining robots and children.
I
personally found Robots & Kids exciting because it fills a void by presenting a collection of robots for educational purposes. It will serve as a sourcebook for other educators, from which they can take ideas to tailor to their own projects. The chapters represent a combination of specific solutions to specific challenges with answers to the broader areas of learning with technology. The essays in the Kid’s View further reinforce the ideas that the mind of the child is a wonderful thing and that technology can have a lasting impact on their personal lives and values. This book’s audience will be a mixed bag, but the book will find its niche. Wendell H. Chun is adjunct faculty at the Colorado School of Mines, where he teaches seniorlevel introductory and advanced robotics. He is also a member of the technical staff at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, conducting research on robotics, perception, and autonomy. He has a BSME from the University of Hawaii and completed the graduate Program in Engineering Design at the Carnegie Bosch Institute that supported the walking robot Dante to explore Mt. Erebus. He has been the cochairman and editor of the SPIE Mobile Robots Conference and the program chairman for SPIE’s Robotics & Intelligent Systems Symposium, and has served on the Board of Trustees for the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. Contact him at Lockheed Martin, P.O. Box 179, Denver, CO 80126;
[email protected].
