Abstract

Educational robots are becoming a significant asset to improve students’ critical thinking and creativity. At Auburn University, outreach programs have been created to promote robotics at K-12 level camps. Various robotics platforms and programming environments are used to develop students’ reflective problem solving skills through employing logic, cooperation and accuracy. We provide a brief survey of the popular robotic educational platforms. In addition to presenting the robotics camp curriculum, this paper also presents how robots are used to introduce students to computer science notions through implementing the Computer Science Unplugged activities. Implementing such activities using robots resulted in multiple benefits: 1) students learned computer programming in an interactive user experience 2) students acquired advanced computer science notions without undergoing the high stress levels associated with such activities and 3) students maintained high levels of motivation and concentration during the entire six weeks of the camp.

Citation

Ben Brahim, T., Marghitu, D. & Weaver, J. (2012). A Survey on Robotic Educational Platforms for K-12. In T. Bastiaens & G. Marks (Eds.), Proceedings of E-Learn 2012--World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 1 (pp. 41-48). Montréal, Quebec, Canada: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved August 5, 2024 from https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/41555/.

© 2012 Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)

Keywords

• computer programming
• robotic