Abstract
This paper presents a robotics laboratory originated by the collaboration between the university and high school within the Italian school-work transition program. The educational objective of the proposed lab is twofold: 1) ease the transfer of robotic researchers’ expertise into useful means for the students’ learning; 2) teaching by practice the multidisciplinarity of robotics. We exploited the RoboCup Junior Race as a useful scenario to cover topics from 3D printing for fast prototyping to low-level and high-level controller design. An ad-hoc end-of-term student survey confirms the effectiveness of the approach. Finally, the paper includes some considerations on how general problems in the robotic and scientific community, such as gender issues and COVID-19 restrictions, can impact the educational robotics activities.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Miller, D.P., Nourbakhsh, I.: Robotics for education. In: Siciliano, B., Khatib, O. (eds.) Springer Handbook of Robotics, pp. 2115–2134. Springer, Cham (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32552-1_79
Toh, L.P.E., Causo, A., Tzuo, P.-W., Chen, I.-M., Yeo, S.H.: A review on the use of robots in education and young children. J. Educ. Technol. Soc. 19(2), 148–163 (2016)
Benitti, F.B.V.: Exploring the educational potential of robotics in schools: a systematic review. Comput. Educ. 58(3), 978–988 (2012)
Blanchard, S., Freiman, V., Lirrete-Pitre, N.: Strategies used by elementary schoolchildren solving robotics-based complex tasks: Innovative potential of technology. Procedia-Soc. Behav. Sci. 2(2), 2851–2857 (2010)
Souza, I.M.L., Andrade, W.L., Sampaio, L.M.R., Araujo, A.L.S.O.: A systematic review on the use of lego® robotics in education. In 2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), pp. 1–9. IEEE (2018)
Scaradozzi, D., Sorbi, L., Pedale, A., Valzano, M., Vergine, C.: Teaching robotics at the primary school: an innovative approach. Procedia - Soc. Behav. Sci. 174, 3838–3846 (2015). International Conference on New Horizons in Education, INTE 2014, 25-27 June 2014, Paris, France
Khanlari, A., Mansourkiaie, F.: Using robotics for stem education in primary/elementary schools: Teachers’ perceptions. In: 2015 10th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE), pp. 3–7. IEEE (2015)
Atmatzidou, S., Markelis, I., Demetriadis, S.: The use of lego mindstorms in elementary and secondary education: game as a way of triggering learning. In: International Conference of Simulation, Modeling and Programming for Autonomous Robots (SIMPAR), Venice, Italy, pp. 22–30. Citeseer (2008)
Chalmers, C.: Robotics and computational thinking in primary school. Int. J. Child-Comput. Interact. 17, 93–100 (2018)
Alimisis, D.: Robotics in education & education in robotics: shifting focus from technology to pedagogy. In: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Robotics in Education, pp. 7–14 (2012)
Bischoff, R., et al. The kuka-dlr lightweight robot arm-a new reference platform for robotics research and manufacturing. In: ISR 2010 (41st International Symposium on Robotics) and ROBOTIK 2010 (6th German Conference on Robotics), pp. 1–8. VDE (2010)
Lentini, G., et al.: Alter-ego: a mobile robot with a functionally anthropomorphic upper body designed for physical interaction. IEEE Robot. Autom. Mag. 26(4), 94–107 (2019)
Godfrey, S.B., et al.: The softhand pro: translation from robotic hand to prosthetic prototype. In: Ibáñez, J., González-Vargas, J., Azorn, J., Akay, M., Pons, J. (eds.) Converging Clinical and Engineering Research on Neurorehabilitation II, pp. 469–473. Springer, Cham (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46669-9_78
Casini, S., Morvidoni, M., Bianchi, M., Catalano, M., Grioli, G., Bicchi, A.: Design and realization of the cuff-clenching upper-limb force feedback wearable device for distributed mechano-tactile stimulation of normal and tangential skin forces. In: 2015 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 1186–1193. IEEE (2015)
Colella, N., Bianchi, M., Grioli, G., Bicchi, A., Catalano, M.G.: A novel skin-stretch haptic device for intuitive control of robotic prostheses and avatars. IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett. 4(2), 1572–1579 (2019)
Kuschel, K., Ettl, K., Díaz-García, C., Alsos, G.A.: Stemming the gender gap in stem entrepreneurship-insights into women’s entrepreneurship in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Int. Entrepreneurship Manage. J. 16(1), 1–15 (2020)
Casad, B.J., et al.: Gender inequality in academia: problems and solutions for women faculty in stem. J. Neurosci. Res. 99(1), 13–23 (2021)
Bergeron, B.: Online stem education a potential boon for affordable at-home simulators. SERVO Mag. 2 (2020)
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Professor Cristina Tani and Professor Giorgio Meini of the high school “ITI Galileo Galilei”, Livorno, Italy, who gave us the possibility to undertake this great experience. We also thank Eng. Daniele Benedettelli, who took part in this course with his great experience with LEGO usage and his enthusiasm.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Bettelani, G.C., Gabellieri, C., Mengacci, R., Massa, F., Mannucci, A., Pallottino, L. (2022). Robotics Laboratory Within the Italian School-Work Transition Program in High Schools: A Case Study. In: Merdan, M., Lepuschitz, W., Koppensteiner, G., Balogh, R., Obdržálek, D. (eds) Robotics in Education. RiE 2021. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1359. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82544-7_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82544-7_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-82543-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-82544-7
eBook Packages: Intelligent Technologies and RoboticsIntelligent Technologies and Robotics (R0)