University laboratories deliver unique hands-on experimentation opportunities for STEM students, but often lack state-of-the-art equipment and provide limited access to their equipment. The University of Texas Cloud Laboratory (CLAB) provides remote access to cutting-edge series elastic actuators for student experimentation regarding…

Contribution: Case study of a rural-focused educational program with two components: 1) introducing high school students and teachers to smart and connected technologies (SCTs) that can be used to solve local problems and 2) engaging the local community in supporting local technology-driven entrepreneurship. Background: Rural communities typically…

Contribution: Prior studies on tangible versus graphical user interfaces have reported controversial findings concerning children's preferences. This paper shows that their preference profiles in the domain of introductory programming are associated with gender and age for both interfaces. Background: The relevant literature mainly consists of…

This paper explores the use of a constructivist 21st-century learning model to implement a week-long workshop, delivered as a "hackathon," to encourage preuniversity teenagers to pursue careers in STEM, with a particular emphasis on computer science. For Irish preuniversity students, their experience of computing can vary from word…

The interdisciplinary nature of robotics allows mobile robots to be used successfully in a broad range of courses at the postgraduate level and in Ph.D. research. Practical industrial-like mobile robotic demonstrations encourage students and increase their motivation by providing them with learning benefits not achieved with traditional…

The "open hardware mobile manipulator" (OHMM) is a new open platform with a unique combination of features for teaching robotics software and algorithms. On-board low- and high-level processors support real-time embedded programming and motor control, as well as higher-level coding with contemporary libraries. Full hardware designs and…

This paper describes the integration of robotics education into an undergraduate Computer Science curriculum. The proposed approach delivers mobile robotics as well as covering the closely related field of Computer Vision and is directly linked to the research conducted at the authors' institution. The paper describes the most relevant details of…

Educational robotics proposes the use of robots as a teaching resource that enables inexperienced students to approach topics in fields unrelated to robotics. In recent years, these activities have grown substantially in elementary and secondary school classrooms and also in outreach experiences to interest students in science, technology,…

The design of any robotic system requires input from engineers from a variety of technical fields. This paper describes a project-based module, "Biologically-Inspired Robotics," that is offered to Electronics and Computer Science students at the University of Southampton, U.K. The overall objective of the module is for student groups to…

This paper describes a multidisciplinary teaching program, designed to provide students with the broad knowledge and skills required to practice product development in robotics and mechatronics. The curriculum was designed to prepare students for the senior capstone design project, in which they design and build a working mechatronic/robotic…

This paper describes a new approach for a course and laboratory designed to allow students to develop low-cost prototypes of robotic and other embedded devices that feature Internet connectivity, I/O, networking, a real-time operating system (RTOS), and object-oriented C/C++. The application programming interface (API) libraries provided permit…

This paper presents an innovative two-course, laboratory-based, and design-oriented robotics educational model. The robotics curriculum exposed senior-level undergraduate students to major robotics concepts, and enhanced the student learning experience in hybrid learning environments by incorporating the IEEE Region-5 annual robotics competition…

This paper describes a newly designed upper-level undergraduate and graduate course, Autonomous Mobile Robots. The course employs active, cooperative, problem-based learning and is grounded in the fundamental computational problems in mobile robotics defined by Dudek and Jenkin. Students receive a broad survey of robotics through lectures, weekly…

Tangible programming tools enable children to easily learn the programming process, previously considered to be difficult for them. While various tangible programming tools have been developed, there is still a lack of available tools to help students experience the general programming process. This study therefore developed a tool called…

After 10 years of organizing the Cybertech robotics competition, this paper presents this unique and innovative educational experience of teaching engineering at Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (UPM), Spain. Cybertech is not only a well-known robotic contest in Spain due to the "Robotaurus" bullfighting, but is also a whole academic…