The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the experiential learning of electronics subject matter is effective in the middle school open learning of robotics. Electronics is often ignored in robotics courses. Since robotics courses are typically comprised of computer-related subjects, and mechanical and electrical engineering, these…

The aim of the study was to present the effect of Lego Mindstorms Ev3 based design activities on students' attitudes towards learning computer programming, self-efficacy beliefs and levels of academic achievement. The research is a pretest-posttest with control group semi-experimental study. The study group of the research consisted of 53 students…

Mental rotations are among the most difficult of all spatial tasks to perform, and even those with high levels of spatial ability can struggle to visualize the result of compound rotations. This pilot study investigates the use of the virtual reality-based Rotation Tool, created using the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) together with…

Although the consensus seems to be that high-school-level introductory engineering courses should focus on design, this creates a problem for teacher training. Traditionally, math and science teachers are trained to teach and assess factual knowledge and closed-ended problem-solving techniques specific to a particular discipline, which is unsuited…

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…

The haptic paddle is a force-feedback joystick used at several universities in teaching System Dynamics, a core mechanical engineering undergraduate course where students learn to model dynamic systems in several domains. A second goal of the haptic paddle is to increase the accessibility of robotics and haptics by providing a low-cost device for…

In this paper, we describe the successful implementation of an afterschool LEGO robotics program for elementary and middle school students that is annually offered by the Whitacre College of Engineering at Texas Tech University. Three events are held on campus: the kickoff, a trial run, and the competition, spread over a period of eight weeks. In…