Botball: Autonomous students engineering autonomous robots

Abstract

Sparking and maintaining an early fascination with engineering and computer programming is of great interest to educators who wish to bring high quality students into these fields, and it is of vital concern to all of us who want to see our country thrive in this world economy. This paper will present an effective, intensive, and enjoyable way of getting middle and high school age students actively engaged in engineering, science, math, and computer programming. The paper describes Botball, an engineering outreach program in which students design, build, and program small autonomous mobile robots. Examples of how Botball may help to draw a diverse population into engineering and computer programming will be discussed.