A one-hour curriculum to engage middle school students in robotics and computer science using cubelets

Abstract

Robotics has become a standard K-12 outreach tool and for attracting students to the STEM disciplines. Performing these activities in the class room usually requires substantial time commitment by the teacher and integration into the curriculum requires major effort, which makes spontaneous and short-term engagements difficult. This paper studies using “Cubelets”, a modular robotic construction kit, which requires virtually no setup time and allows substantial engagement and change of perception of STEM in as little as a 1-hour session. This paper describes the constructivist curriculum and provides qualitative and quantitative results on perception changes with respect to STEM and computer science in particular as a field of study.