Innovative robot for educational robotics and STEM

Abstract

This paper aims to present the design of a low-cost, open-source, robotic platform for use in Educational Robotics and SΤΕΜ as a holistic approach to the curriculum. In alignment with the research presented in [1] the robotic platform’s innovation is based on two axes: (a) its specifications came from the 1st cycle of participatory action research; (b) it is equipped with a visual programming language integrated into the robot’s “brain” itself so that it can be programmed by any device (smartphone, tablet, PC) with Wi-Fi connectivity, without the need for any software or app to be downloaded and installed in the device. The spark for this research arose from an educational robotics survey’s data evaluation handled at the municipality of Agia Varvara in Athens-Greece which, while showing a strong students interest in educational robotics, however few of them got involved because of the robotic platform’s high cost. So, this research’s motivation was to go on designing and developing a robotic platform suitable for the whole educational community that the specifications based on its members’ needs and extracted by quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis tools.