Using different humanoid robots for science edutainment of secondary school pupils

Abstract

Robotics camps that involve design, construction and programming tasks are a popular part of various educational activities. This paper presents the results of a survey that accompanied the Innovationscamp, a one week intensive workshop for promoting science and engineering among secondary school pupils through humanoid robots. Two very different types of platforms were used in this workshop: LEGO mindstorms, which are widely used for educational activities, and Bioloid humanoids, which are more commonly used for professional research. Though the workshop participants were robotics novices, the survey indicates through several statistically significant results that the Bioloid robots are preferred by the pupils over the LEGO robots as educational tools. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.