Robotics Technology

This news come from www.ntxe-news.com

Austin College became one of 28 high schools, colleges and universities in the nation to receive a grant to enhance computer science curriculum with robotics technology. The grant was provided by the Institute for Personal Robots in Education (IPRE) and a gift from Microsoft Research.

“Implementing robotics into computer science and other sciences makes the curriculum more interesting and interactive,” said Shellene Kelley, associate professor of computer science, who tested robots for the IPRE and attended a three-day faculty workshop at the Georgia Tech College of Computing during the 2008 spring term. “Hopefully this will help combat the U.S. trend of declining student interest in math and the sciences,” she said.

Kelley will be implementing the technology at Austin College during her fall 2008 Communication/Inquiry (C/I) course, “Computing with Robots: It’s all a BOT science,” where each student will explore ways to automate robot behavior through computer programming with their own personal robot. Kelley also will be utilizing the robotic technology in a 2008 Jan Term and in a 2009 spring term course.

“It’s much more fun to teach a robot to navigate around obstacles, perform a dance, or roam the halls taking pictures along the way than to write a program to solve a mathematical equation or search for information in a file,” Kelley said. “But the same logic and problem solving skills are needed to accomplish all these tasks. Students will not only learn to program robots but also learn to program computers to solve many types of real-world problems.”

Kelley said the C/I course, Austin College’s unique brand of freshman seminars, and Jan Term course utilizing the robots will be a way to attract undecided students and some non-science majors to the science and computer science field, aligning Austin College with the IPRE grant’s goal.

“Robots are a compelling way to stimulate students and spark their imaginations to consider the endless possibilities of careers in computer science,” said Dr. Stewart Tansley, senior program manager at Microsoft Research. “With these awards, we hope to accelerate the broad development of robotics programs, making computer science more immediate, relevant and significant for students and professors everywhere.”

The 28 recipients will share $250,000 and receive book-sized robots, called Scribblers, which are enhanced with special hardware technology and software. “IPRE’s efforts in developing this technology over the past two years makes it possible to put a robot in the hands of every student in the class for about the same price as a textbook” said Kelley. “This is key to encouraging experimentation and learning, both in and out the classroom environment.”

Grants were given to schools that met IPRE’s criteria for the technical quality of academic program, chances for successful implementation and matched IPRE’s mission to reinvigorate undergraduate computer science curriculum by delivering robotics technology tailored to education.

The IPRE applies and evaluates robots as a context for computer science education. IPRE was created in 2006 as a joint effort between Georgia Tech College of Computing and Bryn Mawr College sponsored by Microsoft Research.