An educational robotics kit developed at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute is fostering an interest in technology that goes a step beyond simply putting supplied parts together.
The Hummingbird kit consists of a customized control board, along with a variety of lights, sensors, and motors that can be connected to the controller without soldering. With a free, easy-to-learn drag-and-drop environment, students armed with paper, paint, cardboard, and a little imagination can program their creations without prior experience.
"We want students to become inventors of technology rather than users of technology," Illah Nourbakhsh, a robotics professor at Carnegie Mellon, said in a press release. His CREATE Lab developed the Hummingbird for a project called Arts & Bots. "Hummingbird feeds a student's natural curiosity about technology by enabling her to incorporate robotics into something she is making that is meaningful or useful."
This crafty little man, powered by the Hummingbird kit, plays a drum. (Source: Carnegie Mellon University)
For example, students in West Virginia recently built a working replica of R2D2 from Star Wars. A class elsewhere created a cardboard dragon that turns its head and tries to bite anyone who gets too close. (You can watch a video of this dragon on the next page.)
"The Arts & Bots program is not a robot kit where you open a box and put all the provided pieces together by following a given set of instructions and all the finished robots look and function the same way," Zee Poerio, a teacher at St. Louise de Marillac Catholic School in Pittsburgh, said in the release. Her students used the kit to build a coin monster for the school's ancient coin exhibit. "The Hummingbird provides the students with the ability to make the robots unique not only in design, but in their function."
@chrisbartley: Thanks for joining the discussion, and thanks for your work on this neat kit.
I understand the idea of meeting students where they're at, but I also think it's important to challenge backwards assumptions about gender roles (which, by the way, the original "Robot Diaries" concept seems to have been full of).
The fact is that only 5.5% of mechanical engineers in the U.S. are women, while 95.9% of secretaries are women. How much of this is due to the natural aptitudes of men and women, and how much is due to social conditioning?
The fact that the percentage of women engineers in China is closer to 40% suggests that it is mostly the latter.
The way to deal with this issue is not by presenting engineering in a way which conforms more closely to traditional ideas about how girls should behave, but by challenging these ideas.
Dave Palmer: "The way to deal with this issue is not by presenting engineering in a way which conforms more closely to traditional ideas about how girls should behave, but by challenging these ideas."
I guess I don't understand how the Arts & Bots program isn't gender neutral, or how the methods we're employing are targeting girls more than boys. Is it because of the use of craft and recycled materials? I don't see that as gender specific in any way. Yes, at the beginning, a primary motivation of the project was to figure out how to engage (only) girls, in an attempt at doing research on whether we could help prevent the decline in STEM interest among middle school girls. But I've already explained that, in its current form, it's not gender specific yet remains engaging and completely accessible for both boys and girls, using skills (cutting, gluing, measuring, etc) they already have and enjoy (there may be exceptions, but I'm not aware of any reported cases). I can't imagine what would be more gender neutral. Fact is, girls and boys alike love it, and the teachers are finding it a great way to build STEM concepts in both STEM and non-STEM classes. What would you suggest we do instead? How can we better challenge "traditional ideas about how girls should behave"?
If you're interested, I encourage you (and anyone else here listening) to poke around on the posterous site (http://robotdiaries.posterous.com/) for examples of how its being used. Sure, the project is not perfect, and we're constantly evolving and refining it, and we welcome and encourage feedback on how we can improve.
@chrisbartley: Don't get me wrong, I think the project in its current form is great. Thanks for the links!
I think the original concept of coming up with something more "girlish" to get girls more engaged in STEM (i.e. keeping diaries, expressing their feelings, etc.) was misguided. But, fortunately, the kids themselves seem to have helped to put you on the right track.
As you point out, the final product is something that can appeal to everyone. In fact, I might order a kit.
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