TITLE PROJECT :
A Component-Based Mobile Robotics Application Toolbox For Teaching Programming Skill
DURATION PROJECT :
1 April 2014 – 31 March 2016 (2 Years)
Extension : 30 June 2016 (3 Months)
SPONSOR :
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM)
By Research University Grantt (RUG) – GUP
ABSTRACT :
The use of robotics in teaching and learning can help students to develop problem solving, creative and critical thinking skills. The two skills are widely considered important outcomes of education. Although these skills are generally examined in secondary schools and university education through written and oral examination, there is no reason to think that they cannot be fostered using other teaching and learning materials or different level of educations using educational robotics. Current studies shows that available robotics application in education such as Lego Mindstorms Educational Kit are well designed for certain level of problem solving, creative and critical thinking teaching and learning activities. So far, most of the robotics applications in education are closed technology where it’s may limit the flexibility for higher level institutions to teach creative problem solving skills especially in secondary schools and higher education institutions. Therefore, for this reason, the aim of this education kit is for more open and flexible reuse of mobile robot components with a suitable framework and toolbox to support mobile robot application products in education. By using reused technology and mechanisms available in hardware and software engineering practices, its enable modular setup to facilitate different level of learning and also different discipline and interdisciplinary nature of problem solving such as electronics, mechatronics, software engineering and computer science. The focus of the this education kit is for teaching and learning interdisciplinary problem solving skills which give emphasis to programming techniques for higher level education especially in secondary schools and higher education. In Malaysia, the secondary schools and higher education institutions are largely driven by national standards, supervised by Ministry of Education (MoE), the skills are the major focuses in order to produce high quality human capital.
OBJECTIVE :
(i) To design and develop reusable software component assets and reusable hardware component assets for suitable mobile robot prototypes.
(ii) To fabricate and develop suitable mobile robot prototypes and teaching modules for developing the toolbox to teach problem-solving skills.
(iii) To test and verify the applicability and effects of the toolbox as compared to other commercial products, for teaching problem-solving skills at upper secondary schools and higher education institutions.
