Android Robo is a multi-disciplinary Robotics program that has specially tailored curriculum to teach young school students about Robotics. The course can be taught from the basics to advanced levels

1. Robots in the Classroom
Talk of robots in the classroom may have seemed far fetched a few years ago,
but it’s safe to say that the future has arrived – at least in some classrooms.
Educators are beginning to experiment with how robots can add value to their
classrooms, and while it’s by no means common — they’re still quite expensive
for many school budgets — robots paired with specific softwareand curriculum
are offering interesting new learning opportunities.
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2. DEMONSTRATING ABSTRACT CONCEPTS
To explain difficult abstractconcepts in science and math subjects, someteachers
are using RobotsLab BOX. It’s a kit that includes a quadcopter, tablet, robotic arm,
a spherical robot, a circular robot and lesson plans to go with all of them.
Teachers use the tablet to manipulate the various robots into demonstrating
different STEM concepts. Because all the softwareand lessons come preloaded,
teachers don’tneed programming or robotics knowledgeto make it work. The
whole kit costs $3,500.
The founder of RobotsLab, Elad Inbar, said that teachers complained that their
students were coming into firstyear engineering and computer science college
classes withouta solid foundation of math concepts. The suite of products his
team ultimately developed userobots to show students that the equations and
graphs they slave over mean something in the physicalworld.
“We are trying to usethe power of visuallearning to bridge all the ‘I’mnot a math
person’ stuff,” Inbar said. “They can actually use their senses to understand it.”
For example, a lesson about quadratic functions uses a quadcopter robotto
demonstratewhat the equation means in real life by correlating the area viewed
on a camera attached to the bottom, with the graph. If programmed with a
quadratic equation, the quadcopter rises to specific heights, demonstrating the
visible relationship between the hovering robotand the area captured by the
camera.
“They want to work with the robotfor as long as possible. Every time their lesson
is done they’re disappointed.”
After studentshave been introduced tothe concept and have seen it
demonstrated onthe robot, they can try to program the robot themselves.
The hands-on aspect helps studentsto understand that theycan
manipulatetherobot themselves with the right code, Ibar said.
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3. INCREASES ENGAGEMENT
In Onslow County, North Carolina, Gretchen Robinson is using robots with
students at Northwoods Elementary School of Technology and Innovation. She’s
started out slowly, incorporating the humanoid NAO robot her schoolpurchased
into a few lessons with each gradeK-5. Different models of the NAO robot range
from$16,000 to $20,000. Students named the robotABBI, shortfor AwesomeBot
Bringing Innovation, thewinner of a student name contest.
Whereas many schools are focusing on using robots to teach science, technology,
engineering and math, Robinson’s schoolis focusing on literacy. The kindergarten
class has been learning about basic storytelling, so Robinson programmed a story
the teacher wroteinto the robot for it to read aloud to students. Afterwards the
students answered questions the ABBI posed to them.
The second-graders werelearning common economic vocabulary like“income” or
“expense.” ABBI described a term without using the word itself and a small group
of students discussed which answer to choosefroma pile of 20 flashcards. When
they reached a decision, they held up the vocabulary term and the robot used
visualrecognition to “read” whatthey had written and tell them if they’d gotten it
right or wrong. “Through trial and error I learned that the students really liked the
vision recognition,” Robinson said.
While she’s pleased with the engagement the robothas generated — students
never wantthe lesson to end when ABBI is involved — Robinson said learning to
programit was a steep learning curve. “Learning to program the robot at the
beginning of the year was very time-consuming,” Robinson said. Shespent around
40 hours programming a single lesson. Now that she’s had more practice she can
do the same lesson in justa few hours.
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4. EXPOSURE TO COMPUTATIONAL THINKING
A big selling point for robots in classrooms is their novelty. Educators are hoping
to turn student excitement into a passion for learning how to programand
manipulate a robotic platform.
Robot company founders, like Inbar, know thenovelty factor is working in their
favor, butthey don’t see robots getting old. The robotis justa platformfor
students and teachers to manipulate, after all, and its applications can constantly
change and evolve.
Robinson isn’t concerned her students will get tired of their robot anytime soon.
Her schoolonly has one, so students only engage with it once or twice a month,
for lessons that lend themselves to it. “I do think the robotis a powerfullearning
tool,” Robinson said. “However, I do not feel like it would be as commanding if it
was used on a daily basis as an instructionaltool, students may lose interest.”
“It’s aboutopening up the world of computational thinking in an age appropriate
way for them,” said Vikas Gupta, CEO of Play-i, a nascenteducational robotics
company with aspirations in both the consumer and education markets. The
robotcan be controlled with simple swipes on a tablet, and was designed for
children as young as five. Gupta insists that even withoutwriting code, children
are beginning to develop “computational thinking,” the ability to break down a
problem into its parts, understand thoseindividual elements and then rearrange
them.
“For kids who see this technology all around them, if we can give them a mental
model for how things work, that’s really important,” Gupta said. As kids
manipulate the tablet, they watch the robotdance or sing and realize their power
to create in a software-driven world. For older kids, Play-ihas softwareto allow
kids to see blocks of code that they can string together to dictate the robots
actions.
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5. GIRLS AND ROBOTS
An interesting observation struck both Gupta and Inbar as they designed their
robots. When testing a prototypeof his robot with kids, Gupta discovered that
girls were uninterested in the robotwhen it had visible wheels and wires. Little
girls quickly identified that firstversion of the robot as a mechanical toy meant for
boys. The company then developed a robot with rounded curves, moreof a
fantastical critter than the stereotypicalboxy robot. “Itbecame something that
they could see in their imaginations,” said Gupta. “There was no stereotypethey
could apply.”
As educators think about the benefits and drawbacks of using robots in the
classroom, drawing in girls has become an important focus. Anectdotally, Inbar
said teachers report that girls outperformboys in computer science when they’re
in all-female environments. “If you go to an all-girls school you will see that the
performanceis actually higher than in all-boys schools,” Inbar said. Butif girls
aren’t exposed early to science and technology, many quickly succumb to
stereotypes that those fields aren’t appropriatefor girls.
“We want to show robots and programming is not justfor boys,” Inbar said.
RobotLab is currently running two contests, a fashion show in Austin and a Robot
Idolcompetition between schools in Northern and Southern California. Inbar
found girls weremore interested in programming robots if it was connected to
designing something creative. “There is no problemwith girls’ engagement in
STEM subjects,” Inbar said. Educators justhaveto help them realize they like it
and try to downplay the competition with boys, which can sometimes makegirls
withdraw.
Teachers often run into a similar situation when teaching computer science. “Boys
already love computers, they already know they are going to be awesomeat
this,” said Sheena Vaidyanathan, a computer science teacher in Los Altos public
schools. “Girls haveto be sold on the idea. The machine itself doesn’tattract
them as much, but what it can do does
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