Robotics Laboratory and Curriculum Development

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Engineering - Mechanical (56)The project is modeled on successful existing implementations of undergraduate robotics efforts at MIT and Swarthmore, but with a specific emphasis on the freshman and sophomore experience. The investigators are purchasing equipment to develop and implement the Laboratory for Undergraduate Robotics Education (LURE), permitting them to develop new, technologically advanced laboratory space for undergraduate education. The laboratory allows them to change to a mode of teaching that provides analysis, design, and manufacturing skills in a robotics setting. The equipment requested also permits them to inject engineering content with a hands-on laboratory component into the curriculum at an early stage (freshman year). This provides some perspective and motivation to beginning students, who currently receive the impression that engineering consists only of theoretical physics and mathematics. In the evaluation study, they are investigating how the differences in background preparation and training of incoming students affect development for high-tech courses related to robotics. They are developing and disseminating robotic-related curricular materials for use both in interdisciplinary college-level education, as well as K-12 outreach programs.