Motivating First-Year Calculus with Robotics

PI正在为一年级的微积分课程开发基于教育机器人、游戏和计算机视觉的课程材料。一个示例项目是基于投掷机器人的。通过以受控的速度旋转手臂并以精确的角度释放滚珠轴承，机器人可以准确地将轴承抛入几英尺的咖啡杯中。学生们正在使用微积分来计算旋转速度和释放角度。该项目的智力价值来自1)为微积分教育提供新技术，2)通过机器人活动激励学生，让他们更好地了解微积分的用途，以及3)为大学数学课堂上新兴的教育机器人学术机构做出贡献。该项目的更广泛影响包括：1)使用新教材向数百名学生提供指导；2)培训UGA教育学院未来的教师以技术为基础的数学教育；3)使用新教材培训7个校区的教师。该项目为学生提供了一个新的机器人平台，用于调查向目标投掷球的问题，提供了一个跟踪抛出的物体的软件，用于教授弹丸运动，并提供了一个与带加速度计的蓝牙控制玩具车的接口，以了解加速度，并为七个校园的微积分课程提供了接口。一个外部团队正在使用学生数学动机评估对新教材进行评估，看看它们是否增加了学生对数学的参与度。

The PI is developing curricular materials based on educational robotics, gaming, and computer vision for the first-year calculus course. An example project is based on a throwing robot. By spinning an arm at a controlled speed and releasing a ball bearing at a precise angle, the robot can accurately toss the bearing several feet into a coffee cup. Students are using calculus to compute rotation speed and release angle. The intellectual merit of the project comes from 1) providing new technology for calculus education, 2) motivating students with robotics activities which give them a better understanding of the uses of calculus, and 3) contributing to the emerging body of scholarship on educational robotics in the university mathematics classroom. The broader impacts of the project include 1) providing instruction to several hundred students with the new materials, 2) training future teachers from the UGA College of Education in technology-based mathematics education, and 3) training faculty from seven campuses with the new materials. The project is providing a new robot platform for students to use in investigating the problem of throwing a ball onto a target, software to track thrown objects for teaching projectile motion, and an interface to a Bluetooth-controlled toy car with accelerometer to learn about acceleration, to calculus classes on seven campuses. The new materials are being evaluated by an external team, using the Student Mathematics Motivation assessment, to see if they increase student engagement with mathematics.