STTR Phase I: Robot Rescue Responder-Learning Robot Programming through Playing Computer Games

这个STTR第一阶段项目计划开发一款互动电脑游戏，以促进高中生对科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)的兴趣。这款游戏将使用NSF资助的技术来教授学生如何编程和控制机器人，同时通过玩实时策略(RTS)游戏来保持学生的兴趣。拟议中的游戏将针对事先没有机器人编程知识的高中生，但可以很容易地进行调整，以包括针对大学早期课程、课外机器人俱乐部和私人家庭消费使用的更高难度。它将通过让学生编写的机器人程序在游戏中成为游戏的实际片段(子算法)来增强STEM学习环境(给学生更大的满足感和成就感)。这是创新的，因为目前的交互式计算机游戏让玩家选择选项和选择，但游戏实体是通过游戏控制器等手动操作的。拟议活动产生的更广泛/商业影响是，这一努力在向学生教授STEM概念方面进入了新的领域。我们方法的新颖性在于让学生学习如何编程机器人，方法是(A)提供程序开发环境的所有工具，以及(B)能够让学生编写的程序成为娱乐游戏的一部分。这是对当前教育游戏的一次飞跃，目前的教育游戏只是让学生接触到期望的概念，或者让学生通过选择选项和选择来与游戏互动，作为玩游戏的过程。这个飞跃在于，学生不仅仅是在选择什么，她还在编写控制游戏中机器人实体的软件；简而言之，他们正在编写游戏的一部分。他们编写一个机器人程序；他们看到它在游戏环境中是如何工作的；然后他们可以重写和优化他们的软件，以提高他们玩游戏的水平。拟议中的游戏具有商业潜力，可以挖掘对STEM教育感兴趣的组织的巨大市场。

This STTR Phase I project proposes to develop an interactive computer game to promote interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) for high school students. The game will use NSF-funded technologies to teach students how to program and control robots while simultaneously maintaining student interest through the entertainment of playing a real time strategy (RTS) game. The proposed game will be targeted at high school students with no prior knowledge of robotics programming, however could easily be adapted to include greater levels of difficulty aimed at early level college courses, extra-curricular robotics clubs, and private at home consumer use. It will enhance the STEM learning environment by having robot programs written by the student become an actual piece (sub-algorithm) of the game during play (giving the student greater satisfaction and accomplishment). This is innovative from the point that current interactive computer games have the player select options and choices but game entities are manually manipulated with a game controller, etc.The broader/commercial impact resulting from the proposed activity is that this effort pushes into new territory in the teaching of STEM concepts to students. The novelty of our approach is in having the students learn how to program robots by (a) providing all of the tools of a program development environment along with (b) the ability to have the programs written by the student to be part of an entertaining game. This is a leap beyond current educational games that merely expose the student to the desired concepts or have the student interact with the game by selecting options and choices as the process of playing the game. The leap is that the student is not just selecting something, but she is writing the software that controls a robotic entity of the game; in short, they are programming a piece of the game. They write a robot program; they see how it works in the game environment; and then they can rewrite and optimize their software to improve their playing of the game. The proposed game has the commercial potential to tap a huge market of organizations interested in STEM education.