SBIR Phase I: A robotics-based gaming system for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education

这个SBIR第一阶段项目建议设计一个基于机器人的游戏系统，用于科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)教育，对女孩有吸引力。这个假设是，基于物理游戏的学习，从围绕机器人故事情节的游戏模式，通过物理世界的互动和谈判，可以吸引和保持女孩对STEM的兴趣。该系统包含四项技术创新：(1)联锁、讲故事的游戏瓷砖，(2)带有新颖瓷砖跟踪系统的移动机器人宠物，(3)让女孩参与虚拟和物理世界的互动游戏，以及(4)可从云上下载的游戏内容。该系统支持多种游戏模式，如虚拟编程、物理编程、故事模式、动态迷宫构建和垫子编程。游戏瓷砖、机器人宠物和宠物星球云之间的联系支持几乎无限的活动和挑战的多样性。移动设备和云游戏服务器提供了一个接口，用于收集水平完成率、成功率和任务时间等数据，这提供了评估兴趣和学习的机会。我们将使用这个基础设施来确定对女孩更成功的游戏模式，并从长期来评估游戏在发展STEM技能方面的成功。更广泛的/商业影响源于我们模块设计的几乎无限的可扩展性。其目标是接触到数百万的女孩和男孩，他们将在玩机器人宠物和游戏瓷砖时享受到太多的乐趣，而没有注意到他们正在学习逻辑推理、程序思维、空间推理和概率推理。虽然该项目最初侧重于女孩，但该系统扩展到男孩，也可用来鼓励代表人数不足的少数群体参加STEM。该项目计划向学校和非营利组织捐款，帮助服务不足的学生。这些公司的数据收集和评估将帮助我们了解如何修改游戏内容，以鼓励针对服务不足的社区的STEM教育。该项目的最终目标是增加公众对科学技术的参与，这可以通过以相对较低的成本获得的技术游戏和玩具来实现。该项目团队由学术界、非营利组织、学校和行业之间的伙伴关系组成；作为互惠互利的合作。

This SBIR Phase I project proposes to design a robotics-based gaming system for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education that is attractive to girls. The hypothesis is that physical game-based learning from play patterns that revolve around a robot's storyline, with interactions and negotiation in the physical world, can attract and retain girls' interest in STEM. The system contains four technical innovations: (1) interlocking, story-telling game tiles, (2) mobile robot pets with a novel tile-tracking system, (3) interactive games that engage girls in the virtual and the physical world, and (4) downloadable game content from the Cloud. The system supports a diverse set of play patterns, such as virtual programming, physical programming, story mode, dynamic maze construction, and mat programming. The link between the game tiles, the robot Pets, and the Pet Planet Cloud support a nearly limitless diversity of activities and challenges. The mobile device and cloud game server provide an interface for collecting data such as level completion, success rates, and time on task, which provides an opportunity to evaluate interest and learning. We will use this infrastructure to identify the play patterns that are more successful with girls, and in the long term to evaluate the success of the game at developing STEM skills.The broader/commercial impact stems from the nearly limitless expandability of our modular design. The goal is to reach millions of girls and boys who will be having too much fun playing with robot pets and game tiles to notice that they are learning logical reasoning, procedural thinking, spatial reasoning and probabilistic reasoning. While the project is initially focusing on girls, the system extends to boys and can also be used to encourage the participation of underrepresented minorities in STEM. The project plans to make donations to schools and non-profit organizations to reach underserved students. The firms data collection and evaluation will help us understand how to modify game content to encourage STEM education for underserved communities. The projects ultimate goal is to increase the general public's engagement with science and technology, which is possible with technical games and toys that can be accessible at a relatively low cost. The project team consists of a partnership between academia, non-profit organizations, schools and industry; as a mutually beneficial collaboration.