I-Corps: Humanoid Co-Robotics Curriculum and Kits for Girls and Boys

根据计算机社区联盟（2009）的数据，机器人是一个价值50亿美元的产业，每年以8%的速度增长。政策制定者已经指出了代表性不足的人口和女孩参与STEM（包括机器人）方面存在的差距。数据显示，在经济落后地区上学的学生接触机器人的机会较少。虽然有针对K-12学生的现有机器人项目，但目前还没有已知的与低成本、可负担得起的人形机器人合作的机器人编程项目，也没有在资源不足的学校用于STEM教学。该提案的重点是为所有女孩和男孩提供商业上可行的联合机器人课程，包括代表性不足的学生和城市和农村地区的大多数学生，以及学生可以构建和编程的低成本机器人套件。该项目的潜在受益者包括学校管理人员、教师和学生，他们目前没有一个基于stem的低成本人形机器人课程。总的来说，对国家和学校的潜在好处，特别是，包括可负担得起的人形机器人和基于STEM的人形机器人编程课程的可用性，以帮助教师鼓励和准备更多的学生追求高等STEM教育和职业。提出的技术建立在团队在开发3D打印社交类人机器人方面的专业知识之上，这些机器人具有基于智能手机的情感和对话界面以及类人机器人课程。目前的3D打印人形机器人名为MU-L8，它有一个独特的“脸”，由一个智能手机和一个应用程序组成，该应用程序使机器人能够通过语音和动画情感与人类交谈。该团队将利用客户的意见，开发这种互动式机器人的低成本版本，并提供协同机器人编程课程，以互动方式指导教师和学生的学习过程。机器人将利用其语言和人际交往能力协助老师向学生传授机器人编程和STEM课程。

Robotics, according to the Computing Community Consortium (2009), is a $5 billion industry growing by 8% per year. The gap that exists in the participation of underrepresented populations and girls in STEM, including robotics, has been pointed out by policy makers. Data shows that students attending schools in economically underserved districts have less access to robotics. Although there are existing robotics programs for K-12 students, there are no known programs that exist for co-robot programming with a low-cost, affordable humanoid robot and are used in under-resourced schools for STEM teaching. The focus of this proposal is to provide a commercially viable co-robotics curriculum for all girls and boys including underrepresented students and majority students in urban and rural areas along with low-cost robot kits that the students can build and program. The potential beneficiaries of this project include the school administrators, teachers, and students who currently do not have an engaging STEM-based robotics curriculum with low cost humanoid robots. The potential benefits to the nation, generally, and schools, specifically, include the availability of affordable humanoid robots and STEM-based humanoid robotics programming curriculum to assist teachers in encouraging and preparing more students to pursue post-secondary STEM education and careers. The proposed technology builds on the team's expertise in developing 3D printed, social humanoid robots with smartphone-based emotion and conversation interfaces and humanoid robotics curriculum. The current 3D printed humanoid, named MU-L8, has a unique "face" that consists of a smartphone with an app that enables the robot to converse with a human using speech and animated emotions. This team will use customer input to develop a low-cost version of this interactive robot along with a co-robotics programming curriculum that can interactively guide teachers and students in the learning process. The robot will use its verbal and interpersonal capabilities to assist the teacher in delivering robot programming and STEM lessons to the students.