Research Initiation: Embodied and Student-Centered Robotics in the Professional Formation of Engineers

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The global robotics technology market size is expected to grow three times from 2021 to 2030. There is, however, a limited workforce pipeline to sustain the rapid growth of the industry demands, leading to increased workload and decreased quality of output. To resolve these challenges, this project will investigate effective engineering educational methods to prepare future robotics engineers. The research will leverage industry partners’ needs to formulate the industry requirements for robotics engineers. The research will immerse learners in engaging learning environments emphasizing human-robot interactions for effective learning of robotics technologies. Various real-world robotics engineering tasks will be used through the learning process. A virtual reality application will be developed to create immersive learning environments to explore the development of robotics software, hardware, motion control, and object manipulation. Hands on activities and projects will be used in the classes to boost the learning efficacy of the robotics technology. Iterative and rigorous evaluation will ensure the learning outcomes to maximize the impacts on the formation of engineering workforce of robotics. The project will use embodied learning and user-centered design for the practical integration of robotics into engineering education for the formation of engineers. For this goal, embodied learning and user-centered design will be developed and assessed through user studies and class learning settings for their performance, to improve robotics engineering education. The project will answer two research questions; (1) To what extent the student-centered design influences the formation of engineers? and (2) To what extent the embodied learning influences the formation of engineers? To answer the first research question, student-centered design techniques including persona and user journey maps will be used to identify the gaps in robotics skills between industry partners’ requirements and students’ knowledge. To answer the second research question, the effectiveness of embodied learning in robotics education will be assessed. The proposed embodied learning will address the difficulties of conventional computation-centered robotics workforce training methods. Embodied learning will reduce the need for abstract and conceptual thinking capabilities of students required by the conventional computation-centered learning approach. Embodied learning is expected to reduce frustrations and increase joyfulness, growth of knowledge retention, and improved problem-solving skills. Motoric engagement embodied activities including gesture, posture, locomotion, and manipulation of robotics tasks will be used during the learning. Perceived immersion embodied activities such as using a virtual reality app to perform robotics tasks will be also evaluated for their effectiveness in learning. The semester-long electronics and instrumentation as well as control and optimization courses will be used to explore the effectiveness of applying embodied learning in robotics software, hardware, and motion control with multiple difficulty levels. Two workshops will use robotics platforms, student-centered instructional design, and embodied learning protocols to showcase the effectiveness of embodied learning. The user-centered robotics instructional content will be hosted on a Web portal for public use. Dissemination activities will contribute new knowledge to the robotics engineering education community.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.