Collaborative Research: CI-TEAM Demonstration of Remote Robotic Exploration and Experimentation

将机器人整合到网络基础设施中开启了一种新的可能性：远程探索和与真实环境的互动，否则教师和学生可能无法访问这些环境。机器人网络基础设施使这类活动成为可能，提供了对真实物理资源的访问，这些资源即使不是不可能在虚拟世界中复制，也很难复制。该项目旨在表明，机器人网络基础设施是一种可行和实用的资源可用方法。主要目标是通过远程控制的机器人实现探索、实验和与真实环境的交互。这个项目包括两个跨越显著地理距离的分布式活动？从缅因州的沃特维尔到密苏里州的圣路易斯。第一个项目将展示缅因州科尔比学院的学生对圣路易斯科学博物馆的远程探索。圣路易斯科学中心的学生会控制机器人的动作吗？在高水平上？并使用机器人科学中心作为实体化身，与科学博物馆的人和导游互动。第二个项目将演示华盛顿大学的学生使用远程机器人在科尔比学院的植物园内进行一系列入门级别的生物学实验。例如，学生可以探索小气候效应，并将它们与栖息地动植物随时间的变化联系起来，否则就无法到达。学生可以与圣路易斯的学生比较在实验室进行的关于小气候、阳光或植物生长对小型无脊椎动物的影响的研究结果？例如，甲虫和蚂蚁？通过远程机器人探险者在缅因州的森林中进行实际分配。总的来说，这些活动将展示机器人网络基础设施的使用如何扩大可能的实验室活动集，以考虑到不同的气候和地理位置。该项目按照设计，明确地将研究和教育结合在一起。学生们将使用远程机器人进行科学探索和实验。通过对学生如何利用机器人网络基础设施的评估和人-机器人互动研究，该项目将建立一个关于如何设计机器人网络基础设施系统的知识体系，以及一个拥有如何使用和设计此类系统的知识的核心个人。

Integrating robots into cyberinfrastructure opens up a new possibility: remote exploration and interaction with real environments that may otherwise be inaccessible to teachers and learners. A robotic cyberinfrastucture enables such activities, providing access to real, physical resources that are difficult, if not impossible to duplicate in a virtual world. This project seeks to show that a robotic cyberinfrastructure is a feasible and practical method of making resources available. The primary aim is to enable exploration, experimentation, and interaction with real environments through a remotely controlled robot.This project takes up two distributed activities stretching across a significant geographic distance ? from Waterville, Maine to St. Louis, Missouri. The first project will demonstrate remote exploration of the St. Louis Science Museum by students at Colby College in Maine. The Saint Louis Science Center students will control the actions of the robot ? at a high level ? and interact with people and guides at the Science Museum, using the robot Science Center as a physical avatar. The second project will demonstrate the use of a remote robot by students at Washington University to undertake a series of introductory level biology experiments within the arboretum at Colby College. Students may, for example, explore microclimate effects and connect them with changes in flora and fauna over time in a habitat that is otherwise inaccessible. Students can compare the inaccessible to students in St. Louis results of studies undertaken in the lab on the effects of microclimate, sunlight, or plant growth on small invertebrates ? beetles and ants, for example ? with actual distributions in the Maine woods through the remote robotic explorer. Collectively these activities will demonstrate how the use of a robotic cyberinfrastructure can expand the set of possible lab activities to take into account different climates and geographic locations. The project, as designed, explicitly integrates research and education. Students will be using the remote robots to undertake scientific exploration and experimentation. Through assessment and human-robot interaction studies of how students make use of the robotic cyberinfrastructure, the project will build both a body of knowledge about how to design robotic cyberinfrastructure systems and a kernel of individuals with the knowledge about how to use and design such systems.