SBIR Phase II: Making and programming robots in early childhood education

该SBIR第二阶段项目侧重于为儿童早期教育(PREK-2)设计的机器人系统。教育机器人的研究和应用越来越多，但很少有人关注基础年。幼儿阶段没有得到足够的服务，因为几乎没有适合4-7岁儿童发展的STEM(科学、技术、工程和数学)教育平台。然而，研究表明，从经济和发展的角度来看，与较晚开始的教育项目相比，从儿童早期开始的教育项目会产生更低的成本和更持久的影响。该项目的重点是适合幼儿发展的机器人工具包，以及课程支持、教师资源和自动化评估工具，以使这一创新以广泛传播、可持续和可扩展的方式对幼儿教育有用。最近，联邦政府重新设想了早期儿童项目，这导致了开发创新技术和方法来教授STEM的呼声。鉴于幼儿教育行业的规模，潜在的商业影响是巨大的，它打开了新的市场和就业机会。这一创新也有可能通过让儿童掌握重要的经济技能来对美国经济产生重大的积极影响。该项目背后的创新是设计了一个机器人系统，通过使用一种适合发展的编程语言，让4到7岁的儿童学习编程概念。为了在发育上适合这个年龄段，编程语言是实体的，而不是打字的，不需要任何类型的屏幕或键盘。由此产生的教育平台还使儿童能够通过使用传感器构建能够响应不同输入的物理对象，从而发展工程设计过程技能。该项目围绕五个技术目标组织：适合幼儿发展的机器人工具包，用于幼儿学习编程和工程；机器人模块，用于课程与数学、科学、扫盲和艺术等其他领域的整合；通过门户网站为幼儿教师提供支持系统，提供正规和非正规教育和专业发展战略资源；自动化学习评估系统，直接从机器人收集学生学习的数据，通过创新机制进行分析，并根据家长、教育工作者和学校领导层的不同需求使用可视化工具显示这些数据，以了解学习结果；降低机器人系统的成本，以扩大采用范围。

This SBIR Phase II project focuses on robot systems designed for early childhood education (preK-2). There is increasing research and applications for educational robotics, but little attention are focused on the foundational years. The early childhood segment is underserved because there are few available platforms for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education that are developmentally appropriate for children 4-7 years old. However, research shows that from an economic and a developmental standpoint, educational programs that begin in early childhood result in lower costs and more durable effects than those that begin later on. This project focuses on developmentally appropriate robot kits for young children, and the curriculum support, teacher resources and automated assessment tools to make this innovation useful for early childhood education in a broadly disseminated, sustainable and scalable way. Recent re-envisioning of early childhood programs by the Federal government has resulted in calls to develop innovative technologies and approaches for teaching STEM. Given the size of the industry devoted to early childhood education, the potential commercial impact is significant, opening new markets and job opportunities. This innovation also has the potential to have significant positive impact on the US economy by preparing children with economically important skills.The innovation underlying this project is the design of a robot system that engages 4 to 7 year old children in learning programming concepts through the use of a developmentally appropriate programming language. In order to be developmentally appropriate for this age range, the programming language is physical, not typed, with no screens or keyboards of any kind required. The resulting educational platform also enables children to develop engineering design process skills by building physical objects that can respond to different inputs through the use of sensors. This project is organized around five technical objectives: a developmentally appropriate robot kit for young children to learn programming and engineering; robot modules for curriculum integration with other areas such as math, science, literacy and the arts; support systems for early childhood teachers through a web portal with resources for both formal and informal education and professional development strategies; and an automated learning assessment system that collects data characterizing student learning directly from the robot, analyzes it through innovative mechanisms and displays it using visualization tools according to the different needs of parents, educators and school leadership to understand learning outcomes; and cost reduction of the robot system for broadening adoption.