Soft Robotics to Broaden the STEM Pipeline

该项目旨在通过软机器人这一新兴领域，提高女性对科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）职业的兴趣。软机器人与其他机器人的不同之处在于，它们利用材料科学（了解材料如何拉伸和变形）、化学（聚合物合成）和生物学（生物启发设计）来为人类需求提供帮助。该项目将推动学生和教师创新技术体验（ITEST）计划的努力，通过探索软机器人可能提供的灵感，更好地理解和促进提高学生追求STEM职业的动机和能力的实践。重点是高中一年级工程课程中的一个单元。该项目的成果将包括开发和测试有可能扩大参与的课程。国际技术与工程教育者协会STEM教与学中心每年将向5万名学生传播。本项目将测试软机器人设计经验的实施与传统机器人设计经验相比，可以提高学习、动机、工程自我效能感和对工程职业的兴趣。这种发展和研究是在许多九年级学生必修的一门名为技术基础的课程中进行的，这是由工程设计核心项目提供的新生水平的技术和工程教育课程。它在23个州的270多个学区教授，每年约有10万名学生。该研究将采用设计研究框架来开发8小时单元，并在卡罗尔县公立学校的11个教室共660名学生中研究其实施情况。测量方法包括情境动机量表和工程自我效能的纵向评估。在第三年，该项目将实施一项功效研究，以比较软机器人单元与传统的设计工程程序中实施的单元的结果。

This project aims to increase female interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers through the emerging field of soft robotics. Soft robotics diverge from other robotics in that they leverage materials science (understanding how materials stretch and deform), chemistry (polymer synthesis), and biology (bio-inspired design) to provide aids for human needs. This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue STEM careers by exploring the inspiration that soft robotics might afford. The focus is a unit within a high school freshman engineering course. Results of this project will include the development and testing of curriculum that has the potential to broaden participation. The International Technology and Engineering Educators Association STEM Center for Teaching and Learning will disseminate it to 50,000 students annually.This project will test the hypothesis that the implementation of soft robot design experiences improves learning, motivation, engineering self-efficacy and interest in engineering careers as compared to traditional robot design experiences. This development and study is contextualized in a course required of many 9th grade students called Foundations of Technology, which is the freshman-level technology and engineering education course provided by the Engineering by Design core program. It is taught in over 270 school districts across 23 states to about 100,000 students annually. The study will employ a design research framework to develop the 8-hour unit and study its implementation in 11 classrooms with a total of 660 students in the Carroll County Public Schools. Measures include the Situational Motivation Scale and the Longitudinal Assessment of Engineering Self Efficacy. In Year 3, the project will implement an efficacy study to compare results of the soft robotics unit with the unit implemented traditionally in the Engineering by Design program.