EXP: Paper Mechatronics: Advancing Engineering Education Through Computationally Enhanced Children's Papercrafts

专业工程是一个复杂的，多方面的活动。今天的工程师需要足智多谋和创新，建立模型，测试和改进设计。此外，创建一个新的工件通常是跨学科的工作。这项任务可能涉及计算、机械和电子构造的元素。因此，将年轻人引入这一领域是一个特殊的挑战。作为回应，该项目通过Paper Mechatronics引入了一种新的工程教育类型，这是一种通过新颖，可访问，计算增强的工具和材料扩展传统儿童纸工艺品的活动，以创造原创和引人注目的文物。通过纸机电一体化，孩子们可以创造真正的工作设备-机器，机器人，玩具，自动机，动态艺术品-使用纸张作为基础建筑材料。该项目旨在通过各种方式开创纸机电一体化：通过样本课程问题和项目，新颖的“智能”纸工艺工具，创新的设计软件和教学资源。该研究还将探讨年轻人如何通过纸质机电一体化学习工程，并研究新手如何在这种创造性和强大的媒介中发展适应性专业知识。整体努力将进一步推动工程教育的风格，即跨学科（整合编程，电子和机械设计的元素）和现实，但也好玩和尊重儿童的创造力。这是一个特别合适的时机来探索纸机电一体化作为教育和工程的媒介。有一个新兴的景观，新的可访问的，轻量级的计算设备（微处理器，电源，传感器和执行器），很容易集成到纸结构。这些元件现在可以通过创新的工艺材料连接，如导电线，油漆和油墨。纸质机械元件可以通过可访问的高精度制造工具（如台式切纸机和激光切割机）进行设计和打印。强大的软件系统可以引入和交流设计模式和机械构件，并促进它们的构建。总之，现在可以使用组件工具和材料，以便青年可以创建高质量，富有表现力，个人意义，甚至（随着专业知识的发展）具有挑战性的工程项目。此外，纸质机电一体化有可能在正式和非正式环境中接触到广泛的受众，因为材料成本低，使用这些材料的活动可以是性别中立的，并吸引具有各种兴趣和背景的各种学习者。为了实现这一想法，该项目将利用旧金山弗朗西斯科儿童创造力博物馆的讲习班和活动作为试点测试的场所，以研究适应性专门知识的发展，并收集关于儿童如何理解工程的数据。与此同时，该项目将通过软件工具的设计、用于纸上工作的计算增强型手持设备以及新型纸状（柔性）建筑材料的实验来扩展纸机电一体化的边界。这些项目的课程材料和设计软件计划为开源，材料使用的代码将在知识共享许可下发布，并通过Concord Consortium和科罗拉多大学博尔德工艺技术实验室网站免费分发。

Professional engineering is a complex, multifaceted activity. Today's engineer needs to be resourceful and innovative, to build models, and to test and improve designs. Moreover, creating a new artifact is often an interdisciplinary effort. The task may well involve elements of computational, mechanical, and electronic construction. As a result, introducing young people to this field is a particular challenge. This project, in response, introduces a new genre of engineering education through Paper Mechatronics, an activity that extends traditional children's papercrafts with novel, accessible, computationally-enhanced tools and materials to create original and compelling artifacts. Through paper mechatronics, children can create true working devices - machines, robots, toys, automata, kinetic artwork - using paper as the foundational building material. This project seeks to pioneer paper mechatronics by various means: through sample curricular problems and projects, novel "smart" crafting tools for paper, innovative design software, and instructional resources. The research will also explore how young people learn engineering with paper mechatronics, and study how novices develop adaptive expertise in this creative and powerful medium. The overall effort will further a style of engineering education that is at once interdisciplinary (integrating elements of programming, electronics, and mechanical design) and realistic, yet also playful and respectful of children's creativity. This is a particularly opportune time to explore paper mechatronics as a medium for education and engineering. There is a burgeoning landscape of newly-accessible, lightweight computational devices (microprocessors, power sources, sensors, and actuators) that are readily integrated into paper constructions. These elements may now be connected via innovative craft materials such as conductive threads, paints, and inks. Paper mechanical elements may be designed and printed via accessible high-precision fabrication tools such as desktop paper cutters and laser cutters. Design patterns and mechanical building-blocks may be introduced and communicated, and their construction facilitated, by powerful software systems. In sum, the component tools and materials are now available so that youth can create high-quality, expressive, personally meaningful, and even (as expertise develops) challenging engineering projects. Moreover, paper mechatronics has the potential to reach a wide audience in formal and informal contexts because the materials are low-cost, and activities that use these materials can be gender-neutral and appeal to varied populations of learners with a variety of interest and backgrounds. To pursue this idea, this project will make use of workshops and activities at the Children's Creativity Museum in San Francisco as a venue for pilot tests to study the development of adaptive expertise and to gather data on how children understand engineering. At the same time, the project will extend the boundaries of paper mechatronics through the design of software tools, computationally-enhanced handheld devices for working in paper, and experimentation with novel paper-like (flexible) materials for construction. The curricular materials and design software for these projects are planned as open source, with materials using the code to be released under a Creative Commons license, and distributed for free via the Concord Consortium and the University of Colorado at Boulder's Craft Technology Lab website.