ROBO-VI: A Virtual-Internship-Based Hybrid Learning Technology to Prepare Traditional and Non-Traditional Students to Work with Collaborative Robots

协作机器人正在成为一种新的先进技术，旨在与工业环境中的人并肩工作。这些机器人可以提高制造业和物流业的生产力和灵活性，同时还可以帮助工人在重复、不健康或不安全的工作条件下工作。与传统的工厂机器人不同，传统的工厂机器人由工程师编程和配置，可以长时间独立运行，协作机器人需要人类工人与机器人频繁互动，包括训练机器人，对机器人运行的环境进行必要的改变，以及监督机器人的工作以确保其成功运行。将协作机器人集成到现有的工业环境中并在其中运行需要许多工人缺乏的专业技能，而目前的教育计划并没有涵盖，这突出了与日益自动化的未来工作需求的技能不匹配。该项目将了解工人需要哪些技能来有效地执行这些任务，并设计一种混合数字物理教育技术，以支持工人在教室和工业培训设施中进行这些技能的教育和培训。研究小组将评估该技术对受训者技能发展的影响，并为未来的职业培训计划提出建议。新的混合技术将包括一个专家系统计算机程序，该程序将为学习者提供关键概念的解释、可视化和模拟，以及一个机器人助手，该助手将提供物理演示。这种混合的物理-数字学习环境将用于传统和非传统学生在协作机器人方面的专家指导。该研究团队将（1）通过观察和采访专家以及分析专家培训计划，开发一个与协作机器人合作的经验模型，（2）迭代设计，构建和测试数字物理混合学习环境，集成专家视图仪表板（EVD），以支持教育和工业培训环境中的专家指导。由此产生的教育技术将为教育工作者和培训人员提供一个强大的教育工具，将补充自主，智能和协作技术的专业知识的发展，以满足日益自动化的工作环境的需求。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Collaborative robots are emerging as a new family of advanced technologies that are designed to work side-by-side with people in industrial settings. These robots can improve the productivity and flexibility in manufacturing and logistics industries, while also assisting workers in repetitive, and unhealthy or unsafe work conditions. Unlike traditional factory robots that are programmed and configured by engineers to function independently for long periods of time, collaborative robots require human workers to frequently interact with the robot, including training the robot, making the necessary changes in the environment for the robot to function, and supervising the robot's work to ensure its successful operation. The integration of collaborative robots into and operation within existing industrial settings require expert skills that many workers lack, and that current educational programs do not cover, highlighting a skills mismatch from the demands of an increasingly automated future of work. This project will develop an understanding of what skills workers will need to perform these tasks effectively and to design a hybrid digital-physical educational technology that will support worker education and training in these skills in classrooms and industrial-training facilities. The research team will evaluate the effects of the technology on skill development among trainees and make recommendations for future job-training programs. The new hybrid technology will include an expert system computer program that will provide learners with explanations, visualizations, and simulations of key concepts and a robotic assistant that will provide physical demonstrations. This hybrid physical-digital learning environment will be used in expert-led instruction of traditional and non-traditional students in collaborative robotics. The research team will (1) develop an empirical model of expertise in working with collaborative robots through observations of and interviews with experts and analyses of expert-training programs and (2) iteratively design, build, and test a digital-physical hybrid learning environment, integrating an Expert-View Dashboard (EVD), to support expert-led instruction in educational and industrial-training settings. The resulting educational technology will provide educators and trainers with a powerful educational tool that will supplement the development of expertise in working with autonomous, intelligent, and collaborative technologies to meet the demands of an increasingly automated jobs landscape.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.