Educational robotics represent a novel and attractive scenario for stimulating different abilities frequently related to science, technology, engineering, and math. To this extent, there exist multiple approaches depending on the specific ability being tackled, and resources needed such as physical equipment or computational tools. Commercial platforms, as well as open-source educational kits, have made extensive contributions in diminishing coding abilities required for specifying desired behavior on the physical agent, such as programming through block sequences or embedding a smartphone or tablet for more intuitive uses. This work describes prototyping specifications for a novel open-source robot aimed to foster computational thinking abilities on preschool children, including a first approach involved on the built platform, with an embedded processing unit for not requiring any further equipment, and work on development for minimizing costs.
In search of stimulating computational thinking and logical reasoning, robotics has proved to be
effective when teaching computer science
Although there has been found a growing interest on the use of robotics for enhancing learning
activities as much in schools as students with extra-curricular interests looking into formal and
informal K-12 curricula
Educational robotics have been identified as a transformational tool for learning, computational
thinking development, thinking on engineering problems and coding
Symbolic capacity on children enables them to identify signs in a way that they can start coding and decoding on different representation systems such as written language. Educational robotics activities in this context should consider methodological principles for defining expected outcomes from such activities, as well as defining appropriate content sequence and activities organization. To this end, those methodologies should seek significant learning with observation, experimentation and globalized learning in a game-based environment so workspace becomes comfortable without detriment of representing a challenging scenario for knowledge and learning stimulation.
Although the literature has shown that commercial platforms intended for greater ages could be
also applied to preschool children
The remainder of this document describes the more relevant aspects for developing the first version of this open-source prototype developed for preschool children, and also possible activities which teachers could perform in order to achieve some of the declared expected results. Finally, some conclusions related to other possible activities are given, as well as ongoing work for lowering implementation costs and fostering worldwide reproducibility.
This prototype is intended for programming its movement actually onboard, by placing tubularshaped colored tokens on the top of its chassis with signs representing its behavior as shown in Figure 1. The platform follows the instructions according to the tokens repeatedly within a loop. In case of empty slots, the robot stops and waits for a 1-second delay, a pre-settled amount. Taking Figure 1 (b) as an example, the robot starts performing a counter-clockwise turn (red token of the back left), reading the following tokens in a counter-clock fashion. After turning, the robot performs a straight movement (green token) for 1 second. As follows an empty slot, the robot stops and waits for another second, continuing with a clockwise rotation (blue token). Finally, as there are five empty slots, the robot stops and waits for five seconds, completing a loop iteration and starting again. During the performance, white light is powered on showing which token slot is being executed at every moment, as activity feedback.
Without detriment to encouraging contributions for prototype enhancement, the following subsections describe the main components used in this first version. All ongoing material will be available and open under GNU General Public License v3.0 at a Github repository: https: //github.com/miguel-a-solis/prerobot
Given that this platform is intended for being used with preschool children whose manual dexterity and fine motor skills are still on development, tokens or coding blocks were shaped big enough with a basic form for allowing an easy fit on the programming surface. This surface was designed in a round shape for taking advantage of its form through its potential for introducing the loop concept, and type of behaviors are distinguished by colors with a sign that represents the corresponding behavior as shown in Figure 2 with structural characteristics detailed in Table 1. (a) top-view (b) side-view
Although authors are currently developing subsequent version which replaces color sensors in order to diminish prototyping costs (without detriment to continue using colored tokens), this first version use TCS3200 color sensor, which features 4 white light-emitting diodes that allow developers to improve acquired data. This module also features 64 photodiodes where 16 are filtered for red, 16 are filtered for green, 16 are filtered for blue and the remaining 16 photodiodes have no filter.
Finally, sensor outputs a measure of color components in light intensity perceived and after
processing this data, the robot performs corresponding behavior and then the development board
identifies whether there is a token in the following slot or not, along with its color. Hardware used
in this prototype consists of 9 TCS3200 color sensors (one for each token slot), 2 general-purpose
servo motors model GS-3360BB, and Arduino Uno
The costs of the platform as described here go around $75 USD, considering 3D plastic and hardware components. A new developing version diminishes materials cost to $30 USD. Similar commercial platforms are: Fisher-Price Code ’n Learn Kinderbot (around $50 USD), Bee-Bot Educational Robot (around $95 USD), and Blue-Bot robot (around $127 USD).
In order to make learning fun in early childhood, creative and hands-on activities that appeal to children’s interests should be designed. Some simple activities that can be easily done with this mobile platform include learning carpets, as shown in Figure 5, where pre-robot should be programmed for solving the corresponding challenge.
Specifically, learning carpet in Figure 5 (left) consists of coding a behavior such that pre-robot goes first to a fixed location whose accomplishment represents obtaining a key. Then, the child would have to put new tokens for getting into the final cell where the treasure is located.
On the other hand, learning carpet in Figure 5 (right) represents a race track where pre-robot should move while avoiding some obstacles, that could be improved by placing physical obstacles in corresponding places.
This work documents a reproducible prototype for introducing first notions of coding on preschool children, as task scheduling and simple computational thinking, introducing iterations and ordering instructions. This, by using their symbolic capacity to identify signs in a way that they can start coding a given behavior on this mobile platform, without requiring any further equipment such as a computer, tablet or phone.
It is important to note that while the platform does not require extra equipment (phone or
tablet), it could be extended following that purpose, which might improve interest and motivation
for producing meaningful learning
Although final users of this platform correspond to children, the first version of this prototype is intended for giving some preliminary insights on teachers about using robotics for teaching purposes on preschoolers.
Although literature has shown that commercial platforms intended for greater ages could be also applied on preschool children and there are also multiple preschool robotics kits, to the best of the authors knowledge, this prototype entitled pre-robot is a first approach for an open-source platform that could be easily reproduced with appropriate equipment access and minimal prototyping skills. The following modifications include changing color sensors for a simpler token identification by measuring the impedance of an internal resistor integrated within the token.