Teaching STEM using Robotics:

Mindstorms plus real-world topics

Jeanine Meyer
Purchase College/SUNY

STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY

May, 2011
 Overview
• Background/motivation for course
• Course description
– Upper-level elective: can satisfy requirements
for mathematics/computer science and new
media majors
• Reflections
• Work for you!

STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY

May, 2011
 Background
• [ancient] work in robotics at IBM Research

STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY

May, 2011
 Background, cont.
• Box frame robot

• A Manufacturing Language (AML)

• Software for out-sourced Scara robot

• Manufacturing systems
– Tools for logistics
– Robot surgery (….Robodoc)
STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY
May, 2011
 Why do course
• Give students introduction [taste] of
operating in the physical world
– Variability
– Continuous phenomena as opposed to
discrete
– Dangers
– Interactions
– Time
• For me, return to previous career pursuit
STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY
May, 2011
 And…
We are all grand masters at …putting things
on top of other things,….assembly,
recognizing many patterns, etc.
Peter Will, IBM

This makes the programming more difficult,

not less.

STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY

May, 2011
 First day exercise
• Ways to program robot
– Teleoperator
– Teach/playback
– Program with sensory feedback
• Data driven automation
• What are the directions / how do you teach
someone to tie shoes?

STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY

May, 2011
 Problems at my institution
• Students not engineers, not particularly
strong programmers
– Mathematics/computer science
– New media
– Other
• Wide variety of backgrounds, including
– Students who have ‘done robotics’ in middle
school or high school
• Little technical support
STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY
May, 2011
 Lego Mindstorms
• Partial solution
– Capped enrollment at 15 (would grow to 18)
– Restrict kits to the lab
• Made exceptions towards the end
• 2 out of 15 students purchased their own kits
– Team work is a goal!
– Basic building projects: 5-6 teams of 3
– Their building projects
– Involved the 2 building computer engineers & past
students

– Needed to request funds from centralized source: 8

kits

STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY

May, 2011
 Another problem
• Given all this robotics activity in k-12, how to
make this a college course? Would colleagues
and/of students think this was just playing with
toys?

• Note: this may have been unwarranted worry.

– We need electives.
– I was willing to take on the task for developing a new
course.
– People know my history….
STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY
May, 2011
 Approach
• Lego Mindstorms only part of the course
– Students responsible for defining building
project

• Other part
– My lectures on robotics plus
– Students responsible for
• Library research assignment
• Posting and responding to news on on-line
discussion board
STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY
May, 2011
 Course Components
• Listen & participate in lecture & discussion
• Propose, get approval and do library research &
make presentation on robot topic
– Making presentations is a goal by itself
– 1 page write-up
• Pay attention to news and make postings & reply
to others on robot topics
• Build the assigned Mindstorm projects: teams
• Plan and complete original Mindstorm project:
teams or individual [or different hardware]
• Midterm and Final
STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY
May, 2011
 Lecture topics
• Levels of language
• Basic mechanics
• Very, very basic kinematics & reverse kinematics
• Types of manufacturing, automation
• Artificial intelligence
• Anthropomorphic fallacy (?)
• 3D CAD (Google Sketchup)
• Movement in a crowded workspace
• Locomotion (e.g., walking, crawling)
• Telepresence
• Surgery
STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY
May, 2011
 Lecture & Discussion
Board topics
• Home health care
• Soccer robotics
• Prothestics
• Vacuuming
• DARPA competitions

STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY

May, 2011
 Mindstorms projects
• Tribot
– Basics with tribot
• Using each sensor
• Creating file data
– Parallel parking, Mapping a room, Maze,
Bluetooth (2 or 3 NXT bricks, maybe in tribots)
• Student defined projects

STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY

May, 2011
 Mapping exercise
• Assume tribot or tribot like robot with
typical sensors (bump, ultrasound,
rotation), file capability
• You define the constraints, for example,
room must be square, or polygon.
• How to generate data to be uploaded to
personal computer to draw the
[boundaries of] room.

STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY

May, 2011
 Materials
• Schedule, lecture notes, midterm and final
for last course offering all online
http://
faculty.purchase.edu/jeanine.meyer/charts
.html

STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY

May, 2011
 Library research reports
• Drones
• Space
• Art projects (e.g., Omnicircus, Animatronics)
• Healthcare
• Mars Rover
• Telepresence
• Robot surgery
• MIT leg lab
• 17th-18th century robots
• Uncanny divide
• Autonomous vehicle (DARPA competitions)
STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY
May, 2011
 Final Building projects
• Videos (one / year)
– Sumo Crystal & Alexandria's video
– Maze http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=4gsB7nPNFSs
– Gun Tank, ultrasonic sensor, firing ram.

• Building project abstracts (scroll down):

http://faculty.purchase.edu/jeanine.meyer/

STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY

May, 2011
 Results x 3
• Success!
– [I believe] students understood the difficulties of robotic
applications and the wide variety of robot related research &
development
– Students did well on quizzes and attempted interesting projects
– Autonomous surveys positive
– Informal feedback positive
• Problem in that we run course every other year, but still
positive word-of-mouth
• Good, easy-going group of students so teams worked.Note: most
students knew me and so expected things such as presentations,
posting, working in teams, quiz guides
• We now have new faculty member teaching "Physical Computing",
use of Arduino microprocessors. Point of view of artist.

STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY

May, 2011
 Caution
• Practice Truth in advertising:
– Colleague included robotics in a course on
computer organization and had some
problems
• Sometimes teamwork does not go well
– May need
• to define procedure for firing a team member!
• to defend giving all members the same grade OR
specifying a way to allocate credit.
STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY
May, 2011
 HELP!
• Use NXT-G (iconic language) or RobotC?
• Google Sketchup: stay with basic ‘get to know
you’ exercise or less or more ?
• Require more or less postings (moodle) and/or
require participation in nxtasy forums ?
• How to improve participation by females or is it
okay (each time 4-5 out of 15-18, slightly ahead
of percentage in math/cs and new media! Sigh…
) ?
• Raise standards: is just trying enough?
• What to do with graduates of k-12 programs?
STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY
May, 2011
 Thank you
• Email jeanine.meyer@purchase.edu
• Visit:
http://faculty.purchase.edu/jeanine.meyer/
• Shameless plug:
– The Essential Guide to HTML5: Using
Games to learn HTML5 and JavaScript.
– Origami directions (math & programming):
http://faculty.purchase.edu/jeanine.meyer/html
5/origamifish.html
STEM Robotics Symposium Pace University, White Plains, NY
May, 2011