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Personal Robots: An Impactful Context for Introductory CS Education

Personal Robots in Education (IPRE) aims to enhance education through robots, targeting all levels from middle school to graduate school. This joint effort at Georgia Tech and Bryn Mawr College explores the use of personal robots to make computer science more engaging and impactful, particularly in introductory courses. The program includes a special ingredient of providing a personal robot for every student programmer to improve success rates, with a focus on increasing the appeal of CS for diverse student populations. The approach leverages software, engaging curriculum, and community engagement to drive innovation in CS education. By breaking traditional barriers, IPRE's accessible and reliable robot solutions aim to transform the learning experience and bridge the gap in computing education.

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Personal Robots: An Impactful Context for Introductory CS Education

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  1. Personal Robots: An Impactful Context for Introductory CS Education Prof. Tucker Balch, Georgia Institute of Technology Dr. Stewart Tansley, Microsoft Research Prof. Doug Blank, Bryn Mawr College Dr. Jay Summet, Georgia Institute of Technology Deepak Kumar, Mark Guzdial, Keith O’Hara, Daniel Walker, Jared Jackson, Gaurav Gupta, Monica Sweat The Institute for Personal Robots in Education

  2. IPRE Overview Mission: Make education more fun and effective through the use of personal robots. Audience: All levels, from middle school to graduate school. Joint effort hosted at Georgia Tech with Bryn Mawr (+ MSR). 3 year seed funding provided by Microsoft Research. Special ingredient and hypothesis: a personal robotfor every student programmer

  3. IPRE: Lead Institutions • Georgia Institute of Technology • Tier 1 research university. • 15,000 students. • Mostly male. • Bryn Mawr College • Liberal arts college near Philadelphia, founded in 1885. • 1200 undergraduate women, 400 graduate students (co-ed). • New program begun in 2000 in CS offers BA in Computer Science, minor in CS, and minor in Computational Methods.

  4. First Target: Introductory CS Why this target? • Importance: Declining undergraduate CS enrollment. No one to fill jobs; loss of intellectual capital. Can CS be more appealing? • Relevance: Robots are a compelling platform for explaining process (the essence of computing). • Impact: Introductory CS is a required or encouraged course for many students.

  5. Example: How Context Can Help • 1999: Intro CS required for all degrees at Georgia Tech = ~2000 students every year. • Success rate: • Women: 61% passed • Men: 72% passed • Non-CS Majors: 50% passed

  6. Example: How Context Can Help • 2003, A new approach: Media context. • Success rate improved: • Women: 88% passed • Men: 84% passed • Non-CS Majors: 86% passed

  7. MSR for IPRE • Microsoft Research • Founded 1991 • 800 researchers, 55 research areas, 6 labs • 800 interns in 2007 • 3500 peer-reviewed papers to date • External Research – university partnerships: • Science • http://microsoft.com/science • Computer Science • http://research.microsoft.com/ur • Research + Education • Microsoft & Robotics • MSRS announced summer 2006 • v1.5 available today, $0 until you sell robots • “A Robot In Every Home” • Scientific American, Jan 2007/Feb 2008 • http://microsoft.com/robotics

  8. Personal Robots for CS: Components of the Approach • A personal robot. • Approachable software/programming environment. • An engaging curriculum. • Quantitative assessment. • Philosophy: The curriculum drives the design of the robot, software, and text. • Engage the community.

  9. A Robot for CS Education ? • Note: This is not robotics research. • Personal: Every student with her own robot. • No labs with expensive robots. • Instead: Inexpensive robots in the campus bookstore. • Reliable: No mystery regarding “does it work?” • Break the compile-download-run cycle. • Leverage the desktop.

  10. IPRE “Pilot” Robot: $195 • 3 Light sensors • 2 IR sensors • 2 Line sensors • Stall sensor • Speaker • 3 LEDs • 2 motors • Bluetooth wireless

  11. IPRE Pilot Robot v2: $149.95 • 256x192 color camera • Raw images (0.5 HZ) • On board color segmentation (6 HZ) • Battery voltage sensing • Very bright rear facing LED • I2C extension port • IR emitters and receiver • Obstacle/Wall detection • Inter-Robot Communication

  12. IPRE Gyro: $120

  13. Software for CS Education • Myro: My Robot. • Focus on learnability • HAPI – Human-Application Programming Interface • Pedagogically scalable – easy for first-time users, yet powerful and flexible for more advanced users • Phase 1 is Python-centric, platform agnostic. • Follow on language agnostic.

  14. Software Stack

  15. Myro SoftwareSample Program (Python) defmain(): whileTrue: Left, Right = getIR() ifLeft: turnRight(turnSpeed) elifRight: turnLeft(turnSpeed) else: forward(cruiseSpeed) # Avoiding Obstacles frommyroimport* initialize(ask(“What port?”)) # program settings... cruiseSpeed = 0.6 turnSpeed = 0.5

  16. Example Test Question Assume you have routines: • TurnLeft90() • TurnRight90() • GoForwardOneFoot() Write the code that would cause a robot to follow the illustrated path. 1 ft 2 ft 1 ft

  17. Sample Assignment • Corral Exiting/EscapeImagine a corral (an enclosed area with maze like partitions and an entrance) with a light source at the entrance (as shown in the figure to the right). Given the robot's position, can we design a behavior that will enable the robot to exit the corral?

  18. CS1 Text (Chapter Outline) • Chapter 1 The World of Robots • Chapter 2 Robots: Personal or Otherwise • Chapter 3 Building Brains • Chapter 4 Sensing the World • Chapter 5 Making Decisions • Chapter 6 Behaviors • Chapter 7 Control Paradigms • Chapter 8 Making Music • Chapter 9 Communication • Chapter 10 Computing & Computation • Chapter 11 Artificial Intelligence • Chapter 12 Robots in the World

  19. Data Collection and Assessment Population to date: • At Georgia Tech • 2 “traditional” CS-1 courses • 4 “robot” CS-1 courses • At Bryn Mawr: • 2 “robot” CS-1 courses • Fall 2008: • Roll out at up to 8 additional institutions.

  20. The Course at GT

  21. Video

  22. Video

  23. BMC Pilot Course – Spring 2007 • 24 students (22 women, 2 men) • Learned CS concepts through robots. • Robots made learning experience more hands-on, tangible, and exciting. • Most frustrating parts were dealing with robot hardware inconsistencies. • Viewed CS as a type of logic and problem solving; requiring patience & thought. • Discovered that CS and robots are applicable to the real world.

  24. BMC Pilot Courses • Liked the use of personal robots • Did not like quirky issues with Scribblers • Learned programming and problem solving (as opposed to just robotics)

  25. GT Initial Results • > 90% success rate among CS majors. • Students felt that the course was focused on computer science, not on robotics. • The frustrations in the course were mostly about the robot: Under-featured, difficult to maintain. • No significant difference in success/failure rates from robotics vs. non-robotics sections (Spring 2007; still assessing Fall 2008).

  26. Yes! Textbook is jointly edited by wiki Myro is under BSD license Hardware specs, firmware, etc will be published That’s Great But is it “Open”

  27. Want a robot? www.roboteducation.org

  28. Video

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