Bots and Blocks: Presenting a project-based approach for robotics education

TL;DR

This paper introduces a project-based, interactive learning framework for robotics education, combining practical hands-on experience with theoretical knowledge through semester-long student projects involving robot programming and automation tasks.

Contribution

It presents a novel project-based approach integrating agile methods and practical exercises to enhance robotics education within computer science programs.

Findings

Students gain hands-on experience with ROS and robot programming.

The approach improves practical skills and industry readiness.

Successful implementation of a disassembly robot ecosystem project.

Abstract

To prepare students for upcoming trends and challenges, it is important to teach them about the helpful and important aspects of modern technologies, such as robotics. However, classic study programs often fail to prepare students for working in the industry because of the lack of practical experience, caused by solely theoretical lecturing. The challenge is to teach both practical and theoretical skills interactively to improve the students' learning. In the scope of the paper, a project-based learning approach is proposed, where students are taught in an agile, semester-spanning project how to work with robots. This project is part of the applied computer science degree study program Digital Technologies. The paper presents the framework as well as an exemplary project featuring the development of a disassembly software ecosystem for hardware robots. In the project, the students are taught the programming of robots with the help of the Robot Operating System (ROS). To ensure the base qualifications, the students are taught in so-called schools, an interactive mix of lectures and exercises. At the beginning of the course, the basics of the technologies are covered, while the students work more and more in their team with the robot on a specific use case. The use case here is to automate the disassembly of build block assemblies.