cGO © 2013 Jason Berry
Competitive robotics based learning platform.
WIT undergraduate flagship project.
jberry@wit.ie
"Lets make learning a contact sport"™
This tag line just came to me now , but it encapsulates the ideas behind this research perfectly.
I have been thinking about and working on this concept for a couple of
years, Louise did here final year thesis last year on the concept . see
link below to original project flyer
https://www.dropbox.com/s/o67oqba2q2khagw/Robot__game_flyer.doc
“Design and build an
Interactive Robot Game,
for competition
based outreach”
Project Overview
Applied Electronics Flagship Project jtb
The idea has come out of lots of work around project based learning and the our concept of flagship projects.
As you now know we love our robots in c33, BENGiE, uGO and AirfFishBowl.
Apart from the main goal of the projects which is to facilitate learning, its has also been about passing it on.
This occurs for example when we have schools into lab to work with
robots (Engineering Week) and when we go out and about with Robots i.e
Young Scientists.
I never get tired of watching the enthusiasm, fun and wonder which
BENGiE brings out in people of all ages. But I get particularly inspired
when I see how kids and young people react around BENGiE.
As you and any Engineer knows these types of projects are only possible,
because lots of Learning and Hard Work has taken place during the
lifecycle of the project.
And for hard-work and learning to flourish, people need to be inspired, motivated and enthusiastic.
Trust me this is much easier said than done ;-)
That provides us with the reason for this research, "lets make learning a contact sport".
Competition based learning is a really good idea and I believe that the
combination of Programming and Robots with Contact based Competition
will inspire lots of learning.
Main requirements for this model.
1.0 Free - Low cost to implement.
Schools do not have budgets for this. Leverage existing technologies and www resources.
This is where lego mindstorms platform and simulators comes in.
2.0 Engineer not required.
Model should not require an Engineer in the room for learning.
Teachers the experts in facilitating learning are required, not experts
in technology, the learners will become the experts in the technology.
3.0 Safe Contact based Competition required
This is simple, schools love to compete against other schools. So SAFE robot wars type format required.
This is a big requirement, and where the darway platform come into its own.
So enough talking for now, lets get this Blog started.
I want you to create a blog entry for the Lego minstorms, Robotc and VRW combination.
Keep moving forward and
kind regards Jason
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