Outreach Project Report - Robocol Uniandes 2012

MINI

LUNABOTICS

MINING COMPETITION OUTREACH PROJECT REPORT

The Robocol group from Universidad de los Andes, with the aim of promoting the interest in science, robotics and engineering, carried out an educational project for kids between 7 and 12 years old and teenagers between 13 and 19 years old.

We visited 15 different schools from our city, to invite several children to participate in a scale version of the NASA Lunabotics competition, using LEGO Mindstorm kit we promoted the competition between groups of students in a similar way to the actual NASA competition. Additionaly the youngest kids (under 12) went to an activity where they learn how to design a robot and finished their activity drawing the design a proper lunabot.

The mission was to contribute to social appropriation of science, technology and innovation; generating passion for knowledge and learning, critical, proactive thinking, consciousness about its transcendence and impact in daily life, and social, economical, and cultural development of Colombians.

According to Robocol's philosophy, children from every social class are welcomed to take part of the experience.

Besides outreaching about science and technology, it is an enriching experience to share our activity in a multicultural and social diverse group.

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2 The general objective is to develop an interest for learning the concepts behind robotics activities. Robocol estrategy was to generate an emotional impact using demonstrative experiments, hands on activities related with robotics, engineering and lunar exploration. Other objectives that Robocol had during this outreach were: 1. Encourage social appropriation of science, technology and innovation making these themes attractive, gripping, understandable, and affordable for everyone.

2. Clarify and strengthen scientific concepts and principles in an interactive way.

3. Demonstrate utility, incidence and importance of science and technology in daily live and in a country development.

4. Encourage the children to become future professionals and technicians through basic investigation and technological development.

MINI-LUNABOTICS MINING COMPETITION LEGO Mindstorm kit is a common system that is familiar to most children interested in robotics. Taking advantage of this, we get together a group of 72 teenagers during three days. During those days all children were learning, enjoying and competing to win the Mini Lunabotics Mining Competition, a contest where children had to build and program a robot, make an oral presentation, exhibit teamwork and show a positive attitude scoring points in team spirit, similar to the actual NASA Lunabotics Mining Competition.

Day 1 – Let´s start the engines Children were divided into groups of four people and it were given a LEGO kit. During this session, children had to use the kit pieces to build a robot. They began to understand the use of the sensors including. There was a light sensor to identify colors, a touch sensor and a sound sensor. The first activity was to show them the steps to build “The Explorer” (a robot design proposed

by LEGO). With The Explorer as a platform, we began to introduce them the basic concepts of programming the LEGO Mindstorms kit. To encourage children participation, different motion routines were assigned to each group. The interface was explained in detail so they could design the commands that will make the robot to

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follow the assigned trajectory. At this moment, kids were surprised with the designs they could build with the kit. After that, a challenge between the children was proposed.

This was an exciting activity and full of surprises for the children, because they did not expect that the robot could follow any path that they programmed on the laptop. This was a special moment for Robocol, where we could see the interest in the student’s eyes, showing them all the details and systems that are necessary to constitute a robot.

Game Rules Using the LEGO Mindstorms kit, every group must build a teleoperate or autonomous robot capable of collecting and transporting the maximum number of plastic balls through a zone with obstacles of different shapes and sizes.

Two scale mining fields (3m x 1.5m) were created using boxes and paper of different colors. The purpose was to enable the light sensor to achieve the autonomous operation. A webcam was attached next to mining fields so that remote operation could be accomplished from an isolated control room 15 meters away.

The webcam was connected directly to a computer to show the live action on the field to the operator.

Plastics balls with 5cm of diameter were used as the material to be mined. The robot was controlled using a laptop which sent control commands to the robot via Bluetooth. A competition consisted of a practice run followed by a scored run. Each run lasted 10 minutes.

There were two additional categories where every team had to compete. An oral presentation explaining the mechanical robot design and the programming code; there was also a team spirit category where Robocol team evaluated each group for his teamwork, attitude, creativity and originality.

The winning team would be the one which scored the highest number of points. To optimize that score teams must recollect as much plastic balls as possible with their robot, build a lightweight robot, avoid colliding with obstacles, accomplish a partial or total autonomy, make a good presentation and show the best team spirit.

Day 2 – Time for hand-on activity All teams eagerly started designing their own robot,

including a collecting mechanism for the plastic balls.

The students spent one hour and a half brainstorming, collaborating, discussing and building their own designs. With the assistance of a Robocol team member each group of students began programming the code. It were given to each group pieces of cardboard with the colors that will be use at the competition for let them practice and prove the sensor light.

Taking advantage that the outreach project was developed in our University, we made an outsourcing activity. We gave the children a tour around the campus and the engineering labs including the energy conversion lab, the materials lab, the dynamics and control lab. We told them about the engineering programs sylabus and

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the life style of a Colombian engineer. This activity was very interesting for the students and we really motivated some of them to consider studying engineering in our University. The following is an example of their facebook posts:

Camila Gallego

Robocol Uniandes

BOYS

59 TOTAL

GIRLS 13

72

14 -19 AGE AVERAGE 16

AGE RANGE

April 5th 2012

You guys are so amazing! I really wanna be an engineer, you inspired me.

Get prepared my team is going to win :D Like

Comment

*Taken from: http://www.facebook.com/robocol.uniandes

Day 3 – Sharing a dream It was the final day. The day when all children would finally get to test their robots. The student`s designs were much better developed than we expected. While some teams were competing, others were given their oral presentation. An immediate Q&A session from their peers and Robocol team members gave way to further discussion.

During the day, all teams showed a positive attitude and in some cases some groups sang whilst presenting their work, awarded them more points. At the end of the session an award was given to the team which most points accumulated over all the activities.

OUTREACH FOR THE YOUNGER KIDS Another outreach activity was planned for younger kids (8 to 11 years old). The main purpose was to teach the process of design of an engineering project using a mini-lunabot. There were 56 kids divided in seven groups so they could interact directly with the exhibitors. Each exhibitor was in charge of a stage at the previous design process. This stages were sensors, computer vision, programing, mechanical system, Lunabotics mining competition, communications, and test area. This activity also used the LEGO mindstorms kit. •Sensors stage: In this stage the exhibitor showed the kids the diferent sensors available on the LEGO mindstorms they compare the sensors with the five senses of the humans. The sensors exposed where touch sensors (buttons), light sensor, ultrasonic sensor and microphone.

3 DAYS th

APRIL 3 - 5 2012

LEGO MINDSTORMS KIT 1 ROBOT PER 4 CHILDREN

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After they learn to use them they place the different sensors on a robot that had the mission of avoiding obstacles(we used the lego predesign explorer bot).

•Programming Stage: This stage was very entertaining because kids learn the basics of programing using their senses. They were invited to guide friend between places in the room just by listening the commands. This help them to understand the conditionals and loops of programing.

•Computer Vision: Using the Kinect tools we show them we were developing for our Lunabot and explained them how it works and they played with a game programed using the Microsoft kinect SDK. With this stage we show them when they were going to design something to look for new tools even if they were used on other applications.

•Communications: Knowing how to communicate with the lunabot is an important fact on the design, so the exhibitor designed a code and a de code for sending a message between the kids. With this activity the learned how efficient a communication system could be.

•Mechanics systems :It was important to show the main parts of a lunabot so we show them the traction systems excavation systems and deposing systems for a lunabot and they could choose which system after the knew the advantages and disadvantages of the systems.

•Lunabotics mining Competition stage We showed the competition to the kids and the different lunabots that had compete on previous editions. So they could be able to now which was our challenge. After this they were asked to draw a lunabot for the competition.

•Test stage: After being on the other stages the kids started choosing parts of the predesigned modules of the nxtlego to complete some goals on to tracks, one of the tracks was a maze were they test their sensors display, and a obstacles arena where they controlled by Bluetooth their robot to push the obstacles.

Future Work The main objective was grab the attention of some students with hopes to make a difference in their lifes. To keep the door open, Robocol team is looking forwards to having another session to present the lunabot and all the Lunabotics Mining competition experience as they return from the competition. Lunabotics Mining Competition

opens doors not only to the University, but it offers a chance to show the technical production of Colombia in an international environment.

For more info, pictures and a video, visit: http://robocol.uniandes.edu.co/outreach2012.html