Related papers: Promoting scientific thinking with robots

Skills like computational thinking, problem solving, handling complexity, team-work and project management are essential for future careers and needs to be taught to students at the elementary level itself. Computer programming knowledge…

We address goal-based imitation learning, where the aim is to output the symbolic goal from a third-person video demonstration. This enables the robot to plan for execution and reproduce the same goal in a completely different environment.…

Imitation learning in robots, also called programing by demonstration, has made important advances in recent years, allowing humans to teach context dependant motor skills/tasks to robots. We propose to extend the usual contexts…

When a robot performs a task next to a human, physical interaction is inevitable: the human might push, pull, twist, or guide the robot. The state-of-the-art treats these interactions as disturbances that the robot should reject or avoid.…

Incorporating computer programming exercises into introductory physics is a delicate task that involves a number of choices that may have an effect on student learning. We present a "hybrid" approach that speaks to a number of common…

Recent success of machine learning in many domains has been overwhelming, which often leads to false expectations regarding the capabilities of behavior learning in robotics. In this survey, we analyze the current state of machine learning…

Robot accidents are inevitable. Although rare, they have been happening since assembly-line robots were first introduced in the 1960s. But a new generation of social robots are now becoming commonplace. Often with sophisticated embedded…

We are witnessing a rapid increase in real-world autonomous robotic deployments in environments ranging from indoor homes and commercial establishments to large-scale urban areas, with applications ranging from domestic assistance to urban…

This paper reviews the use of socially interactive robots to assist in the therapy of children with autism. The extent to which the robots were successful in helping the children in their social, emotional, and communication deficits was…

Robots sharing their space with humans need to be proactive in order to be helpful. Proactive robots are able to act on their own initiative in an anticipatory way to benefit humans. In this work, we investigate two ways to make robots…

There is a major lack of diversity in engineering, technology, and computing subjects in higher education. The resulting underrepresentation of some population groups contributes largely to gender and ethnicity pay gaps and social…

In this article, we plan to provide an introduction about some basics about robots for readers. Several key topics of classic robotics will be introduced, including robot representation, robot rotational motion, coordinates transformation…

The mainstream of educational robotics platforms orbits the various versions of versatile robotics sets and kits, while interesting outliers add new opportunities and extend the possible learning situations. Examples of such are…

Defining sound and complete specifications for robots using formal languages is challenging, while learning formal specifications directly from demonstrations can lead to over-constrained task policies. In this paper, we propose a Bayesian…

In this article we present and discuss a didactic activity that combines epistemic aspects of the nature of science (NOS) and a simple, relatively low-cost experiment on electromagnetic induction. The aim of the activity is for students to…

Legged robots can have a unique role in manipulating objects in dynamic, human-centric, or otherwise inaccessible environments. Although most legged robotics research to date typically focuses on traversing these challenging environments,…

Regardless of their industrial or research application, the streamlining of robot operations is limited by the proximity of experienced users to the actual hardware. Be it massive open online robotics courses, crowd-sourcing of robot task…

This article introduces GeoBotsVR, an easily accessible virtual reality game that combines elements of puzzle-solving with robotics learning and aims to cultivate interest and motivation in robotics, programming, and electronics among…

In this innovative practice work-in-progress paper, we compare two different methods to teach machine learning concepts to undergraduate students in Electrical Engineering. While machine learning is now being offered as a senior-level…

Collaborative robotics requires effective communication between a robot and a human partner. This work proposes a set of interpretive principles for how a robotic arm can use pointing actions to communicate task information to people by…