Attracting Students to Engineering: Using Intuitive HRIs for Educational Purposes

被引:0
|
作者
Neto, Pedro [1 ]
Mendes, Nuno [1 ]
Mourato, Nelio [1 ]
Norberto Pires, J. [1 ]
Paulo Moreira, A. [2 ]
机构
[1] Univ Coimbra, Dept Mech Engn CEMUC, POLO 2, P-3030788 Coimbra, Portugal
[2] Univ Porto, Inst Syst & Comp Engn Porto INESC Porto, P-4200465 Oporto, Portugal
来源
TRENDS IN INTELLIGENT ROBOTICS | 2010年 / 103卷
关键词
Robotics; Education; HRI; Student Recruitment; REMOTE;
D O I
暂无
中图分类号
TP18 [人工智能理论];
学科分类号
081104 ; 0812 ; 0835 ; 1405 ;
摘要
Today, industrialized countries are facing a major problem, the lack of skilled engineers. Despite the increasing demand for engineers in the labor market, the number of students going to engineering courses has been declining. This paper reports some initiatives carried out by the industrial robotics laboratory of the University of Coimbra (Portugal) which can contribute to help the youths to obtain an enlarged image of what the engineers can do. These initiatives have focused on the organization of one-day visits to the university campus and participation in events (fairs and exhibitions) to disseminate science and technology. Our participation in such initiatives has been done through the exhibition of a robotic platform to be experienced by the public, usually high school students. In order to allow visitors to intuitively drive the robot, two human-robot interfaces (HRI) has been used. So, to make the process more appealing, the visitors will not only drive the robot but also will play a game with the robot. Besides, it is also important for us receive feedback from the visitors. In such way, a questionnaire about their understanding of the presented robotic platform was proposed. Some points regarding the questionnaires are pointed out for discussion, the students' interest in robotics and the effectiveness of our "hands-on' robotic platform. Results are presented by dividing the answers collected by gender.
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页码:250 / +
页数:2
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