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Inside the maze: who would find the cheese first, a robot or a mouse?: teaching IT using robots

Published: 14 November 2013 Publication History

Abstract

This paper discusses the feasibility of using mobile robots to motivate students in non-robotic courses. We propose that robots can be a catalyst for students' engagement in non-robotic related courses. In this way, the paper describes the experience of using robots for elective practical assignments in a Computer Architecture course of the Computer Engineering program at the Universidad de León (Spain). The paper also analyzes the hardware alternatives, providing as additional contribution a table for choosing the more suitable robotic platform for different teaching needs based of several criteria.
We also propose that including competitions also contribute to students engagement. So, these assignments have been organized as internal competitions. Finally, we also propose the use of natural unpredictable elements in the environment to make the programing of the robot more challenging. So, we have used live animals competing versus the robot.
Finally preliminary analysis of this experience is presented and discussed. This analysis is based on the results get by the students and also by the subjective impression of students and lecturers obtained by ad-hoc questionnaires.

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Cited By

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  • (2019)Course redesign to improve retentionJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/3344051.334405934:6(97-106)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2019
  • (2013)A robot in the classroomProceedings of the First International Conference on Technological Ecosystem for Enhancing Multiculturality10.1145/2536536.2536580(295-296)Online publication date: 14-Nov-2013

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TEEM '13: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Technological Ecosystem for Enhancing Multiculturality
November 2013
582 pages
ISBN:9781450323451
DOI:10.1145/2536536
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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  • University of Salamanca: University of Salamanca

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 14 November 2013

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Author Tags

  1. animal-robot interaction
  2. computer architecture teaching
  3. motivation
  4. robot

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  • Research-article

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TEEM '13
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  • University of Salamanca

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TEEM '13 Paper Acceptance Rate 94 of 118 submissions, 80%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 496 of 705 submissions, 70%

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Cited By

View all
  • (2019)Course redesign to improve retentionJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/3344051.334405934:6(97-106)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2019
  • (2013)A robot in the classroomProceedings of the First International Conference on Technological Ecosystem for Enhancing Multiculturality10.1145/2536536.2536580(295-296)Online publication date: 14-Nov-2013

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