ASPIRE Outreach Project
Engineering involves groups of engineers working together within teams and across various teams. Each team focuses on specific aspects of the project as they interfacing with other teams working on different aspects. To prepare students for this real-world interaction, we developed an engineering curriculum and piloted it with a local high school engineering course.
The students worked in teams to prototype an Arduino based wheeled robot that could assist the elderly in their daily tasks. The students worked in teams of two to four students, each team focusing on a particular aspect of the project. For instance, one team focused on the human-machine interface, another team focused on collecting visual information using a Pixy video system, a third team focused on navigating the space, and additional teams focused on specific tasks. All these teams needed to create their components to interface with the other aspects. The beginning of each class period was spent with discussions of how to coordinate these components.
Tasks for the robot were selected and crafted in such a way that the robot facilitated the theoretical client but kept the client actively engaged. For example, the robot would check that the medication was divided correctly in the pill box, but did not do the actual division. We wanted the elderly client to be mentally engaged in the task of determining their medications, but then served as a check to ensure that the task was completed correctly. Several tasks were prototyped, such as the example above, as well as checking on the stove to ensure it was off and locating objects such as glasses.
The time required for each team to complete their tasks was roughly equal, which is important for classroom management. As teams completed their components, they integrated them with the other teams. The final class version managed to complete these tasks using the video system, a small arm designed by one team, and the programming of the tasks created by several teams. In the end, the robot could check the pill box for accuracy, locate an object in a room, and alert the client if the stove was left on after cooking.
Videos
Video 1: Final composite version of the robot completing the task of looking in the first room for the glasses, then traveling to the second room to look there. When the glasses are found, the robot stops moving and sends a message to the user’s smart phone indicating the room the glasses were found in. Video 2: Final version of the task where students check the contents of a prototyped pill box to see if the medication is correct. As this is only a prototype, the pillbox was designed to facilitate a simple robot checking. The important part of the project was for student groups to work independently yet interact with each other. With the limited classtime available, we chose to simplify the task as shown in the video.