ICRA 2004, New Orleans, May 1st 2004 ALTAIR -- Computer Science Department – University of Verona 1 Educational Committee

ICRA 2004, New Orleans, May 1st 2004

ALTAIR -- Computer Science Department – University of Verona

http://metropolis.sci.univr.it

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Educational Committee Report

Paolo FioriniComputer Science Department

University of Verona

Takashi Tsubouchi

Inst. of Engineering Mechanics and Systems

University of Tsukuba

ICRA03 - September 2003 ICRA 2004, New Orleans, May 1st 2004



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Activities

• Organization of Special Session on Robotics Education (ICRA04)

• Participation to Workshop on Robotics Education (ICRA04)

• Column on Education in the Magazine (starting Sept.)

• Long Range Planning Sub Committee




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Special Session on Robotics Education

• 4K$ funds approved for travel support

• 17 Papers submitted: 6 papers selected by a panel of 8 reviewers (3 from Europe and 3 from USA)

• Two session with 3 more papers added

• Session was well attended




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EdCom LRP Sub-Committee

Participants

• Paolo Fiorini• Alicias Casals• Bernardo Wagner• Alex Leonessa• Illah Nourbakhsh • Takashi Tsubouchi • Richard Volz• Uwe ??• Anna Friesel • Stewart ?? (Microsoft)• Gerard McKee • Sanjay Joshi




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Issues from Work Shop on Robotics Education

• Tutorials and Workshops– Registration for tutorials only– Tutorials free for students– Publication of tutorial material

• Web initiatives– Website maintained by (and of) RAS EdCom– Webcasts of conference Tutorials (or play on demand)– Web access to material

• Competitions– Coordination of educational competitions

• Hardware– Produce h/w developed by some group

• Curricula and Pedagogy– Educate in ethics and issues other than technical– Publication on how to teach robotics– Develop a pedagogical model on how to teach robotics

• Publications– Sponsor specific publications on education on robotics– Periodic special issues of Magazine– Venue for publishing work on education

• Organization/implementation of plan– Spend Edcom budget to hire a person that would do something (prof at teaching college)– Be a central way to coordinate EdCom activities– Coordinate with Educational Technical Committee




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Issues from LRP sub-committee• Curricula and School

– People and subjects on automation– School on automation similar to robotics– Certificaiton in continuing education courses– This committee work on a reference curriculum on robotics, to prepare accreditation – General goal : to improve learning and teaching in robotics education– Scholarships– PERMANENT SCHOOL where to invest 20K per year, robotics. Industry, automation– Handbook of robotics for non engineers

• Web initiatives– Centralized web/electronics resources– webcast could be complementary to the DVD– Use and enhance the webbook, RAS can take over for the long term

• Teaching material– Collection of selected papers, the key point will be the introduction and the connection among them– distance learning (CD for classes with lectures material) workshops and tutorial packaged as a DVD– courses on DVD effort at ieee– Work on taxonomy of robotics defining terms and contents– Evaluation of tools books, courses, .. Rating of resources

• Hardware– purchase many robots and rent them to colleges on a semester basis– design and construction of a educational robot, to be manufactured by a commercial company with ieee doing the first big purchase and sell it

later to users.– A very cheap robot for underdeveloped countries– Development of robots out of competition, budget in prices– Partnership with lego to buy a large quantity of kits to be sold to members (difficult to get discount) stamp of approval of IEEE, development

of teaching material for the kits• Competitions

– host regional bot-ball contest• Organization/implementation of plan

– Circulate list and prioritize the item in the next ten years– Meet at iros to finalize the list and work on a roadmap how to achieve to these objectives.– Discuss model of execution, to support a person, at least half budget – Write a white paper to NSF to ask for support of education in robotics, with specific topics (write call for proposals to nsf)

• Conferences– Initiate constant session on education in robotics conferences, different from the main sessions

Documents

ICRA 2004, New Orleans, May 1st 2004 ALTAIR -- Computer Science Department – University of Verona 1 Educational Committee