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Practice of School Education Using Micro Robots

Paper:

Practice of School Education Using Micro Robots andVerification of its Effectiveness

Daigo Misaki and Koichi Arai

Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, Kogakuin University

1-24-2 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 163-8677, Japan

E-mail: misaki@cc.kogakuin.ac.jp

[Received February 18, 2011; accepted April 13, 2011]

This paper is to report on the practice of school edu-

cation using robots and verification of its effectiveness

held on the subject of assembly of robots with off-the-

shelf commodities which is mainly intended for ele-

mentary and middle school pupils. Use of micro robots

as teaching material in the classroom gave a great

number of pupils more opportunities to touch robotsand find fun in robots. In addition, questionnaire sur-

veys conducted on incumbent teachers who attended

the lecture at Kogakuin University have proved it very

useful to analyze educational robots which meet the

needs in the field of education.

Keywords: education robot, micro robot, vibratory

mover mechanism, continuing learning

1. IntroductionAmidst a prevalent apprehension for an increasing

number of school children and pupils having a deterio-

rated interest toward science, the Japan Science and Tech-

nology Agency (JST) has launched, since the latter half of

the 2000s, a variety of support programs for science and

mathematics education at elementary and middle schools.

These include Science Corabo Teacher (SCOT) [1] and

Science Partnership Project (SPP) [2]. Such support pro-

grams for science education at nationwide elementary and

middle schools widely range from the learning contained

in the curriculum synopsis such as observation of plants

and action of electric current to the social problems asso-ciated with environmental issues such as methods to pu-

rify waste liquid, which are taught in cooperation with

engineers from industrial firms. The lecture we recently

gave on the subject of robot education were very popu-

lar with the current generation of pupils, as many of them

still well remember the robots which were displayed at

the 2005 World Exposition held in Aichi Prefecture; it is

no wonder that so many pupils, a few times more than the

capacity of the classroom, applied for admission to the

lecture.

Typical examples of teaching materials using robots

which have been introduced in elementary and middleschools in Japan include the materials using the Lego

MindStorms or other educational robot kits [3] from

Tamiya Inc. and others. These teaching materials are

either used for science education on robots as a part of

the education curriculum or for preparation to take part in

robot contests among school children and pupils such as

the Robo Cup Soccer Junior, contributing greatly to con-

tinuous improvements in pupils motivation for learning.The authors have practiced education using robots as

a material in the SCOT Project and the Science Avenue

Project in cooperation with Hamamatsu Science Museum

and Hamamatsu Culture Foundation, both of which are

mainly intended for elementary and middle school pupils.

Furthermore, as a member of the Council to Study Mea-

sures for Promotion of Robots sponsored by the Technol-

ogy Promotion Office, Division of Commerce and Indus-

try, Department of Industry of Shizuoka Prefecture, we

have reviewed difficulties that may be involved in intro-

duction of robots as teaching material or in continuous

practice of robot education. Such difficulties stem in part

from the fact that robot education at school depends heav-

ily on individuals who are familiar with robots and in part

from the fact that it is difficult to maintain robot educa-

tion activities at public schools where teachers are regu-

larly changed. In particular, compared with the middle

schools, elementary schools have no special teachers in

charge of a domestic science class, preventing continu-

ous robot education [4]. Many teachers in charge of robot

education have complained about insufficient budgets for

robot education, which poses another significant problem

to be addressed to ensure continuity in robot education.

According to the survey on junior high school teachers

conducted in 2008 by the Center for Promotion of ScienceEducation, Japan Science and Technology Agency [5],

average costs for facilities and equipment per school was

Y=154,000 and average supplies expenses per school was

Y=116,000; average costs for facilities and equipment per

pupil was Y=453 and average supplies expenses per pupil

was Y=341. This survey clearly shows that without a spe-

cial budget, it would be practically impossible to give

robot education at school and that the number of pupils

who will have opportunities to use robots as teaching ma-

terial will be very limited.

As one of the solutions to the above-mentioned prob-

lems, the authors propose to use as teaching material forrobot education at elementary and middle schools the mi-

Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Vol.23 No.5, 2011 709

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Misaki, D. and Arai, K.

cro robots that we have developed. Micro robots were

advocated by the concept of Small Machines, Large Op-

portunities [6] at the NSF Workshop 1988 and since then

many researchers have been engaged in the study of micro

robots. In this paper, we will report on the education ac-

tivities using as teaching material such micro robots that

can be assembled with generally available commodities

within limited budgets by one pupil or a group of severalpupils. We have also discussed with groups of incumbent

teachers the potentiality of small machines (micro robots)

as effective teaching material for robot education at ele-

mentary and middle schools.

2. Teaching Material Using Micro Robots As-

sembled with Off-the-Shelf Commodities

2.1. The Vibrating Motor Driven Micro Robot

Robots are generally defined as a system to sense ex-ternal environments and execute appropriate physical mo-

tions or tasks based on gained information. Previous

teaching materials for robot education have been devel-

oped based on this definition. On the other hand, micro

robots are extremely small in size, and high hopes are

pinned on their future use. These small robots are some-

times called nano robots, micro robots or mini robots, de-

pending on the sizes. Micro robots would rather more

often collectively refer to small robots of sizes that can be

put in the hand palm. In our research, too, robots that can

be put in the palm are referred to as micro robots.

Basic configurations of micro robots are expected to be

able to perform the following minimum functions: (1) todevelop some driving forces with micro actuators; (2) to

mount sensors to enable autonomous motions based on

external information; and (3) to execute some meaningful

tasks through operation of manipulators [7].

Currently, no micro robots have yet been developed that

could perform all of these three minimum functions as

well as have energy sources built in the robots. More-

over, the development of such micro robots would entail

much cost to use as teaching material for robot educa-

tion. We have therefore decided that robots to be used as

teaching material should be able to perform at least the

above-mentioned minimum functions (1) and (2).Typical actuators used in micro robots include: (1)

wheel motor driven actuators; (2) piezoelectric actuators;

(3) electromagnetic actuators for vibratory locomotion /

jumping mechanism. Their use depends on intended pur-

poses. Wheel motor driven actuators require special gears

manufactured by MEMS technologies in addition to a

large number of components. Piezoelectric actuators re-

quire special control circuits to drive piezoelectric ele-

ments. We have therefore decided to adopt, as a driv-

ing method for educational micro robots, vibratory loco-

motion mechanism which can be manufactured with af-

fordable vibrating motors that are relatively easy to pro-

cure. For the vibratory locomotion mechanism, we pro-

pose to use a transfer mechanism where a coreless micro

2.2

3.

3.1

Fig. 1. Basic component parts.

motor with an eccentric weight and two button cells are

mounted, as well as the sloped bottom of the robot [8].

The transfer system is such that the vibratory locomotion

mechanism moves up and down as the motor rotates, gen-

erating unbalanced thrust in the anterior-posterior direc-

tion.

2.2. Component Parts

Micro robots to be used as teaching material at schools

are of simple structure so that any pupil participating in

the robot education class can assemble a set of robot by

him/herself. In view of the limited budget of several hun-

dred yen available for the teaching materials at elementary

and middle schools, it would be desirable that such micro

robots could be assembled within the school budget to en-

sure continuity of robot education at school, although the

teaching material cost in the robot education class we or-

ganized was partly supported by the JST and others. The

maximum length of time available for robot education atschool would be two classes (90 min), which will just al-

low as much as 30 min for assembly of robots if some

length of time is set aside for explanations and mini-robot

contests.

Figure 1 shows a set of component parts which were

distributed to pupils in the robot education class at a cer-

tain school. These component parts, except for the vi-

brating motor which needs to be purchased from special

shops, are available either at home or at nearby do-it-

yourself stores and can be purchased for several hundred

yen through general marketing routes.

(1) Vibrating motor (disk-shaped vibrating motorFM34F) 1 pc

(2) Toothbrush 1 pc

(3) Button cell (miniature cell like LR44) 2 pc

(4) Switch (vertical slide switch SS-12SDP2) 1 pc

(5) Wiring cable 23 pc

3. Practice of Robot Education Classes

This section describes the methods for administer-

ing robot education classes using micro robots as teach-

710 Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Vol.23 No.5, 2011