Drone challenge: A platform for promoting programming and robotics skills in K-12 education

Abstract

The development of skills related to computer programming and robotics and the introduction of computational thinking principles in high schools are worldwide trends today. An effective way of initiating young students in this world consists in proposing them stimulating challenges. This work presents a robotic platform that has been successfully used to develop a competition (called Drone Challenge) in which students had to program the navigation system for a simulated unmanned aerial vehicle (or drone). Both the competition and the supporting platform are described in detail. In particular, the article provides a deep technical description of the main components of the platform, namely the drone simulator and the navigation development framework. The results of the survey conducted after the challenge point to the suitability of the working platform deployed.

Fostering STEAM through challenge‐based learning, robotics, and physical devices: A systematic mapping literature review

“…Benefits related to the acquisition of specific competencies: As this study explores STEAM Education, it is normal to find studies related to the competencies commonly associated with STEAM Education, such as computational thinking, problem‐solving, critical thinking, programming, computing and design skills, interdisciplinary skills, computers science autonomy, autonomous learning, negotiating skills, and social abilities. Some examples of this type of papers are References [14,16,20,22,30,31,42,57,58,63,64,66,70,84,92,96,97,102]…”

“…The average is 189.4 and the standard deviation, 368.05. Some experiments were applied to different groups with different numbers of students and several times, so they have also a high number of individuals involved [12,16,37,107]. Figure 4 shows the studies distribution by students involved.…”

“…• Benefits related to the acquisition of specific competencies: As this study explores STEAM Education, it is normal to find studies related to the competencies commonly associated with STEAM Education, such as computational thinking, problem-solving, critical thinking, programming, computing and design skills, interdisciplinary skills, computers science autonomy, autonomous learning, negotiating skills, and social abilities. Some examples of this type of papers are References [14,16,20,22,30,31,42,57,58,63,64,66,70,84,92,96,97,102] • Benefits related to access to new contexts: One of the most relevant benefits of the changes in technology and methodology in STEAM Education is the possibility of carrying out activities in contexts, which previously were really complex. As commented above, the reduction in the price of robotics and physical devices has facilitated the application of such technology in preuniversity education, with different advantages related to an early acquisition of STEAM-related competencies [2,50], examples of papers that describe this as one of the main goals are References [12,42,58,79,81,103].…”

The Big Why of Implementing Computational Thinking In STEM Education: A Systematic Literature Review

“…As Città (2019) and Bermúdez (2019) have mentioned in their studies, abstract concepts can be hard to teach. Games can be used to give such concepts a tangible form so that students can look at them from a different point of view.…”

A Modular Multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Design Approach for Development of an Engineering Education Platform

“…Such aircraft are suitable to facilitate engineering education and research in the field of robotics and automation. Trends show that more and more multirotor platforms are being considered for the high school education level, such as a robotic platform for promoting programming and robotics skills [ 13 ]. Educational multirotor platforms for primary school level are also available on the market [ 14 , 15 ], with appropriate software that enables a quick start learning.…”