Theater robotics for human technology education

Abstract

Theater robotics allows its users to learn by transforming a story into a theatrical performance acted out by robots. A preliminary implementation uses affordable robotics kits controlled by a scripting environment that was designed iteratively by observing the users from the viewpoint of a given set of criteria. The end result facilitates a truly interdisciplinary learning experience that combines two types of artifacts: robots built with technology and engineering, and stories founded on humanities. Theater robotics can be applied not only in technology or robotics education, but also in computing education to teach specific skills such as computational thinking or basic concepts of programming with robots.

Interactive Drama With Robots for Teaching Non-Technical Subjects

“…For example, Laamanen et al (2015) used this strategy to allow a natural integration of technical and non-technical school subjects. The authors designed and implemented a modular platform for drama with robots.…”

“…Teacher s actors through robotic construction kits, such as LEGO Mindstorms (Laamanen et al, 2015), or from scratch (Alford et al, 2013). However, it implies that a user needs to have prior knowledge in robot construction.…”

“…However, it implies that a user needs to have prior knowledge in robot construction. A disadvantage with existing robotic platforms for building robots (i.e., Lego Mindstorm, Vex Robotics) is the difficulty of creating verbal and nonverbal behaviors to convey emotions and intentions (Laamanen et al, 2015). Another option is the use of assembled robots.…”

“…Blocking specifies the positioning and movement of the characters on the stage. A fundamental aspect of a play with robots is the requirement of knowing the position of the robot on the stage (Laamanen et al, 2015). In the educational context, an easy option to control the position and movements of robot actors is by making the robot actors follow a black line or a grid.…”

“…A script may have two abstraction levels: (1) low-level description, which specifies every small action of the robot actor (procedural programming); (2) highlevel description, which defines a general robot's behavior and its interaction with other agents (behavior programming). In order to support the learning and teaching of non-technical subjects, the script should allow the user to program the robot by giving it a high-level description of actions (Laamanen et al, 2015). There are three different options of script authorship: …”