Work in Progress: Introduction of Failure Analysis to a First-year Robotics Course

Abstract

The Ohio State University. She has been on the staff of Ohio State's University Center for the Advancement of Teaching, in addition to teaching in both the physics and engineering education departments. She is currently a member of the ASEE Board of Directors' Advisory Committee on P-12 Engineering Education.

Weaving Failure Analysis into a First-Year Robotics Project

“…Additionally, almost all of the solutions included specific actions to be taken; only two reflections had a vague statement of "more testing" as a solution. This is vastly different behavior than what was seen in the earlier analysis, where the teams discussed nearly twice as many problems as solutions, and there were often no explicit links in a given reflection between the two [2].…”

“…Each week also included a "stretch bonus" task to encourage teams to think about how the tasks for that week would connect with subsequent performance tests. More details on the performance test structure and how it fits into the course have been provided previously [2]. About a week after the fourth performance test, teams had three attempts at a complete run; this day is referred to as the individual competition, and teams were also required to complete the reflection assignment following it.…”

“…Instead of discussions of long-term solutions, teams were focusing on the short-term achievement of passing a particular performance test. To combat this tendency, in 2017, a failure analysis component was added to the course [2].…”

“…They were to identify the causes for why the robot did not achieve the goals of the test, along with likely strategies for remedying the problems identified. Additional details of the initial assignment and how it fit into the course context are described in an earlier publication [2]; a summary of the assessment found in that paper is provided below, as it sets the context for this study.…”

“…Additionally, a non-negligible number of teams proposed solutions that did not align with any of the problems they described. Further, a question on the end-of-course evaluation indicated that while many students found value in the assignment, many also missed the point of the exercise [2]. However, it was the opinion of the instructors that the reflective aspect of the analysis was valuable and that all teams would benefit from engaging in the process.…”