robot diaries overview

7/29/2019 Robot Diaries Overview

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Illah Nourbakhsh | CMU Robotics Institute | HRI Summer Course

Principles of Human-Robot

Interaction

Robot Diaries


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Robot Diaries: mission

Technology marginalization leads to

technology under-representation

Existing technology literacy programshave limitations in diversity

Pilot Proposal:

community + design + affect

Measure:

identity ; creativity ; engagement & retention


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Specific Pilot Goals

Recruit series of middle-school girls for: Robot diaries brainstorming session

Create & deploy creative robotics curriculum

Participatory design of a robotic diary

Prototyping, sharing and testing with girls

Educational assessment Knowledge: actual technical literacy

Identity: motivation & interest in technology

Engagement: personal and community activity

Participatory Design: measure technical creativity


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Actual Pilot Chronology

Summer focus group: 7 students

Ideation, evaluation design

Summer Robot Diaries workshop series 8/2 students

A new creative robotics curriculum

Measures of creativity

C-MITES beginning and advanced courses: 27 students

Shrink-wrapped 1-day package, now disseminating!

Additional evaluations deployed

Fall Falk / Girl Scouts workshop series: 8 students

Participatory design / robotics curriculum

Family and individual evaluations conducted


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Summer Focus Group

The girls seemed anxious about building a

robot out of a recipe:

"It seems really hard to make - like only nerdy,science-y people [would make it]...like

computer technicians [would know how to

make it], and I'm not a computer technician,

so I dont think Id have the mentalcapability to make it."


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Summer Focus Group

Students- a very high-energy group

- Lesson plan must be focused but adjustableto keep girls on-task rather than tangential


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Summer Workshop

6 weekly sessions at Mt. Lebanon

public library

Four opportunities Participatory design experimentation

Research themes and observation

measures Robot diary: refine form and function

Initial evaluation qualitative data


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Summer Creative Robotics

Workshop Series


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Summer Creative Robotics

Workshop Series


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Summer Public Library

Results Prototyping is a difficult concept and

task

Preliminary qualitative evaluationresults both in knowledge of robotics

and self-identification with technology


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C-MITES: two one-day courses

Beginner class: 15 girls

Intermediate class: 12 girls

Technology creativity applied to the

problem of designing communication

devices


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C-MITES: gallery


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C-MITES: gallery


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C-MITES: curriculum example(handout includes complete set)


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Ann Shoplik - Director, C-MITES

Illah, Emily, Debbie, Carl, Tom and Jeff,

Yes, we think it was a smashing success. The

girls seemed to have a good time and they

definitely learned to do something with the

technology they used. We loved how "girly" itwas -- it seemed very appropriate to this age

group. They loved the crafts and they enjoyed

the chance to be creative with the technology.

It was also great for the girls to be able to

take some of their creations home. If the goal

was to expose the girls to technology and let

them play with it, experience it, and have some

success with it, I think you're right on the

money!


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Autumn Falk / Girl Scout

workshop seriesGoal: deploy a complete curriculum from

an introduction to robotics all the way

through creative participatory designto a coherent form and function for

the Robot Diary.


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DoodleChat: community

creativity


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Autumn Falk Results


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Autumn Falk Results


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Evaluation

Four focus themes

Knowledge about robots & technology

Girls confidence about capability to interact,

manipulate, use technology Engagement/interest in meaningful use of

technology

Creativity and creative thinking with technology


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Evaluation Instruments

Videotaped sessions

Student video logs

Informal observations Paper survey with all students

Individual student formal interviews

Home visits: parent interviews, joint problem

solving, tech tour of the home Telephone follow-up interviews


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Results: other robot activitiesParent (during parent interview): She has been

fascinated by robotics for a long time every time

we sign up for one of those camps at the Carnegie

[Science Center], well get there on the first day

and its all obnoxious little boys and she just goes,never mind. Every time we get a thing in the

mail, she looks and sees if theres a robotics one

and then she chickens out cause it just doesnt, you

know, she feels like shes going to be the only girl.


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Results: other robot activitiesParent (during parent interview): At Falk they have

the robotics club, and shes gone to that a couple of

times. She didnt find it all that interesting, I

guess.

Child (conversation during a session, talking about theFalk robotics team) Do we have to do Lego

Mindstorms? It was so incredibly boring and we

couldnt do anything because it was drag and drop

Legos so we dropped out and it was really boring


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Results: initial interviewInterviewer: Alright, so do you think that you could design and

create a new piece of technology if you wanted to?

Child #7: UmIm not all that creative, so I guess just like use

em using stuff

Interviewer: So, on a scale of one to five, how sure are you that

you think you could create a piece of technology, where one is

not at all sure, and five is very sure?

Child #7: Maybe like, two or three?

Interviewer: So why do you think like two or three?

Child #7: Um, just because like um like Im not really that Imnot good at making things.

Interviewer: Okay


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Results: mid-course interviewChild #8: I think Ive been questioning technology like

in my head a little bit more. But not out loud, and

its um, its like I sort of dismissed pretty quickly I

wonder how that works? and then something will

take my mind off it.Interviewer: What kinds of things have you been

thinking about?

Child #8: Like I wonder how a floppy disk holds

memory.


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Conclusions based on Pilot

Robot Diaries fills a major gap in the

technology literacy arsenal across formal and

informal learning.

The demanded robotic sophistication is

affordable and reliable.

Early evaluations are encouraging: this may

make a significant difference in identity andtechnological creativity.

robot diaries overview

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