Inexpensive technology lab exercises for grades 6-9

The need for technology education in primary and secondary schools is well documented. What is needed is a way to infuse the excitement of technology and engineering into the middle and high school curriculum. This must be done at a low cost, since most school districts work with limited funding. One vehicle for introducing technology and engineering will be the Stiquito and Stiquito II robots. Stiguito is a small, simple, inexpensive ($4) hexapod robot developed by the Computer Science Department of Indiana University at Bloomington. Stiquito II is a larger, slightly more expensive ($7) hexapod robot which is easier to build than Stiquito. Even though these robots were originally designed to be used in research, they are used worldwide for educational purposes. These devices employ several concepts from electrical, mechanical, and chemical engineering. Applications of the robots would encompass computer and industrial engineering concepts as well. This paper contains motivations for introducing engineering to middle, junior high, and high school students, an introduction to the Stiquito robots, and details on lab exercises. Instructions at the end of the paper direct users to the location of these lab exercises on the Internet.