Adapting a STEM Robotics Program to the Covid-19 Pandemic – an application for Systems Engineering

At the 2019 ISEC conference, a paper was presented [1] that quantitatively described how the IEEE STEaM Robot Challenge project, based on handson teamwork and student interactions, leads students to improved learning engagement, and an increased interest in Engineering. After cancelling the event in 2020 due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, it was decided to redesign the project and research whether in the midst of current restrictions, improvements in students’ learning engagement could still be obtained even when students would have to work from home and where teamwork could only be practiced on-line. The changes would need to provide a comparable Challenge in each of the four elements of the previous program, and would be validated by a student survey similar to the one conducted for the 2019 paper. Because the project needed to work right the first (and possibly only) time, it was decided to use System Engineering concepts for the re-design, so the project would then become a case study on the use of this technique in an educational setting. The lessons learned from this redesign, and the arrangements developed for the 2021 Robot Challenge competition, may not only be of value for those planning other competitions, but the new on-line system utilized could be readily adapted to reach students living in rural and underserved communities, thus providing them with the same learning experience as those living in metropolitan centers.