Hardware-Software Platform for the Development of STEM Skills

Robotics not only play a significant role in medicine, manufacturing, or aerospace industry, but also in education. According to governmental studies carried out in the United States and Europe, careers related to STEM skills like engineering, are constantly increasing worldwide. Due to this, several countries have been implementing STEM education. But, in Colombia this initiative just recently started to take place. Currently, it is possible to find several STEM educational robotic kits on the market such as boost from Lego, Cozmo from Anki, Mbot from Makeblocks and Dash from Make wonder. In this trend, the STEM robotic kit proposed in this document, pretends to be a hardware grounding to implement a whole STEAM program. It intends to encourage children to develop their science, tech, math, and artistic outcomes. Also, the kit offers a differential plus from others because it has two interactive components: an elephant-bot called Eli, a robot easy to assemble inspired in the protection of African elephants; and, an intuitive user interface, called “Experiencia Chamali” made up of three modules. The first one consists of assembly the robot, the second one is designed for developing of spatial perception throughout maze challenges, and the last one is made for test the robot’s movements live. Two groups of children between 6 and 11 years old tested the robotic platform. During the activity, the groups reinforced STEM skills such as teamwork, communication, and problem-solving as a conclusion of test results. The children divided the assembly of the elephant-bot into several tasks on their initiative to make an agile construction. Also, in the challenge of the labyrinth, they worked collaboratively on the spatial location. Finally, the members of each group worked as a team decorating the physical labyrinth freely and observing the movements of the “elephant-bot” in this environment.