PRE2022 3 Group10

Lars van den Brom

Jochem Smit

Nanouk van Weerdenburg

Renske van Dijk

Bernard Korevaar

Brainstorm ideas

• kitchen assistant
  • Automatic stirring
  • Cutting robot
  • boterhammen smeren
  • automatische rasp  >lijkt misschien op een keukenmachine, maar ik bedoel meer citroen raspen, dat je alleen de buitenkant wil
• Human Robot Collaboration (HRC)
  • Gesture controlled robot
  • Speech controlled robot
  • Following robot

• Autonomous Motion Robots (AMRs)
  • PRE2022_1_Group1: Robot for warehouse
  • Some kind of problem the company Lowpad are dealing with
• Robot to open bottles with a twist cap
• Robot om flesjes met kroondop te openen
• Strijkrobot
• robot om kinderen les te geven, soort bijles ish
• robot om muren te verven
• Interactive educational robots
• AI-powered traffic flow management system
• Autonomous underwater vehicles for oceanic exploration and mapping

Planning

Week	Date start week	Deliverables	Responsible team members
1	6th of February	Brainstorm on objectives	Everyone
		Write down objectives	Bernard
		Work on planning and deliverables	Nanouk
		Look into state-of-the-art	Renske and Jochem
		Write about use	Lars
2	13th of February	Choosing robot	Everyone
		Research into state-of-the-art	Nanouk and Bernard
		Research into existing learning methods	Renske and Lars
		Updating planning	Nanouk
		Research into appearance	Jochem
		Update USE	Lars
3	27th of February	Get to know programming language of Pepper	Bernard, Jochem and Lars
		Continue literature studies	Renske and Nanouk
		Specify goals	Lars and Nanouk
4	6th of March	Start programming	Bernard, Jochem and Lars
		Finish literature studies	Renske and Nanouk
5	13th of March	Continue programming	Bernard, Jochem and Lars
		Describing tests, write down test protocol	Renske and Nanouk
6	20th of March	Testing	Everyone
		Start writing report	Renske and Nanouk
7	27th of March	Process results tests	Renske and Nanouk
		Improve program	Bernard, Jochem and Lars
		Continue writing final report	Renske and Nanouk
		Start making presentation	Renske and Nanouk
8	3th of April	Finish program	Everyone
		Finish final presentation	Everyone
		Finish writing final report	Everyone

Objective

The objective of our project design a robot that can help primary school children with learning. We will focus specifically on children in the fourth and fifth grade of primary school, age six to eight, and teaching basic arithmetic such as multiplication.

We will do a literature study to specify an effective learning method for arithmetic, to identify what assistance teachers need, and how children are best stimulated.

In the scope of this course it will not be realistic to design a fully function prototype. Therefore, we will use an off-the-shelf robot that only need to be programmed to test our findings.

Use

User

Our robot is designed to target the needs of elementary school students who are working on multiplications. The robot would use some sort of interactive and engaging method, like a game or quiz, to empower the motivation of the students. The robot would be easy to navigate and user-friendly to make sure the children can use it with ease.

Society

The robot has the potential to make a positive impact on society by improving the academic outcomes of elementary school. This would be done by proving and interactive and engaging way to learn multiplications, the robot would help with motivation and confidence of the children. Which would lead to an improved learning curve. Additionally by using the robot, the teacher would have more time to focus on other tasks, as helping students who need extra help, or the greater part of the class and let the excelling students use it to keep it challenging and motivating for them.

Enterprise

Investing in these robots could be a smart decision for schools and educational institutions. As the robot helps by providing an innovative and effective tool for teaching, the robot can help both improve the quality of education and support the development of future generations. The robot's user-friendly design and advanced technology also make it an attractive and marketable product for businesses in the educational technology industry. As the use of technology in education continues to grow, our robot could represents a valuable opportunity for growth and expansion of this industry.

State-of-the-art

Figure 1, The Dash Robot

Teaching robotics

There are already some robot technologies that are used in the classroom in elementary schools. For example the Dash Robot , that looks really appealing for children and they can engage with it. With the Dash Robot children get experiences with coding, for example by drag-and-dropping blocks. The Ozobot Evo is quite similar, it can also be used for block coding. And its sensors detect color codes and react to them. Another example of a robot that can be used to learn children code is the Finch 2.0 robot. All these robots are made to help children learn coding at elementary school. However, we are thinking of a robot that can help with tutoring mathematics.

The Ozobot Evo

There are also done studies with robotic tutors, like MONICA (https://blog.frontiersin.org/2016/11/04/robotic-tutors-for-primary-school-children/). It was tested whether the robot could detect emotional states from children, and the children liked working with the robot, but it is not developed well enough yet that such a robot could replace the teacher.

The ROYBI robot is also a robot (https://roybirobot.com/) that can teach children languages and other languages. It can improve a child's learning from the age of 3 and onwards.

Finch 2.0 robot

At this moment, there are not yet robots that completely take over the roles of teachers.

Robotics and Mathematics

In 2018, Zhong and Xia performed a systematic review on educational robotics in mathematical education. They found 20 papers about this and compared them and made conclusions over all. These conclusions are divided into two categories: engagement and real world.

Engagement

First, they found that having access to a robot gives students the opportunity to participate interactively with the learning process (Adams & Cook, 2017; Keren et al., 2012; Keren & Fridin, 2014; La Paglia, La Cascia, Francomano, & La Barbera, 2017). Moreover, Brown and Howard (2014) reported that, verbal interactions with a robot were able to increase and/or maintain student engagement regardless of student age and math content level. This conclusion was made compared to non-interactive methods to learn mathematics. Increasing the interaction levels of humanoid robots bring better learning outcomes than just visual and auditory contacts (Pinto et al., 2015). Next to that, the movements of a robot, its position and its moves, can be perceived as tangible feedback of help in mathematical games (Mandin et al., 2017). Something else that was concluded is that interactions with a real robot might generate greater enjoyment than interactions with a virutal agent (Keren and Fridin, 2014). Last, the robot can have a bigger impact on the interaction process between students and between students and the computer. This can students give motivation to stay engaged and to work as a team (Mitnik et al., 2008).

Real world

Learning mathematics with robots helps students visualize challenging real-world applications and supports multiple representations of a problem (Shankar et al., 2013). The transition from abstract perfection of mathematics to the practical reality of daily experience can be made easier with the experience with robots (Fernandes et al., 2009; Martin et al., 2006; Rhine & Martin, 2008). For this, it is important that the learning material from the robot can be related to their ordinary school work (Lindh & Holgersson, 2007). Moreover, it is important that every student has the chance to do every hands-on practice, which deepens their impressions about the learning contents. Also, the students should have opportunities to practice repeatedly with the support of the robotics system. Last, instructional design is key for supporting the succesful application of robotics in mathematics education. However, when this is done in a proper way, it will have a lasting hands-on experience in a social context and a better attitude towards mathematics education (Shankar et al., 2013).

For all of this, more research is needed. Therefore, our research can have a real impact on the field.

How do children learn the multiplication facts?

We have decided to focus on teaching children the multiplication facts, also known as the time tables. These are all multiplication sums that go from 1x1=1 to 10x10=100. It is important that children know these multiplication facts by heart and don't need too much time to calculate these simple sums. Otherwise kids will later on struggle with problems with larger numbers, divisions etc., as they use much of their working memory for the simple multiplication sums and they won't have much brain space left for complexer problems.

For us it is important to know what the best way is for children to learn these multiplication sums, so our robot can use this as well.

Children start with learning how to make groups of objects and add these together by just counting. They will see it can go easier, because they are adding up the same amount every time when they have groups of the same size.

Rectangle model

There are different models that can make the multiplication more insightful. When a child has difficulties with understanding mulitplication (one of) these different models can be used to make it more clear.

First there is the rectangle model, where as an example there is a rectangular container with plants in rows. You could have for example three rows of each five plants. The plants are properly structured in straight rows, which makes it easy to see that you are adding the same amount everytime. This repeated addition makes it clear that this can go easier by using multiplication.

Second, there is the groupmodel. The child can make groups of the same size and then count how many groups there are. This way a multiplication sum is easy made.

Group model

Last, there is the line model. In this model, a number line is made where the jumps are made visible. This way the repeated addition is clear and this can be converted to a multiplication sum.

Exercises with pictures make it easier and more fun to do multiplication sums. To make sure a child doesn't keep counting every single object, it is a good idea to make only in one group visible how much objects there are per group. For example when there are three boxes with grapes, make it only visible in the upper one that there are six grapes in one box, this way the child can't count all grapes separate, but needs to think themselves that 6+6+6 = 3x6 = 18 grapes.

Line model

There are different strategies that make multiplication sums easier. These strategies can be mentioned by the robot as a hint or explanation.

First the reversal strategy, which means that 4x8 is the same as 8x4 for example. This could help as most children know the table of 4 better than the table of 8. It is an easy hint, but could be really helpful.

Second, the doubling strategy, which means that for example 6x4 is the double of 3x4. The second sum is way easier, so when you know 3x4=12, you can imagine that 6x4 is the double which is 24.

Third, the halve strategy, which is similar to the doubling strategy but just the other way around. For example 10x4=40 is an easy sum, when the child knows that 5 is half of 10, then 5x4 is half of 40, which is 20.

Fourth, the one-more-or-less strategy. For example, 5x3=15 is a relative easy sum. 6x3 is then the same, but just one '3' extra, so 15+3=18. Or for example, 10x3=30 is easy, then you know that 9x3 is the same but one '3' less, so 30-3=27.

Last, the splitting strategy. This strategy is for larger multiplication sums, like 14x6. It is best to split this sum into 10x6 and 4x6, because those are both sums that the child is supposed to know, and then these answers can easily be added.

It is best to first learn the tables of 0 and 1. Then the table of 2, this is relatively easy because it exists of all the even numbers. You can for example let the child count pairs of shoes. Then the table of 10, because that is also quite easy. The table of 5 comes next, then 3 and 4 because low numbers are relatively easy. Last, the tables 6, 7, 8 and 9 come, which are the hardest for most children. Using the strategies mentioned above, can make it easier.

Practicing the timetables by saying them outloud is still a really efficient way to learn them, so it would be great if we can also use our robot for that.

There exist already quite some games to help with learning the multiplication tables, like Addit, Formula, toverstapels etc.

Flashcards are also always useful and can probably be integrated easily in the robot.

One of the most important ways to learn something is ofcourse to repeat. It would be useful when the robot knows which sums need to be practiced more, partly by remembering what sums the child finds the most difficult, but also by remembering which sums are asked the least until now.

Previous related projects

These are some previous projects related to our project. The texts state the useful aspects of the mentioned project for our project.

Studdy Buddy https://cstwiki.wtb.tue.nl/wiki/PRE2019_3_Group8

Study Buddy is a robot designed to help 'feeble-minded' children in elementary school understand the material taught in class better.

This project is quite similar to our project, since they also use robots to (help) teach young children.

Notable subjects in their report are the consideration of some robots, with a description of its features, pros and cons. Also how the robots would fit their project and which robot would fit best is discussed.

After that the project discusses the importance of likability and reliability of the robots. It states having trustworthy behavior and a reliable appearance are key for the children to be able to form an emotional bond with the robot and let it help them learn.

Then the project proceeds to show a questionnaire where, from 4 robots, the likability and the reliability are asked.

Then the project proceeds to talk about gamification and how it can improve the learning platform and motivate the children. Rankings in the game are also discussed but are not used since they state: “In our situation, we should avoid rankings and leader boards in game inspired design, as not all children thrive on competition.”

After that the project proceeds with an interview of elementary school teachers. In this part the main findings are summarized. For example that gamification is already used on an interactive whiteboard, and that teachers already spread their attention more to children which have problems learning, and that a robot which would personalize education would be welcomed.

Then the project shows a persona of the sort of child they want to help, and explain the concept in detail.

The project also displays a scenario of a child using the robot, and shows a state diagram explicitly showing the interaction of the robot.

Then, what the impact of the Study Buddy on children is and how it can be maximized is discussed. The impact on teachers is also discussed.

Finally the state of the art and conclusion end the wiki.

Adaptive learning software for mathematics https://cstwiki.wtb.tue.nl/wiki/PRE2019_1_Group3

The general focus of this project is to teach math, but harder mathematics than simple multiplication. It also strives to be adaptive, while our project uses a robot. Thus it is quite different to our project. The state of the art is very extensive but focusses mostly on artificial intelligence in education.

It does mention some existing online mathematics learning platforms, which could be useful for our project. It could also be useful to read the ‘question-type and implementation’ part to see a short description of the implementation of some questions.

How their program is build is described in the technical aspects. There, the layout, modules and technical details are described.

Robot that assist kindergarten teachers https://cstwiki.wtb.tue.nl/wiki/PRE2018_4_Group4

This project is about reducing the stress/workload of kindergarten teachers using robots.

The project stated 6 hypothesis about Emotion recognition, physical exercise, learning by quiz game, storytelling by robots, touching the robot and effectiveness of robots in education.

There also is an interview of some kindergarten teachers.

There is a description of the NAO robot, which shows and describes the parts and how it moves.

Then they wrote a small simulation about how the robot would function.

Teach children programming https://cstwiki.wtb.tue.nl/wiki/PRE2018_3_Group10

This project is about teaching primary school children programming using robots.

The project showed a questionnaire partly about what the appearance of the robot should be.

Then they described the design, components of the robot and some of the technical functionalities.

How they want to teach programming is then described, showing the game they want the children to play with a picture, some explanations and a storyboard.

Some possibly useful documents about robots in class are displayed in the state of the art section.

After that a description of the hardware and a picture of the chassis with electronics is presented. Its software, thus the code of setup and execution are also described.

In this project, an actual robot is designed and a prototype is made. A few pictures are displayed.