On-Line STEAM Outreach with Remote Robot Access

Hands-on programming of humanoid robots can be effectively utilized to motivate interest in science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics for K-12 students. Constrained by pandemic restrictions, our academic and industry team developed and deployed an Internet-accessible capability for K-12 students to remotely program Misty II robots using the Blockly language. Utilizing configurations with both stationary and mobile robots, the students were able to create and run programs on the robots and watch the resulting behaviors via a live video stream. This remote mechanism provides both tracking of accesses and usage of specific programming features as well as protection from accidental or purposeful destructive actions. Initial use of this capability with five groups and a total of 170 3rd grade through high school students demonstrated that the approach can effectively motivate student interest in both robotics and programming. This remote robot access mechanism demonstrates how cost effective access to advanced robots can be provided at a potentially large scale.