Mixed-Reality Robotics – A Coherent Teaching Framework

Robotics evolved as a central issue in teaching for scientific and engineering disciplines. Robotics inherently encompasses a spectrum of sciences and technologies and qualification levels. However, most current teaching approaches, related to robotics, concentrate on individual aspects or small student groups. In this paper we present the mixed-reality robotics educational approach. With our mixed-reality robotics teaching system we reached a true interdisciplinary setup, addressing different qualification levels. The system allows for aspects like peer education, learning-by-teaching, problem-based learning and competition-based (self-) assessment. It consists of the mixed-reality robotics platform and a teaching concept. The overall approach has been used in teaching robotics at secondary school, undergraduate and graduate level. Student and instructor feedback is very positive. Keywords—Robotics education, Mixed-Reality, problem-based learning, learning-by-teaching, robotic platform, European qualification framework, robotic programming tools, artificial intelligence, swarm robotics