Little Robots that Could: How Collaboration in Robotics Labs Leads to Student Learning and Tangible Results

This paper presents a set of learning stories of student work on robotics projects. The stories illustrate key components of student learning, including demonstrations of: (1) an “emergent curriculum” of central ideas in robotics that are embedded in the materials that students work with and the projects they undertake; (2) self-directed learning and student autonomy in which students take true ownership of their projects and carry them far beyond any deliberate specification that faculty may provide (a key ingredient of graduate level work); (3) fluid teamwork, where students make significant contributions to each other’s projects without being formal members of those teams; (4) mentorship, in which the faculty participant can work alongside students, guiding their process, modeling problem solving, as well as introducing specific skills and ideas; and (5) effective design, where the robot itself, as a physical object in a shared space, serves as an object for social interaction, collaboration and joint problem-solving. As a whole, the paper presents an exemplar of scholarship in which fine-grained details of student work are situated in their larger educational context to draw out their meaning.