Robotics as a tool for immersive, hands-on freshmen engineering instruction

Hands-on experience plays a key role in undergraduate engineering education. It is a recognized tool for recruitment and retention, as well as for encouraging participation in class and in research outside of the classroom. However, early undergraduate engineering education, especially during the freshman year, is often focused on foundational theory, and delivered through lecture format, rather than hands-on projects. We have developed and taught a semesterlong class at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering (VSoE) that uses robotics as a pedagogical tool for engaging students in engineering, and illustrating general engineering principles and techniques in a hands-on manner. The model for the new course is to combine lectures on principles and applications of engineering from professors from a variety of VSoE departments with lab experience, wherein students work with robots in order to directly apply those principles and scratch the surface of some applications. Our goal is to create a curriculum where, with little to no prior experience with either programming or robotics, freshmen interested in engineering can explore both the breadth of engineering, and glimpse the depth of a single domain through engaging hands-on projects. Unlike most other robotics courses, especially introductory ones that use simple robot platforms such as LEGO robots, ours features highly sophisticated mobile and humanoid robots, allowing the students to develop engaging and sophisticated-appearing behavior. The semester culminated in a public exhibition of team projects at a local science museum. We will use the experiences of the students and instructors of this new course to study the impact of hands-on engineering, team-work, and open challenges on encouraging retention in engineering beyond the first year, for recruitment and retention of traditionally under-represented student groups.