Building K-12 Students’ Robotics Skills through Collaborative Hands-on Learning

Robotics and programming have become increasingly accessible through kits designed for hands-on learning, especially for K-12 students, to engage them in these areas. They allow students to delve into the fields of robotics and programming through structured lessons, interactive and collaborative learning experiences, and hands-on capstone projects. Students are able to work in small groups to achieve their final goals. This paper presents a collaborative and hands-on module for K-12 students to explore the fundamentals of robots and program them using a coordinating application. With the designed module, students will be introduced to coding concepts, sensor integration, and problem-solving techniques. Students will have an experience that supports creativity, teamwork, and critical thinking. The module will conclude with a capstone project that has students program a Mini Tank Robot to autonomously follow a black line or use its sensors to detect and move around objects in a given field. Preliminary implementation results of the developed module as well as our future work are discussed.