In today’s technology-driven world, it’s important now more than ever to prepare students for the future. Teaching robotics to young students throughout their schooling can increase their ability to be creative and innovative thinkers and more productive members of society. Many governments have already recognised the importance of robotics in the classroom and have begun to create programmes and laws that would incorporate it into their public education system. By teaching our students the basics of robotics, we can open a whole new world to them and exciting opportunities that they wouldn’t have access to otherwise.
Robotics as a branch of engineering involves the design, construction and operation of robots. Robots have been a part of our lives for a long time now, working on industry floors and assembly lines. Of late, humanoid robots have emerged to captivate the imagination and excite the interest of humans across the world. Ongoing research and development in the field of robotics and advancements made in the field of artificial intelligence present an exciting future. Robotics and robots are poised to become more sophisticated and soon an integral part of our daily lives.
It is a high technology driven world that we live in and things, as we know, keep on changing. It is imperative that we prepare our students for the future and teaching robotics to young students can help in instilling a scientific temperament. Subjects such as mathematics and science when taught through robotics can be more engaging as well as effective. Such an enquiry based handson learning approach can also increase a student’s ability to be creative and foster innovative thinking making them a more productive member of society.
The job market at present is hugely dominated by ones in the field of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). This trend will in all probability get stronger in the future, with most of the available jobs requiring STEM knowledge. Robotics empowers students to visually comprehend the concepts of STEM and cultivates problem-solving and higher-order thinking capabilities in students. By introducing robotics early on in the school educational curriculum, students can build interest in this field and nurture their talents.
Building a robot involves inference drawing, model construction, testing and controlling; a robot calls for the ability to give precise inputs. When done in a team, robotics calls for collaboration and communication for the project to work. This teaches students valuable life skills in teamwork, communication and even community participation. The rationale for inclusion of robotics in education is thus a well-founded one and stands on solid ground.
What then is standing in the way of large-scale introduction of robotics in schools? Lack of awareness is probably the biggest barrier to the inclusion of robotics in schools. Schools as a centre of learning have in a comical paradox been slow in adopting changes. From a teacher-led instruction system to the focus on theoretical learning, schools have not changed much over the years. But things are picking up now and schools have been coopting technology on an increasingly large scale.
Affordability concerns may also have been a barrier to the inclusion of robotics in the educational curriculum. In the present context, however, this concern might not be true anymore as the cost of acquiring parts have fallen and with creativity, robotics can be done cheaply. Stories of young enterprising students who have displayed creative ingenuity in assembling their own robots often from scraps and throwaways have cropped up with increasing regularity. Such stories besides being hugely motivational demonstrate the appeal of robotics and that with creativity, it can be easily be taught and learned.
The MBD Group has unveiled Robotics for School Education which is in line with STEM education, at the recently concluded World Book Fair 2018. It is backed by the Group’s outstanding expertise and over six decades of experience in the education sector. With Robotics for School Education, kids will be able to experiment with their subjects in a creative manner. The training modules, workshops and kits for Robotics are designed in such a way that they encourage students to brainstorm and come up with their own solutions. These are basically designed for students from Grade 6 to Grade 12 and would be available in schools as an additional subject, which students can opt for. The 1st course would be for six months, with 24 classes in total (four classes in a month) and the 2nd course will be of one-year duration.
Perhaps the most compelling reason for robotics in the curriculum is that it introduces students to knowledge, concepts, and skills that are needed for understanding the intelligent, information-based technology of the future: technology that is highly interactive, multi-modal, adaptive and autonomous. Technology is no longer the private domain of a self-selected group of “nerds,” and sophisticated technological systems are no longer reserved for academic research labs or the military or government.
You and your students are likely to have computers sitting on your desks that far exceed the capacity of the most sophisticated systems in the world just a generation ago. It is hardly controversial to predict that technology systems will be more and more ubiquitous -- not just in school and work settings, but in homes and recreational lives as well, for people from all walks of life. We can also predict that technology will be increasingly complex and intelligent. Both the capacity of hardware and the capabilities of software expand at a fierce pace. Artificial intelligence is no longer the stuff of science fiction, but an everyday reality.