"Discover Robotics"

This curriculum outlines a hands-on workshop on learning mobile robotics for middle and high school students. Robotics is explored through group discussions, instructor guided lessons, and experimentation which presents engineering as a broad domain and attempts to bridge classroom lessons to real world applications.

The course uses the Arduino-based robot MiniQ 2WD (from DFRobot) which is an affordable and accessible platform for schools. MATLAB and Simulink are utilized as an intuitive learning environment and as means to implement code on the robots. Videos are provided for students to help demonstrate concepts as well as videos for instructors to learn about the Simulink models before carrying out each lesson. The curriculum maps to skills found in the Common Core Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards.

Course Length: 15 hours
Recommended Ages: 10+
No prior programing knowledge is required.

Learning Outcomes

• Learn the fundamentals and applications of robotics
• Learn to program the MiniQ robot and work with its sensors autonomously
• Understand how to code in MATLAB and Simulink
• Use Stateflow charts to create logical sequences for the robot to follow