Abstract
RoboCamp provides an innovative experience in the area of robotics for educators. This fun, hands-on experience strengthens the teachers’ knowledge and skills in science, mathematics, engineering, and telecommunications and prepares them to effectively transfer the experience to students in the classroom.
RoboCamp is supported with a grant from the Tennessee State Department of Education and is a collaborative effort involving the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), area school systems, industry supporting robotics, and the Universities of Tennessee and Memphis.
RoboCamp is held on-site at the ORNL and gives the teachers firsthand look at research in action. The teachers work side-by-side with scientists and engineers on robotics-related topics. These topics include the following:
• history and future of robotics;
• science, mathematics, and engineering as they relate to robotics;
• national standards and state and local curriculum frameworks;
• classroom implementation of robotics education utilizing national standards;
• current thinking on pedagogy and assessment; and
• fun, innovative ways to answer the age-old question, “But how do we use it in real life!?!”
RoboCamp participants tour a variety of sites that use robots. These tours include production plants, research facilities, and public schools involved in robotics education. Participants build several kinds of robots based on different operating principles, use computers and the Internet for robotics-related research, and work on a design problem using robotic solutions. Finally, participants work in teams to develop plans to transfer the experience to their schools.
Approximately twenty teachers are selected for participation in RoboCamp. Participants apply, and are selected, as members of a school team. A team is comprised of 3–5 members and may include teachers of the same grade or educators teaching different grades but within a school; teams are encouraged to include administrators and guidance counselors. Participants are paid a stipend and expenses. Teams are solicited statewide.
