Adapting Soft Robotics Outreach to Teacher-Delivered Curriculum in the Virtual Classroom (Work in Progress)

Sapna Shah; Alex Beaudette; David R. Bergandine; Savindi N. Devmal; Conor Walsh; Holly M. Golecki

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Conference: 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Location: Virtual Conference
Publication Date: July 26, 2021
Start Date: July 26, 2021
End Date: July 19, 2022
Conference Session: Pre-College Engineering Education Division Poster Session
Tagged Division: Pre-College Engineering Education
Page Count: 10
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--36651
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/36651
Download Count: 467

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Chemistry Teacher University Laboratory High School 1984 - 2021

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Savindi N. Devmal University of Illinois Laboratory High School

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Savindi Devmal is a student at the University Laboratory High School in Urbana, IL. Savindi's interests include bioengineering and soft robotics, and she is the recipient of the Barbara Lazarus award to develop bioprinters for soft robotics applications. Savindi was also a participant in the Soft Robotics Toolkit pilot in October 2020.

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Conor Walsh P.E. Harvard University

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Conor is Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and a Core Faculty Member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard. He is the founder of the Harvard Biodesign Lab, which brings together researchers from the engineering, industrial design, medical and business communities to develop smart medical devices and translate them to industrial partners in collaboration with the Wyss Institute's Advanced Technology Team. Conor's research projects focus on wearable robotics to assist the disabled and able-bodied, as well as on tools for minimally invasive diagnosis and treatment of disease. His educational interest is in the area of medical device innovation where he mentors student design teams on projects with clinicians in Boston and in emerging regions such as India. Conor received his B.A.I and B.A. degrees in Mechanical and Manufacturing engineering from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, in 2003 and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006 and 2010. Conor is Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He is also the founder of the Harvard Biodesign Lab, which brings together researchers from the engineering, industrial design, medical and business communities to develop smart medical devices and translate them to industrial partners in collaboration with the Wyss Institute's Advanced Technology Team. Conor received his B.A.I and B.A. degrees in Mechanical and Manufacturing engineering from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, in 2003 and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006 and 2010. He has been the recipient of over a dozen invention, entrepreneurship, and student mentoring awards including the MIT $100K business plan competition, Whitaker Health Sciences Fund Fellowship, and the MIT Graduate Student Mentor of the Year.

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Holly M. Golecki University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign

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Dr. Holly Golecki (she/her) is a Teaching Assistant Professor in Bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an Associate in the John A Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. She holds an appointment at the Carle-Illinois College of Medicine in the Department of Biomedical and Translational Sciences. She is also a core faculty member at the Institute for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access in the College of Engineering. Holly studies biomaterials and soft robotics and their applications in the university classroom, in undergraduate research and in engaging K12 students in STEM. Holly received her BS in Materials Science and Engineering from Drexel University and her PhD in Engineering Sciences from Harvard University.

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Abstract

Participation in educational robotics, tinkering, and making are common precursors to enrollment in engineering majors. In recent years, the field of soft robotics has enabled human-centered applications of robotics. By broadening the applications of robotics, soft robotics may be a platform to engage a diversity of students in K12 robotics and later, engineering majors. Until now, most K12 soft robotics activities were presented as practitioner-delivered outreach. This paper details development and a pilot of a soft robotics program that includes a design thinking curriculum and a physical toolkit that can be completed at home by middle and high school students. To enable teachers to confidently deliver the emerging curriculum, we describe the development and delivery of teacher professional development to facilitate adoption of soft robotics topics into middle and high school classrooms. We discuss the curriculum development process and reflections on the experience of the classroom teacher delivering the curriculum in the remote environment. Empowering teachers to bring new lessons into classrooms will expose more K12 students to STEM topics, inspiring students' interest in STEM majors. This pilot will inform future work in assessing teacher confidence in teaching robotics and engineering design as well as the impacts of teacher-delivered soft robotics curricula on students.

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Shah, S., & Beaudette, A., & Bergandine, D. R., & Devmal , S. N., & Walsh, C., & Golecki, H. M. (2021, July), Adapting Soft Robotics Outreach to Teacher-Delivered Curriculum in the Virtual Classroom (Work in Progress) Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--36651