Engage Community
In order to engage with the community, the Enginyte team planned to use our experience with design and prototyping to get local students excited about engineering. One aspect of the design process that is underemphasized in education and corporate systems is the importance of iterative design and problem-solving. The issue with underemphasizing iterative problem-solving and overemphasizing tests and evaluations is that a disconnect between subjects and applications arises. Students are less likely to use subjects, like math, on their own when specific subjects are presented to them in a lecture format as opposed to allowing students to learn through problem-solving (Hiebert 1996). Students, in lower and higher education, are not being taught the full rigor of a truly iterative process, and the classic lecture-driven lessons or singular activity approach to teaching a process like design are proven to be ineffective (Viudes-Carbonell, 2021) Such impact can be seen in the following Ted Talk. As engineers working through an iterative design process, we acknowledge there is an opportunity to present a similar demonstration with a local school. While we initially intended this demonstration to look a lot like the “Marshmello Test” as seen in the video below, we actually included a relevant redesign to this demonstration that we believed influenced an excitement for STEM among students.
Ignite a Passion for STEM
Studies have shown excitement about science and technology has increased students’ motivation in that field, and even increased desired time, that was not required, spend working on STEM projects (Mauch, 2001). This is further exemplified in the value of educational-based mobile games, where students can figure out topics on their own just by playing games (Viudes-Carbonell, 2021).
Not only is a combat robot a unique, challenging project- it is an exciting one. A combat robot can impact and attract a variety of stakeholders. For example, the entertainment provided by a combat robot could be used as inspiration for an undecided student at Lafayette or help to recruit students, in general, to be inspired by engineering and inspired to create something that they love and enjoy. This is the type of interest that sparks interest in a robotics club, or future projects and can have a lasting effect on our school and community. Furthermore, future students can improve upon existing technology and concepts, as building combat robots is a hobby that has a high barrier to entry.
Impact and Stakeholders
We conducted an outreach event with a local middle school in the Easton, Pennsylvania area. We invited a group of interested middle school students to visit Acopian Engineering Center (AEC), and learn a little bit about engineering. More than double our anticipated number of students arrived, and we showed them some battle bot videos, gave them a tour of AEC, and introduced them to some really cool senior design and thesis projects. In addition to these activities, we conducted a lesson in which we taught them how to design a keychain, and when they returned a couple of weeks later, their custom keychains were 3D printed for them!
The feedback given to us by chaperones and teachers of the middle schoolers leads us to believe that this opportunity to learn about an iterative design process and about the value of problem-solving increased students’ likelihood to naturally connect their studies with real-world applications. Extending the classroom into a student’s regular life can improve their ability to see problems as opportunities and the iterative process specifically can foster a mentality where problems become more enjoyable (Hiebert, 1996).
Broader Impacts
Our primary stakeholder was the Department of Engineering at Lafayette College. Our project had to meet certain criteria to be considered a senior design capstone, and all of our support was from them. We worked with our instructor as a liaison to the department to ensure that we were meeting all of the necessary requirements. These included but were not limited to prototyping, testing, and documentation. We worked with the department to ensure the safety of our team members and the spending associated with such a project. We asked individual professors for help with different aspects of our robot to ensure that we used the wealth of knowledge our department had to offer.
Our next stakeholder on this project was the Norwalk Havoc Robot League. They set forth the rules that our robot had to abide by in order to be a competition-ready robot. These rules were stringently observed in our design process to ensure that our robot would be able to compete. Furthermore, the NHRL has hard competition deadlines and dates, so our design and build schedules were constructed around the NHRL’s schedule.
With our project, we aimed to reignite a passion for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics within the members of our group and the broader community at Lafayette College. While our robot was not the most successful in competition, faculty and students in the department were all engaged with our project, as many watched the competition livestream. Even if just for an hour, many were reminded of the joy that STEM can bring to people, as our robot’s competition was undoubtedly entertaining.
Enginyte’s goal was to “Engage the community and ignite a passion for STEM,” and while we assuredly did that on the day of our competition, we were looking to reach beyond Lafayette’s community. In March, we invited a group of interested middle school students to visit Acopian and learn a little bit about engineering. More than double our anticipated number of students arrived. We showed them some battle bot videos, gave them a tour of Acopian, and introduced them to some engineering projects. We conducted a lesson in which we taught them how to design a keychain, and when they returned a couple of weeks later, we had their custom keychains 3D printed for them. We engaged those kids in a project, and let them watch it come full circle, hopefully encouraging them to further explore the world of STEM.
Sources:
[1] Mullins, Barry, and Brian Peterson. “Battlebots and the Electrical Engineering Education.” ASEE PEER Document Repository, 10 Mar. 2015, https://peer.asee.org/battlebots-and-the-electrical-engineering-education.
[2] “Hub: [ASME ASME 2009 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition – Lake Buena Vista, Florida, USA (November 13–19, 2009)] Volume 7: Engineering Education and Professional Development – Experience of Designing and Manufacturing a BattleBot to Compete: 10.1115/IMECE2009-10491.” Sci, https://sci-hubtw.hkvisa.net/10.1115/imece2009-10491.
[3] Ryan South, Carson Burden. “2018 UC BattleBot Team 60 lb Competition.” University of Cincinnati College of Engineering and Applied Sciences Mechanical Engineering Technology, Apr. 2018, https://scholar.archive.org/work/bplm4x3exngdbcm2uagtfoiawq/access/wayback/https://scholar.uc.edu/downloads/rb68xc292
[4] Shaun Egan. “2011 UC CEAS BATTLEBOT-CATASTROPHE PRIMARY WEAPON.” University of Cincinnati College of Engineering and Applied Sciences Mechanical Engineering Technology, May. 2011, https://drc.uc.edu/bitstream/handle/2374.UC/689393/MET2011_Egan_Shaun.pdf?sequence=1
[5] Viudes-Carbonell, S. J., Gallego-Durán, F. J., Llorens-Largo, F., & Molina-Carmona, R. (2021). Towards an Iterative Design for Serious Games. Sustainability, 13(6), 3290. doi:10.3390/su13063290
[6] Hiebert, J., Carpenter, T. P., Fennema, E., Fuson, K., Human, P., Murray, H., … Wearne, D. (1996). Problem Solving as a Basis for Reform in Curriculum and Instruction: The Case of Mathematics. Educational Researcher, 25(4), 12–21. doi:10.3102/0013189×025004012