The Impact of the Robot Roadshow Program to Increase Interest of Technical Disciplines in Rural and Under Served Schools

The Robot Roadshow Program is designed to interest school children in technical disciplines, specifically targeting math and science. It focuses on schools categorized as rural or underserved which often fall short in providing access to technical resources to further interest in these areas. We have developed a program utilizing robots as the vehicle to excite children about science. The Robot Roadshow Program uses a three-step process to accomplish this goal. The initial step is to send pre-visit workbooks tailored for a specific age group, which help to develop an appropriate set of skills and knowledge necessary to get the most from the program upon visitation day. During the visits, robots are used in interactive experiments to reinforce principles of science in a manner appealing to students. The final step is a follow-up session with the faculty to evaluate overall impact. We then determine what improvements need to be made to maximize impact. A year ago, we presented the initial proposal and pilot program at the 37 th ASEE Midwest Section Meeting at the University of Oklahoma. This year, we present the results, progress and further development of our program. More than 1000 school children from rural and under served schools, pre-Kindergarten through high school, have participated in the program. The program has also been delivered, in a pilot format, at a Headstart school and we are currently evaluating how we can use the same techniques with special needs children such as those with Asperger’s Syndrome or autism. We have found that the robots are universally captivating for all school age children, but really peak the scientific interest in the K-6 range. Given this is a long range program, to completely measure the overall program impact we intend to follow the participants over a number of years. To reinforce the experience, we are currently adding several new techniques and methods to the program to include links with other robotics programs that participate in the K-12 range.