An Internet-based Collaborative Teleoperation System for the Mars Lab and Distance STEM Education

The Mars Yard at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum is one of the largest indoor simulated Martian landscape of its kind. It is designed and constructed as a research environment for space robotics and astrobiology researchers as well as university and high school students. A number of robotic platforms have been developed by the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR) to operate on the Mars Yard. The Mars Yard is equipped with a set of web-connected cameras providing high level of situation awareness for the teleoperation users. Next to the Mars Yard is a Mars Lab, equipped with control computers, video streaming systems all connected to high speed National Broadband Network (NBN). This connectivity provides a unique opportunity for researchers to perform robotics mission on the Mars Yard via web based teleoperation interface. Recently a new educational project has been initiated to allow NBN connected high schools around the country. They are now able to connect to the Mars Lab and perform missions using web based teleoperation framework. This paper presents the robotics platforms on the Mars Yard and the internet-based collaborative teleoperation system architecture of the Mars Lab. Furthermore, paper also explore how we utilise scenario-based learning as a teaching strategy to promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) to encourage a higher order creative thinking and deep learning.