Robotics and entrepreneurship for a better society: opening doors to mobility

Abstract

This article reports the development of an educational robotics project at the Basic School (2nd and 3rd cycles) André Soares in Braga, with students from 6th grade, integrated in an international cooperative partnership for innovation and good practices of the European Erasmus+ programme. This project was initially designed to address the need to share innovative teaching practices through the development of new methodologies and multidisciplinary approach in teachinglearning processes in the 2nd and 3rd cycles of basic education combined with the stimulation of entrepreneurial skills and co-creation of knowledge. From the beginning, the project had the collaboration and support of the Hands-on Science Network Association, having given rise to the submission of an application to the 13th edition of the contest “Projeto Ciência na Escola” of the Ilídio Pinho Foundation on the topic “Science and Technology at the service of a better world”. This application has been selected for the 2nd phase of the competition and obtained financial support for the development of activities which gave an added dimension to the project, attracting and further motivating students for learning science and the choice of technology areas. Students were challenged to identify a situation/problem and find a possible solution/answer in the context of educational robotics. Thus, there was the study of the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT programming environment for programming routines or scripts and simultaneously the work methodology hands-on was implemented using participative methodological approaches, enhancing the development of key skills and entrepreneur spirit. At first, students’ creativity was stimulated through the ideas generation process called SCAMPER, channelling it to solve situations/problem where the students' task was to unlock a situation and optimize it. From a simple stick and a simulation of a path for blind people, ideas were collected to innovate this object, in order to promote a more efficient and fairer mobility. With the collection/gathering of ideas/suggestions, a guiding principle for our project was developed giving an intended metacognitive knowledge. Starting with the acquisition of this knowledge, students focus on building and programming robots LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT, developing the prototype of a smart and innovative cane for the blind people. This is an interactive process that combines the concrete and the abstract in solving a problem involving steps such as: design, implementation, construction, automation and control mechanism. In all of these steps the construction of knowledge took place, arising from different scientific fields (science, mathematics, physics, technology), as well as the acquisition of transversal skills. The work focused mainly on the dynamics of the process rather than the products or results. Many citizenship skills were developed when creating a tool to minimize the difficulties and obstacles faced by blind people, enabling the improvement of their quality of life. It was observed, from certain experimental activities, that one can transfer new skills and knowledge acquired at school to everyday life.