Robots are increasingly being used in a wide range of sectors, for example industry, care, and education. To further support this development, flexible and accessible interfaces appear to be a promising avenue allowin...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9781665442152;9781665442145
Robots are increasingly being used in a wide range of sectors, for example industry, care, and education. To further support this development, flexible and accessible interfaces appear to be a promising avenue allowing users without extensive programming experience to design robot-based applications. While research prototypes of such interfaces already exist, they are limited to specific use cases or application domains. However, approaches to robot programming for end-users that are applicable across different domains would bring significant benefits as robots in different application domains often perform similar tasks. Addressing this gap in existing research, we present a prototype of the ROBxTASK platform for cross-domain robot programming by end-users. The centerpiece of the platform is a visual programming environment (VPE) based on Google Blockly that consists of an extensible set of blocks allowing end-users to define and exchange complex sequences involving robot-based tasks for different application domains. The development of the platform is embedded into an extensive human-centered design process including initial stakeholder workshops and a series of user studies. Upcoming evaluations of revised versions of the platform and its VPE will involve the implementation of use cases by end-users in real-world scenarios.
While the benefits of using visual programming environments at the level of K-12 education have been well-studied, little is known about the plausibility of using visualprogramming in higher education settings. This ...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9781665436878
While the benefits of using visual programming environments at the level of K-12 education have been well-studied, little is known about the plausibility of using visualprogramming in higher education settings. This empirical study compares the merits and demerits of using textual programmingenvironments (e.g., Android Studio) and visual programming environments (e.g., MIT App Inventor) in an Android app development course targeting first year university students in a faculty of engineering. The analysis is based on instructors' reflection as well as feedback from students. Our findings show that a visual programming environment was useful even for university students. It allowed beginners to focus on the logic of apps without facing the barrier of too many technical details. They could quickly develop functional apps with complex features. On the other hand, textual programming takes an upper hand when it comes to providing an authentic learning experience as well as supporting efficient source code management in collaborative development. We discuss the implications of the findings within the framework of the distributed cognition theory and point out directions for future research.
We explore how generative conversational AI can assist students' learning, creative, and sensemaking process in a visual programming environment where users can create comics from code. The process of visualizing ...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9781450391450
We explore how generative conversational AI can assist students' learning, creative, and sensemaking process in a visual programming environment where users can create comics from code. The process of visualizing code in terms of comics involves mapping programming language (code) to natural language (story) and then to visual language (of comics). While this process requires users to brainstorm code examples, metaphors, and story ideas, the recent development in generative models introduces an exciting opportunity for learners to harness their creative superpower and researchers to advance our understanding of how generative conversational AI can augment our intelligence in creative learning contexts. We provide an overview of our system and discuss interaction scenarios to demonstrate ways we can partner with generative conversational AI in the context of learning computer programming.
As the risk of huge earthquakes and tsunamis increases, the importance of promotingmeasures centered on community evacuation is growing. While implementing tsunami evacuation, tsunami evacuation simulations are consid...
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As the risk of huge earthquakes and tsunamis increases, the importance of promotingmeasures centered on community evacuation is growing. While implementing tsunami evacuation, tsunami evacuation simulations are considered effective;however, owing to the challenges in constructing a simulation environment, communities without continued involvement from experts are experiencing a lack of progress in utilizing simulations. Therefore, this study proposes a simple method that enables residents to create community-scale tsunami evacuation simulations to support the consideration and implementation of feasible tsunami evacuation plans. Specifically, this study presents a method in which all the steps required to build a tsunami evacuation simulation, such as creating an evacuation space model, creating an evacuee model, and integrating the results of a tsunami inundation simulation, can be executed in Scratch 3.0, a visual programming environment. The tsunami evacuation simulation prototype demonstrated that the evacuee model adhered to the constructed road network and reached its destination in accordance with the specified evacuation parameters. In the simulation outputs, in the cases of successful evacuation, the IDs and arrival times of successfully evacuated individuals were recorded. In instances of unsuccessful evacuation, the locations and times at which individuals were engulfed by the tsunami were recorded as failures. Through this method, it is expected that local communities can better understand the potential risks and voluntarily implement feasible measures for tsunami evacuation that reflect local needs.
Quadruped robots offer a mechanism with a highly dynamical equation of motion and a complex control system not only to maintain a gait motion but also to control individual torque values at different coordinates. A pr...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9780791885628
Quadruped robots offer a mechanism with a highly dynamical equation of motion and a complex control system not only to maintain a gait motion but also to control individual torque values at different coordinates. A previously developed open-source quadruped platform was used, slightly modified in mechanical design, and then implemented visual tools that can serve different levels of curriculums and research. Additive manufacturing reduced cost of sensors and actuators enabled rapid prototyping of these complex robots. As a result, it can be used for wide variety of purposes from graduate research to K-12 education. Additionally, it is important for students to be exposed to more complex dynamical systems at an earlier stage of their education. A visual coding suitable for any researcher or student with limited programming skills was developed so they can rapidly start working with the system. While this robot is used in higher education, it also offers a full-scale platform to study control, path and motion planning algorithms with an access to the open-source code. The final product, named Mini-HART, uses two microcontroller units, MCUs, a Raspberry Pi for higher education and an Arduino Mega for the selected Ardublock visualprogramming.
The aim of this research was to use intelligent decision support systems to obtain student-centred preferences for learning applications to promote critical thinking in first year programming students. This study focu...
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The aim of this research was to use intelligent decision support systems to obtain student-centred preferences for learning applications to promote critical thinking in first year programming students. This study focuses on the visual programming environment and critical thinking as the gateway skill for student success in understanding programming. Twenty-five critical thinking criteria were synthesized from the literature. As a quantitative study, 217 randomly selected students from an approximate target population of 500 programming students to rate four learning Apps, namely, Scratch, Alice, Blockly and MIT App Inventor, against critical thinking criteria to establish the App that best promotes critical thinking among first year programming students. There were 175 responses received from the 217 randomly chosen programming students who willingly contributed to the study. Consequently, the distinctiveness of this paper lies in its use of the Fuzzy TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Situation) multi-criteria decision-making algorithm to rank criteria for critical thinking, calculate their weights on the basis of informed opinion and hence scientifically deduce the best rated App among the available alternatives that promote critical thinking among first year programming students. The results showed that Scratch promoted critical thinking skills the best in first year programming students whilst Blockly promoted critical thinking skills the least. As a contribution to the study, policy-makers and academic staff can be potentially supported to make informed decisions about the types of learning Apps to consider for students when confronted with multiple selection criteria.
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