SBIR Phase II: Making and programming robots in early childhood education

This SBIR Phase II project focuses on robot systems designed for early childhood education (preK-2). There is increasing research and applications for educational robotics, but little attention are focused on the foundational years. The early childhood segment is underserved because there are few available platforms for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education that are developmentally appropriate for children 4-7 years old. However, research shows that from an economic and a developmental standpoint, educational programs that begin in early childhood result in lower costs and more durable effects than those that begin later on. This project focuses on developmentally appropriate robot kits for young children, and the curriculum support, teacher resources and automated assessment tools to make this innovation useful for early childhood education in a broadly disseminated, sustainable and scalable way. Recent re-envisioning of early childhood programs by the Federal government has resulted in calls to develop innovative technologies and approaches for teaching STEM. Given the size of the industry devoted to early childhood education, the potential commercial impact is significant, opening new markets and job opportunities. This innovation also has the potential to have significant positive impact on the US economy by preparing children with economically important skills. The innovation underlying this project is the design of a robot system that engages 4 to 7 year old children in learning programming concepts through the use of a developmentally appropriate programming language. In order to be developmentally appropriate for this age range, the programming language is physical, not typed, with no screens or keyboards of any kind required. The resulting educational platform also enables children to develop engineering design process skills by building physical objects that can respond to different inputs through the use of sensors. This project is organized around five technical objectives: a developmentally appropriate robot kit for young children to learn programming and engineering; robot modules for curriculum integration with other areas such as math, science, literacy and the arts; support systems for early childhood teachers through a web portal with resources for both formal and informal education and professional development strategies; and an automated learning assessment system that collects data characterizing student learning directly from the robot, analyzes it through innovative mechanisms and displays it using visualization tools according to the different needs of parents, educators and school leadership to understand learning outcomes; and cost reduction of the robot system for broadening adoption.