SBIR Phase I: A robotics-based gaming system for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education

This SBIR Phase I project proposes to design a robotics-based gaming system for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education that is attractive to girls. The hypothesis is that physical game-based learning from play patterns that revolve around a robot's storyline, with interactions and negotiation in the physical world, can attract and retain girls' interest in STEM. The system contains four technical innovations: (1) interlocking, story-telling game tiles, (2) mobile robot pets with a novel tile-tracking system, (3) interactive games that engage girls in the virtual and the physical world, and (4) downloadable game content from the Cloud. The system supports a diverse set of play patterns, such as virtual programming, physical programming, story mode, dynamic maze construction, and mat programming. The link between the game tiles, the robot Pets, and the Pet Planet Cloud support a nearly limitless diversity of activities and challenges. The mobile device and cloud game server provide an interface for collecting data such as level completion, success rates, and time on task, which provides an opportunity to evaluate interest and learning. We will use this infrastructure to identify the play patterns that are more successful with girls, and in the long term to evaluate the success of the game at developing STEM skills. The broader/commercial impact stems from the nearly limitless expandability of our modular design. The goal is to reach millions of girls and boys who will be having too much fun playing with robot pets and game tiles to notice that they are learning logical reasoning, procedural thinking, spatial reasoning and probabilistic reasoning. While the project is initially focusing on girls, the system extends to boys and can also be used to encourage the participation of underrepresented minorities in STEM. The project plans to make donations to schools and non-profit organizations to reach underserved students. The firms data collection and evaluation will help us understand how to modify game content to encourage STEM education for underserved communities. The projects ultimate goal is to increase the general public's engagement with science and technology, which is possible with technical games and toys that can be accessible at a relatively low cost. The project team consists of a partnership between academia, non-profit organizations, schools and industry; as a mutually beneficial collaboration.