ROBOT - rescue, offer help, be a friend, open doors, take on Europe

ROBOT- rescue, offer help, be a friend, open doors, take on Europe Our project concentrated on robotic solutions of two real-world situations: 1. Help for European senior citizens or persons with handicap in daily-life situations 2. Help for victims of natural and environmental disasters occurring in Europe Students of four European partner schools located in the four corners of Europe (Latvia - north, Germany - west, Spain - south and Turkey - east) worked in teams to program and construct vehicles by means of Lego Mindstorm, which can drive autonomously while fulfilling special tasks. Students first developed modular units which can be used for different tasks, e.g. one vehicle unit follows a line, another unit is capable of transporting heavy loads over obstacles, another one can distinguish colours, circumvent or remove obstacles etc. During four transnational learning activities students competed in Robot tournaments in which they presented their modular units in a contest. The best unit won a small prize and formed the basis for further development. As the contests showed that the robotic units were all constructed in slightly different ways and had all their ups and downs which were not always compatible, teams created very individual solutions which succeeded differently in various fields. Nevertheless this modular approach ensured that a suitable vehicle for a specific task can be designed. It can also form the basis for succeeding (sub)projects and more modules for similar problems can be generated. The first task students decided on was: Shopping for elderly people should be facilitated. One problem-solving task therefore was:The vehicle should autonomously follow a predetermined way and self-reliantly avoid obstacles. In the second meeting the task was to help a person in a wheelchair to browse through a shop. So the robot had to be able to recognize, remove and dispose obstacles in a designated corner. The second main focus of our project was to provide help for a victim in a catastrophe. Here the first task was to provide victims with necessary provisions like medicine, blankets, food, etc. in a hard-to-reach and hazardous environment. So the robot had to be constructed to overcome hills and holes while transporting goods.The final task was then to rescue an injured victim from an almost inaccessible environment. Students had to design advanced robot vehicles which were capable of fulfilling these different tasks. They started with making themselves familiar with the Lego Mindstorm technology and throughout the first year they developed the first advanced robot which could assist disabled persons. In the second year students had to start with a different model because the assistance in catastrophes required different features of the robot. So in the third and fourth meetings they concentrated mostly on improving their vehicles´ skills to remove obstacles and transport loads. The teams designed, shaped and constructed an appropriate modular robotic unit each and presented it with a short justification of the reasons why they built it that way. These units were then tested in contests. Students explained their programming principles to their fellow students and decided on the best solution. The criteria for the best units were agreed on by all participants. The plan to first start with national teams and to form multinational teams later on was quickly changed. Instead the groups decided to cooperate internationally right from the start which worked very well. The level of difficulty increased with each task and enhanced the requirements of successful teamwork and project management. In each of the four learning activities the winning team got a certificate and was recognized by the other groups. The programming was documented and made available to the other contestants by being published on the project website and on etwinning. Photos documented and showed the successful models. Political reasons kept the Spanish team from sending a delegation to Turkey where only three partner schools met but the other meetings were attended by all four partners. Students used their smartphones and Whatsapp to communicate quickly when looking for common solutions while building and programming the robots in their respective clubs or classes. This led to an enhanced private contact which even made visits outside the project possible and friendships were established. Awareness of specific conditions in different European countries in daily-life situations as well as in emergencies caused by natural disasters while working together on common technological solutions increased students’ national identities on the one hand but mainly emphasised their awareness of parallel strategic thinking, their common feeling of European citizenship and their digital competence.