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International Conference on Robotics and Education RiE 2017

RiE 2017: Robotics in Education pp 180–192Cite as

Teaching Research Methodologies with a Robot in a CS Lab Course

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Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 630))

Abstract

We describe a computer science lab course that teaches a scientific research methodology. Our course is based on a recent research project and augments it with a motivating goal: We program a robot based on the Lego EV3 brick with plain English. Our students developed a multi-module solution; all modules were planned, implemented, and benchmarked following a research life cycle.

The results of our case study indicate that a lab course can familiarize students with academic research methodologies. Interviews with the participants, conducted half a year after the lab course, confirm our positive impressions: Our participants indeed internalized the research life cycle and all told us that they wanted to pursue research in their upcoming curriculum. Three of four stated that the possibility to monitor progress by running solutions on the robot was highly motivating.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System, see http://ec.europa.eu/.

  2. 2.

    See https://youtu.be/Z_vt1-imBUE for a short demonstration.

  3. 3.

    Information about programming the EV3 with Java on Lejos can be found, e.g., in reference [2].

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Program Structures and Data Organization, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Mathias Landhäußer, Sebastian Weigelt & Martin Blersch

Authors
  1. Mathias Landhäußer
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  2. Sebastian Weigelt
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  3. Martin Blersch
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sebastian Weigelt .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Practical Robotics Institute Austria (PRIA), Vienna, Austria

    Wilfried Lepuschitz

  2. Practical Robotics Institute Austria (PRIA), Vienna, Austria

    Munir Merdan

  3. Practical Robotics Institute Austria (PRIA), Vienna, Austria

    Gottfried Koppensteiner

  4. Slovak University of Technology (STU), Bratislava, Slovakia

    Richard Balogh

  5. Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

    David Obdržálek

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© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG

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Landhäußer, M., Weigelt, S., Blersch, M. (2018). Teaching Research Methodologies with a Robot in a CS Lab Course. In: Lepuschitz, W., Merdan, M., Koppensteiner, G., Balogh, R., Obdržálek, D. (eds) Robotics in Education. RiE 2017. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 630. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62875-2_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62875-2_16

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-62874-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-62875-2

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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