Using Robotics to Generate Collaborative Learning, through the CDIO Initiative

Robotic is one of the areas that most strikes the attention of high school students and more especially those who wish to enter the program of Electronic Engineering. Some reasons for this interest are due to the visualization of the use of technology through robots and possibility to control and manipulate them. Some first year students of the Electronic Engineering Program at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, in Bogota, Colombia, have had experience in robotics during their school life, wanted to continue this process in the university. That was the reason to form an interest group (hotbed of research and student group), initially coordinated by two professors from the Department of Electronic, who were very receptive and attuned to the students' requests, especially because this interest group would allow the exploration and application of different learning strategies and fostering essential skills (21st century skills). This group named JAVEX, started work in the first half of 2015 with six students and currently has more than 40 students from different years (from first year to fifth year) participating actively and with three full-time professors and one partial time professor. From the beginning, it found the potential of developing the projects and the assembly of the robots through the CDIO initiative, implemented at Electronic Engineering Program. Conceive is given by the requirements and limitations defined by the challenges request of competition. Design is done by students through teamwork guided by professors. Implement and Operate are carried out exclusively by the students, with the support of the professors. In addition to the promising and continuous good results obtained in national and international competitions in 2015 and 2016, students have appropriated the knowledge; they are responsible for their own learning and are creating permanent strategies to transfer knowledge and experience with the development of communication skills. Commitment of the professors to the group has gone beyond technical support. In addition to strengthening teamwork and values such as ethic, respect, equity, self-confidence and other responsibilities, it has achieved to empower students to assume different roles, typical of group dynamism, which has been highly valued by themselves and their families, who have told us. In this paper, we would show the evolution of the JAVEX group, which is in an exploratory stage, to the use of robotic as a technological and learning alternative for vulnerable social groups, giving life to the postulates of the institutional educational project of our university, which encourage the application of knowledge in favor of social development.

Proceedings of the 13th International CDIO Conference in Calgary, Canada, June 18-22 2017