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Botball: Autonomous students engineering autonomous robots

Cathryne Stein KISS Institute for Practical Robotics

cstein@kipr.org (405) 579-4609 www.botball.org

Abstract Sparking and maintaining an early fascination with engineering and computer programming is of great interest to educators who wish to bring high quality students into these fields, and it is of vital concern to all of us who want to see our country thrive in this world economy. This paper will present an effective, intensive, and enjoyable way of getting middle and high school age students actively engaged in engineering, science, math, and computer programming. The paper describes Botball, an engineering outreach program in which students design, build, and program small autonomous mobile robots. Examples of how Botball may help to draw a diverse population into engineering and computer programming will be discussed.

Introduction Recently, over 180 teams of students came together in regional tournaments across the country to match their two autonomous, but cooperative, robots against other teams’ robotic duos in a game of programming, design, strategy, and engineering skill. Most of these regional tournaments took place on college campuses. But the participants were middle and high school students who had designed, programmed and built these robots as part of an engineering outreach program called Botball.

These middle and high school students came from a startling diversity of socio-economic backgrounds; they came from inner city and rural schools, private schools, science and technology magnet schools, alternative or continuation schools, as well as your average everyday suburban public school. Some even came from home school situations, community computer clubhouses, or other types of organizations. The most noticeable thing they had in common was how enthusiastic, motivated and focused they seemed to be.

These students now have various degrees of experience with planning, defining problems and solutions, the design process, scheduling, mechanical engineering, programming, demonstrating, reporting results, and creating websites. In addition, some of the best teams’ programming solutions to the robotics challenge exhibited target tracking, multi-agent cooperation, and adversarial planning (all this in an unpredictable dynamic environment).

These are the experienced, motivated students that could be in your classes as early as next year. Since Botball is entering its fifth year, some may already be there.

Botball Overview

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Botball is a six week program for middle and high school age students that:

· Puts reusable robotics equipment in schools and gets students programming

· Provides a hands-on professional development robotics workshop for teachers

· Appeals to students across a broad spectrum of backgrounds and abilities

· Features an Internet Research/Website Development component

· Culminates in an action-packed Botball Tournament! At its essence, Botball is a national engineering outreach program conducted in regions across the country, that features a National Tournament as well. Botball frequently includes a partnership between k-12 systems and post-secondary education. Post-secondary institutions currently involved with the Botball program are: Carnegie Mellon University, George Mason University, Mercer College, Middlesex College, Rose-Hulman Institute, and the respective Universities of Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, North Florida, and Oklahoma,

Botball is a program of KISS Institute for Practical Robotics, a private non-profit education and research organization that uses robotics as a means to engage students in science, engineering, math, and computer programming. In Botball, teams of middle and high school age students are given two challenges: 1) build and program a team of autonomous mobile robots to play the current tournament game; 2) create a website that meets this year’s defined challenges.

The mission and purpose behind Botball Botball’s mission addresses three populations:

For Educators: Botball exists to provide educators with knowledge, resources and equipment with which to foster an engaging and continuous hands-on learning environment for science, technology, engineering and math. For Students: Botball’s mission is to build valuable work-related and academic skills, challenge students’ creativity, and promote positive attitudes and understanding in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.

For the General Public: Botball Tournaments and Exhibitions serve as public outreach opportunities in which we can help increase the societal value placed on engineering and intellectual achievement, and where the general public can learn more about various aspects of robotics.

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A young Botball spectator shows an early interest in engineering.

At its most basic, we use the Botball activities of programming, mechanical design, construction and website development to get students excited about being on the creative side of technology and to help them understand how they can use the tools of science and math to do significant work. In addition, students learn to program the robots in a useful language (C ), which may lead to greater employability on the whole.

Is this like BattleBots on TV? Nope. Botball does not use remote control, so the physical skill of the “driver” is never a factor. There is no driver. Botball robots’ behaviors are based solely on their programming and feedback from their sensors. Botball robots must start by themselves, play the game according to whatever strategy the students programmed, and turn themselves off after ninety seconds.

One other big difference is that Botball rounds are not intended to be destructive (although there frequently is intense interaction that keeps the crowd screaming). Botball games involve head to head matches in which robots score points by putting appropriately colored pieces in scoring positions. These may include such difficult challenges as navigating across the arena in search of a specific object, or finding, grasping, and positioning a tube to drop neatly around a post that is being pulled away by a robot opponent.

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A Botball robot goes for the score with its scissor-like grip.

In general, Botball robots are physically smaller than the robots you see on TV and they involve no machining or specialized manufacturing equipment. Since they tend to be about the size of a large toaster oven, they are easy to transport or lock away.

How the Program Works During the fall and winter, teams register at the Botball website to take part in a regional Botball Program. Teams may choose to participate in any regional program, but they must register in advance. (Regional events are staggered to start at different times throughout the season.) The registration fee is $2000 per team and it covers tuition for up to two teachers per team attending the three day professional development workshop, a fully self-contained robotics kit, described below, new software, tech support, participation in the regional tournament, and of course, official Botball Tee Shirts. Financial aid is usually available as needed. (Although several teams see the fundraising as a positive feature of the program, and their students do learn this valuable skill!)

The regional programs kick off in early spring with a regional professional development workshop for teachers or teamleaders to give them technical content and hands-on experience with the robotics equipment and the programming. The workshop includes a discussion of various methods of using robotics content and activities to support school curricula in a variety of subject areas. On the final day of the workshop, the new robot game and the new website challenge are announced and described in detail.

At the workshop, each teamleader receives a specialized Botball kit containing two different types of microprocessors, all robot construction materials, gears, motors, sensors, Legos, documentation, software and other goodies. Teams then have about six weeks to create their team of robots and their website.

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The size, composition, and recruiting techniques for each team are determined by the individual school or teamleader, as is the decision whether Botball will be used as an extracurricular or classroom project. We’ve noticed teams tend to range in size from 5-20 students, with some students focusing on the website project, some the programming, and others the mechanical engineering.

The point of Botball is for kids to do things for themselves, to experiment, and to learn from the experience. All Botball robots are student designed, built, and programmed. Mentors give guidance and help with project management, but they do not program or build the robots. At the tournaments, the pit area is roped off and no adults (other than KISS Institute staff) are allowed in.

An Oklahoma team counts their robots’ points at the end of the match.

At the end of the six weeks of building time, everyone from that region comes together bringing robots, family and friends for an exciting, high-energy public Botball Tournament. Students get to show off their creations in both single-run qualifying rounds and an interactive (but non-destructive) double elimination event, awards are bestowed, HUGE trophies are given for both robotic and website achievement, sponsors are thanked, and a good time is had by all. Or at least most. All participants receive a Certificate of Participation.

After the tournament, schools and clubs get to keep all the robotics equipment they’ve been working with. The equipment is intended to be reused, rebuilt and reprogrammed as part of classroom or extracurricular activities, and teachers who have attended the Teacher Workshop now have even more good ideas about putting that equipment to use so that it impacts even more students every year.

Pilot Program: Non-competitive Botball Robotic Exhibition In addition to the double-elimination tournaments, in 2002 we are piloting a non-competitive autonomous robot exhibition at three of our regional events: Oklahoma, Massachusetts, and the DC regional. The goal of the Botball Robot Exhibition is to challenge students to use autonomous robotics in a creative and expressive fashion,

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opening up opportunities and challenges distinctly different from the problem-solving nature of the Botball Tournament.

We expect many returning teams to use last year’s kit as a “starter” from which to create their Exhibition robots although it’s not necessary. Unlike Tournament robots, Exhibition robots may be made of additional materials as well as traditional Botball structure.

Since there will be no awards for the Exhibition (a decision that was reached over several weeks of healthy debate among volunteer Botball organizers, KISS Institute staff, and our general advisors), all Exhibition participants will receive a separate Certificate of Participation. In addition, Exhibitors will have the option of demonstrating their creation before a videographer, and we will put this on a CD, so that these students may have a permanent record of their achievement.

The freedom and artistic potential of the Exhibition may turn out to be an incentive that will draw students who might not normally participate in Botball. This could create a new point of entry into the technical world and expose even more students to the excitement and potential of working in a technical or engineering field.

By the time of the ASEE National Conference, we will have seen the results of this pilot program, since the Exhibitions will have occurred in spring, and I will be able to report on this variation. It will be interesting to see whether the same students tend to work on both the Exhibition and the Tournament projects, or whether an entirely different set of students participates in each. Then again, since the Exhibition is optional, it will be instructive to see how many teams even choose to participate in this event.

The National Botball Tournament (and Conference!) The National Botball Tournament has historically been hosted by the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) at its annual professional conference. Teams from across the country participated in this event, which offered students much more than just Botball. At the AAAI conference, students were exposed to university researchers and college students working in artificial intelligence, information technology, and robotics and were able to interact with these people. One particularly entertaining byproduct of the interaction involved the Botball students playing their robots off against the AAAI professional robotics tutorial participants. (Naturally the students won, but they’d put weeks into their projects, while the adults had 48 hours.) In general, this was an inspirational and professional environment, and the Botball students seemed suitably inspired.

The National Botball Tournament as hosted by AAAI was an excellent experience. In 2002 and 2003, however, AAAI will be holding its annual conferences in Canada and Mexico, respectively. In view of recent political and world events, it is not feasible to bring large groups of middle and high school students (and their robots and families) across international borders, so this year’s Botball Tournament will of necessity be different.

We have decided to use this necessary change as an opportunity to go beyond the tournament experience for students, and we plan to involve them in their own actual conference as well. The National Botball Tournament and Conference will take place

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June 29-July 2 in Norman, Oklahoma, and it will include papers and presentations by and for middle and high school students, as well as by and for educators. We want students to enjoy the exchange of knowledge, suggestions, and experience that is the core of a good conference, but at their own level.

Professionals and university personnel will be on hand to give presentations and demos, work with teachers and students, and, most likely, recruit upcoming high school seniors. AAAI will still be involved, helping to support the event, contributing speakers and, as in the past, donating travel grants to teams. NASA personnel will be there to demonstrate some of their cutting edge robotic technology.

Of course we realize this is a huge experiment, and as I write this in January, we are all very excited to see how our young participants respond to the Call for Papers, and to the experience in general. This event immediately follows the ASEE National Conference, and if anyone is interested they may contact me for more information.

Post-Secondary Institutions and Botball Frequently a university or college will host a regional Botball program as part of their outreach activities. Usually this means that a faculty member plays a part in reserving rooms for the workshop and the tournament to take place on campus, and helps to spread the word to local schools. In addition to the obvious PR opportunities (Botball is extremely photogenic and frequently makes the local news), colleges and universities can benefit in several ways by hosting a tournament:

Direct Recruitment We have witnessed university personnel attempt to recruit some of the most talented Botball team members right there at the tournament. We don’t blame them - some of the talent and ingenuity displayed is quite amazing, certainly beyond what one might expect from the average high school senior.

Not only does it give universities a preview of their upcoming pool of applicants, but if the university is hosting the event, it also gives the students and their teachers and families an opportunity to get to know the university a little better as well. It can be a great recruiting tool simply to have students on campus for this exciting event, and the university’s own faculty and students may participate as mentors and role models for the Botball teams. In this way, faculty may have the opportunity to be influential in preparing students whom they will soon find in their own classrooms.

Pipeline Universities also find that Botball makes sense as a long term, systemic approach to outreach, since by training middle and high school teachers and providing them with cutting edge robotics equipment, more and more students will be exposed to the joys of robotics. This is likely to yield more students interested in going forward into higher education, studying areas related to robotics. Researchers at the University of Oklahoma are currently looking at the effect of Botball on attitudes about higher education and technical fields and I expect to have at least some preliminary results to report at ASEE 2002. P

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Diversity Post-secondary schools frequently have a hard time reaching out to diverse populations who are not typically “college oriented”, and Botball has shown itself to be highly accessible to this population. Examples of how Botball may help to draw a diverse population into engineering and computer programming will be discussed later in this paper.

Grant Fulfillment In addition to direct recruitment and preparation of students, research grants frequently have an outreach requirement, and involvement in Botball may help researchers accomplish that outreach by providing a ready-made, effective format.

Appealing to a Diverse Population

We work with students who have difficulties with the law . . . and abuse problems of all kinds. For the first time, over the last two years we’ve had close to a dozen kids going off to UC schools: UC San Diego, UCLA, UC Berkeley -- this was never heard of before, never happened before. And these kids were involved in our program.” Jeneva Westendorf, teacher Foothill High School Santa Clara County Support Services

In the 2001 National Botball Tournament, the winner of the qualifying seeding rounds was Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Mathematics, a magnet school from Fairfax County, Virginia. But the overall winner of the tournament was Foothill High School, a continuation school for at-risk students, from San Jose, CA. To us, this illustrates how robotics programs can bring out the best in everyone, and in some cases expose hidden talents and motivation in students who were not previously engaged in the traditional school setting.

Ms. Westendorf, quoted above, has been organizing Botball teams at Foothill since 1998, and her robotics program has made a world of difference for this school as well as for individuals. She reports that when her school started doing the Botball program, attendance shot up from an average of 30% to 100% among students who got to work with the robots. The graduation rate skyrocketed as well. And on a more personal note, she tells of one young woman, a single mother, who got so excited about working with the robot that she went out and got herself an internship at NASA.

Foothill High School usually runs at least three Botball teams every year, and one year they had as many as five teams. At Foothill, students compete just to be allowed onto a team, and there are stringent behavioral requirements to stay on the team. The students on Foothill’s robotics teams are racially diverse, with a large percentage coming from the Hispanic community. Single mothers are not uncommon, and gang members are also well represented on teams. (In fact one year they had rival gang members on the same Botball team, and that team performed extremely well. Obviously we don’t credit Botball for this extraordinary achievement - Jeneva Westendorf is an amazing teacher who is responsible for turning around many lives.) At Foothill they now use robotics as an introduction to algebra, geometry, trig and physics, as well as group design processes and mechanical

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engineering. Based on the huge success at Foothill, the whole East Side Union High School District is now starting to use Botball as a permanent part of the curriculum.

(Foothill is even receiving some requests from parents of non at-risk students who wish to transfer their students to this school!)

At Dallas Public Schools, Perry Mihalakos has used the Botball program as content with the Hispanic students in his middle school bilingual program since 1998. His Botball teams are composed of half language learners and half students drawn from the full school. Although the “lucky ones whose home situations permit them to stay after school” get to participate in the actual competition, the Botball equipment is used by several classes on an ongoing basis throughout the year.

Mr. Mihalakos reports that he has recently been asked for recommendations for three of his Botball team members, all girls, to go on to science and technology magnet schools. All have been accepted. (He is not aware of how many other team members may have gone on to magnet schools without seeking a recommendation from him, or what percentage from the whole school went on to magnet schools.) Mr. Mihalakos also reports that according to mandatory state tests, his group experienced an increase in reading and math ability, and a dramatic increase in writing ability over the last two years, during which time Botball was an integral part of their whole program.

Botball has been used in several schools to draw more young women into engineering, programming, and the sciences. And young women seem to do extremely well in Botball. The1998 Silicon Valley Tournament and the1999 National Championship were both won by all-female teams.

Northern Virginia Technology Council uses Botball with its Gum Springs Computer Clubhouse in low income communities to reach out to populations who might not otherwise get to discover the joy of being creative with technology. The Texas Botball organizers this year are making a point of reaching out to low income schools. They are especially focusing on middle schools, since these students are at an impressionable age and are already beginning to start thinking about career decisions.

A young man from the Menlo-Atherton High School Botball team, a well-heeled, high achieving school in Silicon Valley was caught on video excitedly stating that as a senior he could say that this was the best thing he’d done in his entire time at high school - he’d learned scheduling, teamwork, engineering, and even some project management. (His robot design was truly outstanding that year.)

The point is that robots are intrinsically interesting to most students, whatever their background or situation, and students seem to be willing to focus time and energy in learning content and new skills that help them with their robot projects. The field of robotics can be just as engaging and motivating to non-traditional, at-risk students as it may be to honors students. In fact, robotics may be an engineering outreach subject that levels the playing field and creates bold, strategic-thinking, skilled engineers out of students who had not previously been engaged in classroom activities.

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How to get started with Botball Botball is a fairly versatile program, and we invite you to use this program to further your engineering outreach goals. Some ways to get started are:

1. Bring this program to your local middle school or high school (if you’re the teacher or mentor you get to go to the hands-on workshop).

2. Contact us to find a local team in need of mentoring or sponsorship 3. Come to a Botball tournament! In 2002 there are 12 tournament locations across the

country, and we expect to have more next year. Please consult our website for more information. (And we can always use volunteers!)

4. Start a Botball Tournament at your school or in your region. We are happy to work with people who want to use Botball as their engineering outreach program.

If you are interested in putting together a team, hosting a tournament, or just for more information, please visit us at www.botball.org, or contact us at botball@kipr.org. I look forward to ASEE involvement at upcoming Botball Tournaments!

Acknowledgements This work was sponsored in part by grant NAG 2-6048 from NASA’s Robotics Education Project and Grant R215K010122 from the US Department of Education.

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