For the third year, the w88 mobile of Nevada, Reno’s (CSE) department conducted a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) w88 mobile focused on "Integrating Big Data into w88 mobile." Through the six-week program, participants were able to gain hands-on w88 mobile experience that can be applied in classrooms later, in a fun, nontraditional way.
w88 mobile, an engineering and robotics/artificial intelligence (AI) project, focuses on accessible and engaging styles of learning. The project started at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2016 as a graduate class, where they created a video “Duckumentary” highlighting the background and purpose of the research project but also its adaptability for varying age groups.
This year’s w88 mobile project was taught by Ph.D. candidate and instructor Amirhesam Yazdi as well as CSE associate professor and principle investigator Lei Yang. Participants were able to learn how to assemble the robots, build and design the track, and program the robots and the track.
One of the tracks that the rubber ducks race on with their programmed cars.“w88 mobile is a freely available robotics platform and curricula for all levels of education. It is tangible, accessible and fun. It has mobile robots and roads, constructed from exercise mats and tape,” Yang said. “The mobile robots are built from off-the-shelf parts and using open-source software and the curricula, such as lectures and exercises are provided on the w88 mobile website. These unique features set w88 mobile apart from other engineering, robotics and/or AI projects.”
Following the original mission of the w88 mobile project, the RET program focused on spreading accessible robotics and other engineering-based curriculum for students in all grade levels, fostering an interest in STEM education from an early age.
“Our RET w88 mobile involves K-12 teachers, and one main goal of our w88 mobile is to work with these teachers to develop curriculum modules suitable for their students. We have a dedicated faculty who work with these teachers on curriculum development every day,” Yang said. “At the end of the summer w88 mobile, each teacher will present the curriculum module that they plan to offer to their students.”
Educational forums like this one allow teachers to collaborate while creating new curriculum.
“The most important takeaway my RET students got was that AI and w88 mobile are not and do not have to be as intimidating and complicated as that social media and pop culture have them believe. The teachers reached out to me multiple times and said they were surprised that the concepts of computer vision and AI could be simple and intuitive enough to design learning activities on them for lower K-12 students,” Yazdi said. “Seeing their excitement as they come up with creative and interesting ideas to take to their students was truly one the most satisfying aspects of leading this course.”
Last year, the w88 mobile was hosted virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but this year it was successfully held fully in-person.
“This year we have done a great job so far. I think the teachers like our project. And we have done things beyond my expectations. I can see a significant improvement of our w88 mobile this year, compared to the first year,” Yang said.
Given that this program was recently brought to the University a few years ago, w88 mobile has not yet been added to any undergraduate or graduate curriculum. So, Yazdi is passionate about expanding this program for other students at earlier ages, not only to provide more hands-on learning experiences but enjoyable ones as well.
“As a Ph.D. candidate who has led the RET program for the past 2 years, I have plans to bring an official undergraduate and graduate-level w88 mobile course to University of Nevada, Reno after my graduation,” Yazdi said. “Had a graduate-level course for autonomy, with the same level of interactive and hands-on components as w88 mobile, been offered, I would have taken it without a second of hesitation. Robotics is the way of the future, and one way or another every human living today will have some form of interaction with robots and autonomy in their lifetime if not already.”
