2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 180: Understanding Children’s Perceptions of Robotics Through Drawings: Early Development of the Draw a Robot Task (Work in Progress)

Presented at Pre-College Engineering Education Division (PCEE) Poster Session

As the field of robotics evolves to include bioinspired designs, healthcare applications, and even soft materials, opportunities exist to broaden children’s understanding of what robots do and who can be involved in their development. Therefore understanding the perceptions of robotics and engineering that young children hold is important for broadening participation in STEM fields. One method proposed to understand the perceptions and stereotypes children have about the engineering world around them is the Draw an Engineer Task (DAET). As an extension of DAET, we recently proposed the Draw a Robot Task to understand specifically how children perceive the embodiments and applications of robots and roboticists. Our early work to develop the Draw a Robot Task relied on subjective analysis of the materials, bioinspiration, and applications in children’s drawings. In this work-in-progress paper, we explore image analysis software and development of machine learning tools to quantify features of the drawings to define traditional, rigid and soft, bioinspired robots. Toward validating the Draw a Robot Task as a means to both understand children’s perceptions of robots and to study impacts of the new soft robotics curricula for K12 classrooms, this paper presents pilot analysis and a machine learning algorithm to analyze children’s drawings. When combined with other measurements including interviews or observations, the Draw a Robot Task, enhanced with the objective analysis tools presented here, can aid researchers in understanding the earliest perceptions and stereotypes of robots held by young children.

Authors

Dr. Holly M Golecki http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3691-0420 University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign [biography]

Dr. Holly Golecki (she/her) is a Teaching Assistant Professor in Bioengineering at the University of
Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an Associate in the John A Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. She holds an appointment at the Carle-Illinois College of Medicine in the Department of Biomedical and Translational Sciences. She is also a core faculty member at the Institute for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access in the College of Engineering. Holly studies biomaterials and soft robotics and their applications in the university classroom, in undergraduate research and in engaging K12 students in STEM. Holly received her BS/MS in Materials Science and Engineering from Drexel University and her PhD in Engineering Sciences from Harvard University.
Dr. Jerrod A Henderson http://orcid.org/https://0000-0002-0501-5805 University of Houston - COE [biography]

Dr. Jerrod A. Henderson (“Dr. J”) is an Assistant Professor in the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in the Cullen College of Engineering at the University of Houston (UH).

He began his higher education pursuits at Morehouse College and North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University where he earned degrees in both Chemistry and Chemical Engineering as a part of the Atlanta University Center’s Dual Degree in Engineering Program. While in college he was a Ronald E. McNair Scholar which afforded him the opportunity to intern at NASA Langley. He also earned distinction as a Phi Beta Kappa member and an American Chemical Society Scholar. Dr. Henderson completed his Ph.D. in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During his time as a graduate student, he was a NASA Harriet G. Jenkins Graduate Fellow.

Dr. Henderson has dedicated his career to increasing the number of students who are on pathways to pursue STEM careers. He believes that exposing students to STEM early will have a lasting impact on their lives and academic pursuits. He is the co-founder of the St. Elmo Brady STEM Academy (SEBA). SEBA is an educational intervention aimed at exposing underrepresented fourth and fifth-grade students and their families to hands-on STEM experiences.

Henderson's research interests are in engineering identity development among Black men. He was most recently recognized by INSIGHT Into Diversity Magazine as an Inspiring STEM Leader, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (LAS) Outstanding Young Alumni Award, and Career Communications Group with a Black Engineer of the Year Award for college-level promotion of engineering education.

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