2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Adapting research for K-12 outreach is a critical activity for inspiring the next generation of engineers. Community-focused STEM fairs and events attract a wide range of students with varying degrees of knowledge and exposure to engineering. The challenge when creating programming for these events is the ability to adapt the research for young students with a wide range of engineering backgrounds. Adding to the complexity, engineers are not trained teachers, therefore outreach events can often contain overly complex activities that do not take a student’s dexterity or comprehension skills into consideration. In contrast, outreach programs may also contain activities that are not challenging which result in students disengaging with the activity. Understanding students’ abilities and interests is critical to developing pre-college curricula that is engaging for a variety of students. In this project, we present findings from an observation study conducted at a community-focused outreach event with over 200 participants. The event consisted of over fifteen exhibits related to robotics hosted by research labs, student organizations, and competition teams. This paper is focused on analysis of visitors' interactions with one activity, a silicone soft robot gripper. The gripper consists of two tendon actuated fingers, which are built by participants into a gripper and later used to pick a prize. The activity consisted of tests of dexterity and comprehension, including stringing threads through small holes, zip ties, determining orientation, and other hand manipulation skills. To gauge the level of dexterity and attentiveness in different age groups, we designed an observation protocol to follow 60 students through the activity from start to finish and record successes and pain points of the activity design. The goal of the analysis was for researchers to understand how best to present projects to outreach participants. The data collected during the activity was organized into several categories based on age, dexterity, and focus. After collecting and analyzing data, we observed that most participants had moderate dexterity and focus during the activity with focus and dexterity increasing with age. We also observed that participants who had prior experience in similar activities (with hobbies in sewing, helping with mechanical tasks at home) were more successful than those who have not. Overall results showed areas where the activity could be improved to become more inclusive of a variety of skills and more engaging for a range of ages. While focused on a soft gripper activity, the lessons learned here can be applied broadly to engineering research. When combined with lessons learned over 10+ years of planning and delivering outreach events in collaboration with feedback from teachers, this protocol and results can be applied in a variety of engineering contexts to improve efforts to engage young students in engineering projects to inspire the next generation of engineers.