2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The objective of this paper was to evaluate the effectiveness of a special type of educational robotic platform (an all-in-one robotic STEM learning platform) that was developed to teach various fundamental mechanical engineering concepts such as drawing and drafting, hydraulics, pneumatics, manufacturing processes, engraving, dynamics, vibration, etc. to engineering students in an active plus experiential learning setup. Two (02) groups of engineering students (mechanical major, sophomore year), each group consisting of 10 students, participated in the study. The instructor (the author) randomly selected three fundamental mechanical engineering concepts (pneumatics, energy conversion and vibration) to teach the students as part of a mechanical design course. The instructor followed two distinct but interrelated pedagogical approaches for that purpose: (i) active learning for one group of students, and (ii) active plus experiential teaching for the other group of students. For the active learning group, for teaching each concept, the pedagogy was such that the instructor supplied reading materials to the students, wrote and drew relevant diagrams illustrating the concept on the board, explained the concept verbally, demonstrated relevant animation videos illustrating the concept, asked questions to students, staged brief bilateral dialogues between students and asked students to complete brief worksheets. For the active plus experiential learning group, the instructor followed the same pedagogy as used for the active learning group. In addition, the instructor developed relevant demonstrations of each concept using the robotic platform as an experiential learning tool and demonstrated robot-based illustration of each concept to the students. The instructor also collected relevant data from the robotic illustration and analyzed the data to support the instruction of the concept to the students. The learning outcomes in terms of content knowledge (subject matter knowledge) and interdisciplinary knowledge of the students, and student engagement and enthusiasm between the two pedagogical approaches were determined based on examinations and observations, and then the learning outcomes between the two pedagogical approaches were compared. The results showed that the active plus experiential learning approach outperformed the active learning approach significantly. Then, based on the experience, the instructor identified potential sources of misconceptions associated with robotic illustration for each lesson, which could adversely affect the learning outcomes. Then, the instructor identified the challenges and burdens that an instructor might face for designing and implementing the robotics-enabled instructional model and then determined necessary training and institutional support for instructors applying robotics-enabled instructions. The results helped identify the boundary between active and experiential learning. The results can inspire and guide STEM instruction designers in applying robotics-enabled experiential plus active learning methods to STEM courses.