Abstract:

The gamification is considered one technique for student interaction in the classroom. It is demonstrated that the game itself becomes a stimulus for the active participation of players, in this case students, both individually and as a group.

The Educational Robotics is an interdisciplinary teaching system that enhances the development of skills and competencies in students. This teaching system covers areas of different subjects of the school program and is employed from the first levels of education. Educational robotics is a discipline that allows to conceive, to design and to develop educational robots. In this way students begin in the study of science and technology from an early age.

The activity that we present has been developed in Zaragoza (Spain) in the years 2016 and 2017 within the European Researchers’ Night. This event is a European scientific dissemination project promoted and funded by the European Commission to promote scientific careers in Europe and framed in the Horizon 2020 Project. The event takes place simultaneously in more than two hundred and fifty cities throughout Europe during the evening of the last Friday of September. This activity is scheduled to take place also in September 2018.

This workshop uses robotics to combine teaching with games and is oriented to audiences of all ages. Questions have been designed in ten categories for two players to compete: series of drawings, music, children's films, cinema, sports, almost mathematics and four on general culture. The two competing players choose one of the ten categories by common agreement. If the answer is correct, a robot car associated with the player advances on a track; otherwise, it emits an acoustic signal. When the questions are finished, the player whose car has advanced the most wins, that is, wins the one that has answered the most questions. The activity has a short duration to allow as many people as possible to play, regardless of age. Each person can play as many times as they wish, respecting the turn of waiting.

The objective of this activity is to verify how the combination of the game with technology becomes a motivating element for learning. On this occasion, robotics has been used as current technology. Arduino has been used to assemble and program a small robot in the form of a car. These cars execute the orders that are sent from a computer according to the given answers: they advance with the success and emit an acoustic signal with the failure.

This experience has been motivating for people of all ages. In the field of education it can be transferred to the classrooms of any educational level, from early childhood education to higher education.

Keywords:

Robotics, Gamification, European Researchers’ Night, Education.