Abstract:

The Font del Ferro Institute has organized and held the first Practicum in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Secondary School (IARO) in november 22th of 2013. The definition of Practicum is: the practical part of a training activity in which a student participates. The essence of practicum IARO is practice to learn and learning by doing under the slogan: we do learn, we do not compete, we do share. The Practicum connotation suggests the practical activities related to intuitive type that we have studied or received training in the theoretical, ie to practice what I have previously learned and, if it means practice, practice.

IARO has also been widely disseminated with the reference: "Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Education”. This educational activity provides a practical orientation, with modern, innovative and captivating tools. It has the clear intent and purpose of conducting practice of what we have learned with the aim of promoting the mathematical, scientific, digital and technological competences. The main educational level involved in IARO is the secondary school.

The general goal of this event is to integrate the student in a learning environment bridging its knowledge with the professional entities which applies robotics and intelligent systems like related to the actual practice of professional role to play. This will enable him about the acquisition of knowledge, information, skills and competencies necessary to practice in a particular area of the labor market.

The methodology of this Practicum is based on robotics challenges done by the students which is divided in two stages. In the first stage, each team presents an oral presentation of their robot and also some robotics experiences they have had during the preparation phase. This challenge has to be emphasized with the exhibition of the mechanical robot features, a brief description of the software and the applied code and furthermore, a real robot application. The presentations, made entirely by students, were exposed to a mixed audience composed of students from various institutes and schools, teachers and professionals.

A second stage includes a basic training oriented to real cases, from the perspective of professional entities. Interesting topics were discussed like educational artificial intelligence, 3D printing, industrial robotics and mobile. These professionals offered their expertise applied in the fields associated with the practicum, indicated in the activity program. Furthermore, there was an exhibition consisting of various robots and artificial intelligence applications, shared among students of various educational centers open to the public. It was focused on the students, the main protagonists.

Keep in mind that when it comes to putting into practice we inevitably talk about skills and core competencies specifically given that we propose a model applicable to any typology and profile of students with their merits and virtues. So we will make a brief reference to the powers from the point of view first and second with a formal academic projection.

The evaluation of the activity was performed by satisfaction surveys and the result was very positive. Finally, the interaction among the participants at the beginning and at the end of the conference as well as the comments done by the professionals and teachers suggests us remarkable aspects to incorporate more content in future editions.

Keywords:

Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Education, Practicum, Secondary School, IARO, Competences, Innovation, Learning by Doing, Technology.