Cyber-Infrastructure for Supporting K-12 Engineering Education through Robotics Department of Computer Science Drexel University William Regli (PI)

Project Objectives Develop a multi-disciplinary approach to Engineering Informatics education Design curricular materials around the theme of bio- inspired and snake-inspired robots –Make materials accessible to undergraduates and high-school students Create cyber-tools for design/analysis of bio-inspired robots Create and populate a repository (i.e. cyber- infrastructure) with information on bio-inspired robot design and dozens of template designs –Including full engineering models (CAD, Simulation, kinematics, dynamics, etc

CI-TEAM: Creation and Use of Multi- Disciplinary Engineering Models NSF CISE/SCI Lead Institution: Drexel University –William Regli (CS, PI), Michael Piasecki (CivE) –Engineering design, ontologies, knowledge rep University of College Park –SK Gupta (MechE) –Bio-inspired design, robotics, manufacturing University of North Chapel Hill –Ming Lin and Dinesh Manocha (CS) –Physics-based modeling, 3D graphics University of Madison –Nicola Ferrier, Vadim Shapiro, Krishnan Suresh (MechE) –Engineering design, kinematics/dynamics, geometric representations

Project Activities Team-taught multiple bio-robotics related classes across several institutions Students design, build, model and simulate full bio-robots or bio-inspired mechanisms Students learn multi-disciplinary modeling –CAD/CAM (i.e. Pro/E, CATIA etc), Simulation (i.e. ADAMS, ODE, etc), Information Modeling (i.e. OWL, UML, etc) Result: Multi-disciplinary thinking about the design, fabrication, assembly, simulation and programming of bio-inspired robotic systems

Current “Lesson Learned” Bio-robotic domain is a great motivator –Students self-taught themselves basic CAD and tools like ADAMS in 2-3 weeks One has to be open to novel educational techniques –“Cheating” was encouraged, creativity was stress in the integration of ideas and their transformation into new ideas Students integrated ideas from many previously unconnected academic areas –Physics, graphics, AI all meet biology and mechanical engineering

Expected Outcomes Runs thru 2009 Production of dozens of models of bio- inspired robots –Complete robots, robot sub-mechanisms –Simulation models, physics models Academic tools, commercial (ADAMS), etc Documented on project wiki

Q&A For more information: Sponsored by the National Science Foundation Cyber-Infrastructure TEAMs Grants SCI & OCI , CIBER-U Grant SCI & OCI , Multi-Disciplinary Engineering Models With additional support from….