ROB-E – Swarm Robotics for Education in Circular Economy

Abstract

These days, climate change, robotics and artificial intelligence are discussed on the same level of interest. Our mission is bringing these topics into education: The paper presents the project ROB-E, which aims to pass social and technical skills to pupils of different age groups and school levels (primary and secondary school) in the research fields bionic, robotics, and swarm intelligence encompassing the application of circular economy and environmental protection. This leads to a workshop series that build on one another: After getting into circular-economy-related topics (incl. resource-friendly production, re-use and recycling), pupils design their own robots based on the circular design approach and bionic. They 3D print them with recycled PLA, assemble the individual (electronic) parts and program their robots as a swarm of cleaning robots to collect and sort garbage. Thus, they start an exciting journey with current cutting-edge topics applied on everyday life-situations of pupils.