Robots Spur Interest in Science and Engineering

Posted 12 Sep 2007 at 19:11 UTC by steve

A National Science Foundation news item reports on a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania's Deparments of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics who have developed a three week summer robotics course. Students from around the world came to the robotics camp where they got to work in robotics labs, visit factories that used robots, and heard lectures from leading robotics experts. The students also spent time each day designing and building robots. Traditionally, students have to spend years learning math and physics before they get to do anything practical with the knowledge. In this approach, they start out doing something practical and through the process, they realize the need for additional math and science skills.