Engaging Preschool Students Through An Interactive Display Towed By an Autonomous Robot
John S. Seng · 2024
Abstract When exposing preschoolers to STEM concepts, it is important to provide a balanced combination of interactivity to keep students engaged with the simplicity of a system that matches their interests. We describe the creation of a small trailer for Herbie, an autonomous robot that navigates the hallways in our computer science building, which contains an interactive display that improves the stability of the robot itself while engaging the young students with an educational display of animal images and sounds. Cal Poly State University SLO runs a preschool that supports various 3-5 year-old children in the university community, who interacted with the trailer and robot. Students from different disciplines, including Mechanical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, and Child Development were involved in the development and iteration process throughout the past year. This paper outlines the engineering considerations, observations from the preschool demonstrations, and feedback received from students, teachers, and parents to improve the trailer design and software.