STEAM education in practice: The RoboPathFinder project

Περίληψη

STEAM education stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics, and aims at familiarizing students with hands-on science and cutting-edge technology through interactive activities, by promoting the practice of educational robotics combined with arts and crafts. The merits of STEAM education have already been acknowledged in the global environment of Knowledge Economy (KE), offering lifelong competitive advantages to the participants. At this paper, we propose a novel challengebased educational methodology for STEAM education following the cooperative and learner-centered educational approaches, aiming to promote creative thinking and effective collaboration. In addition, we present the RoboPathFinder project implemented by secondary education students through the guidance of their coaches, following the proposed methodology. The RoboPathFinder concept has been inspired by the Mars Pathfinder robotic spacecraft, being created with open source software, an Arduino board, ultrasonic sensors, gear motors and a solar battery.