EduCon 2024

“STEAM” is a well-known buzz word in education today. Most schools have no problem satisfying the Science, Art, and Math portions of the acronym, but often struggle to include Technology and Engineering into the equation. Perhaps the biggest hurdle is finding a coherent curriculum that integrates them all while maintaining the thoroughness deserving of each discipline. This conversation describes the 18-year development of the Physical Computing & Robotics (PC&R) curriculum at a grades 9-12 school in Bucks County, PA. We will explain why the popular FIRST, LEGO, and VEX platforms did not fit within our long-range goals, and how a PC&R program can be started at a cost of roughly $200 per robotic platform and maintained with potentially no annual cost. We will share our successes and failures and hope that others will do the same.

Participants will have time to write code to control non-proprietary, Arduino-compatible microcontrollers and robots. These devices paved the way for the development of textbooks and a curriculum that integrates art, science, mathematics, and engineering under the technology envelope. Participants will be given access to all the textbooks and curricular materials developed for our PC&R course, as well as a list of tools, laboratory equipment, and supplies that keeps costs low while providing every student with their own scalable, autonomous robotics platform. For those who are just starting a robotics program and for those who would like to augment their existing program, we hope to foster discussions regarding which devices are considered indispensable, which are desirable, and which are luxuries.