CogBots
CogBots are open-source robotics kits developed by CogLabs in collaboration with Google and UNESCO. CogBots empower students through creating designs, assembling, and programming their own “thinking” robot. It uses sustainable and readily available materials like recycled boxes and cardboards, 3D printed parts, and recycled smartphones. Figure 3 shows the parts for the 3D printed robot model. If students have access to 3D printers, they can design the robot's body by tinkering the shape and/or changing the color of the parts to personalize their robots. In addition, it ignites students' creativity in their own robot design using a CAD app, such as Tinkercad (https://www.tinkercad.com/), and 3D print the parts. If students have no access to 3D printers or prefer working with craft materials, they can use cardboard or cardboard boxes with crayons, yarns, origami papers, paints, or papier-mache ́ to create a robot’s body.
The current version of the AI-robotics tools targets upper elementary to middle school students. CogBots, the AI-robotics tool in development, uses a model created with the Teachable Machine by Google Creative Lab. Using the image classification model, students can program CogBots using Scratch with ThinkBot extension (https://storage.googleapis.com/dev-coglabs-phase0/index.html). Scratch Extensions allow Scratch projects to connect with external hardware, online tools (sources of information), or blocks with advanced functionality. CogBots can initiate inquiries and curiosities among students to explore AI technologies in everyday lives.
CogBot's Controller board: CogLabs’ ESP32 board (by DFRobot)
3D Printed Body Parts
AI Literacy and Five Big Ideas in AI
Literacy empowers people by enabling them to communicate with others, to express and understand various opinions and ideas, to help them make informed decisions and solve problems that they face, and to enable them to participate in society purposefully. Similarly, AI literacy empowers people to actively participate in society through informed decision making, while understanding AI’s influences in society and its future potential, both negative and positive, as well as contributing to the development of an inclusive AI-ecosystem where all members of the society participate to better its future.
The AI4K12 initiative (https://ai4k12.com/), jointly sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI; https://aaai.org/) and the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA; https://www.csteachers.org/), led by Dave Touretzky, Christina Gardner-McCune, and Deborah Seehorn introduced the 5 Big Ideas in AI in 2019:
1. Perception: Computers perceive the world using sensors,
2. Representation & Reasoning: Agents maintain representations of the world and use them for reasoning,
3. Learning: Computers can learn from data,
4. Natural Interaction: Intelligent agents require many kinds of knowledge to interact naturally with humans, and
5. Societal Impact: AI can impact society in both positive and negative ways.
CogBots will help students acquire the Five Big Ideas in AI though hands-on exploratory learning approaches.
The lesson ideas will be available through this website in the near future!