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035 |a 2317791202 
045 0 |b d20010624 
100 1 |a Clavet, Andre 
245 1 |a Organization Of The Robo Toy Contest 
260 |b American Society for Engineering Education-ASEE  |c Jun 24, 2001 
513 |a Conference Proceedings 
520 3 |a Since 1999, a group of professors and students at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) of the Université de Sherbrooke has been organizing a robot design contest. The challenge is to design a mobile robotic toy to help autistic children develop social and communication skills. The idea is to see how robots could help autistic children open up to their surroundings, improve their imagination and experience less repetitive behavior patterns. The pedagogical objective is to get students involved in a project that has technological considerations and social impacts. Such an opened and multidisciplinary design project requires careful preparation and the implication of students, faculty and experts. This presentation aim at describing the organization of the RoboToy Contest, to get other universities interested in such rich and fruitful initiative for all. I. Introduction If we want engineering students to learn how to be good engineers, we must put them as close as possible to real challenges similar to the ones they will have to face during their career. At the Université de Sherbrooke, in addition to the co-op training program, we are dedicated to make students work on projects as part of the curriculum2 . Lots of curriculum reforms are now trying to include more projects as part of their pedagogical activities. It is no secret that this requires more work and resources than giving lessons by following a text book, but the benefits are enormous: it creates a dynamic learning environment where students and teachers move beyond what is requested or taught in regular courses. These projects require students to work in teams and develop the technical skills required to be competent in their discipline. We also want them to address the communication and economical aspects in their designs, and having them present their work to the public is a good way of doing that. It is with these objectives in mind that our Department of ECE started in 1998 a pedagogical project in which a mobile robotic platform named ROBUS8 is used to introduce a large group of first-year undergraduate students to electrical engineering and computer engineering. Grouped in teams of four, students have to assemble, test and program the robot. They use it to learn simultaneously electronics, sensors, actuators and real-time programming in C. To make them apply the engineering knowledge and skills, we invite them to participate in a design project, more specifically the design of toy robots to help autistic children increase their ability to focus their attention and to be more opened to their surroundings. Such project allows students to work on creative and innovative solutions that have a social impact, close to what engineers are asked to do in real-life situations. The event organized is called the RoboToy Contest7,10. This paper is a follow up on two previous presentations at the ASEE on this initiative, to address questions that were asked about the organization of the event and the evaluation of the designs. To do so, Section II gives a brief summary of the contest, with some examples of designs presented in its second edition. Section III presents the different issues that must be addressed in organizing such an event like the equipment required, sponsorships, how to coordinate the participation of students with class activities, and the importance of making it real by involving research issues and experts. Compared to other robotic competitions, one particularity of the Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2001, American Society for Engineering Education 
653 |a Pedagogy 
653 |a Students 
653 |a Real-time programming 
653 |a Electrical engineering 
653 |a Engineering education 
653 |a Autism 
653 |a Computer engineering 
653 |a Engineers 
653 |a Curricula 
653 |a Communication skills 
653 |a Robots 
653 |a Actuators 
653 |a Colleges & universities 
653 |a Robotics 
653 |a Student participation 
653 |a College students 
653 |a Classroom communication 
653 |a Learning environment 
653 |a Equipment 
653 |a Engineering 
653 |a Social skills 
653 |a Academic disciplines 
653 |a College faculty 
653 |a Teamwork 
653 |a Children 
653 |a Teachers 
653 |a Social impact 
653 |a Imagination 
653 |a Learning 
653 |a Mobile communication systems 
653 |a Experts 
653 |a Undergraduate students 
653 |a Teaching 
653 |a Autistic children 
653 |a Work 
653 |a Educational activities 
653 |a Teams 
653 |a Skills 
653 |a Technical skills 
653 |a Repetitive behaviour 
653 |a Work skills 
653 |a Interdisciplinary aspects 
653 |a Communication 
700 1 |a Michaud, Francois 
773 0 |t Association for Engineering Education - Engineering Library Division Papers  |g (Jun 24, 2001), p. 6.770.1 
786 0 |d ProQuest  |t Library Science Database 
856 4 1 |3 Citation/Abstract  |u https://www.proquest.com/docview/2317791202/abstract/embedded/7BTGNMKEMPT1V9Z2?source=fedsrch 
856 4 0 |3 Full text outside of ProQuest  |u https://peer.asee.org/organization-of-the-robo-toy-contest