A STEM Course for Computational Thinking Development with BEAM Robotics

Abstract

This document describes the development of a STEM course intended to improve the Computational Thinking of university students (CT). The main instructional tool for this course is the BEAM robot, a robotics paradigm that proposes simple robots whose behavior can be controlled without software programming. The programming of this robot is implicit in its morphology, so its actions and goals are codified from its construction. A three-phase curriculum is designed to achieve the objective: propaedeutic, robot assembly, and CT. On the basis of these phases, the course is constructed modularly and implemented virtually, while students receive construction kits. Each phase aims to foster the many facets of CT, such as decomposition, abstraction, algorithm, debugging, iteration, and generalization. Students’ responses to pre-and post-course surveys, as well as evaluation activities and logs, are analyzed to determine the course’s impact on them. In addition to other STEM disciplines (electrical, electronic, mechanical, and WEEE), the course substantially improves the CT.