Mississippi BEST Robotics: An Analysis of Impact and Outcomes on Student Performance and Perceptions towards Earning STEM Degrees

Systematic Mapping Literature Review of Mobile Robotics Competitions

“…There are robotics competitions focused on education, that is, willing to teach robotics concepts to students, attracting them to STEM areas and to encourage them to enter in technologies careers. Most of the competitions found were focused on education like Robosub, Latin American IEEE Robotics Competition, RoboParty, Microfactory, Cybertech, EUROBOT, NIARC, Brazilian Robotics Olympiad, WRO, MSBEST, VEX, BRC, FIRST, RoboCup@Junior, Robot@Factory, eYRC and the “Schüler bauen Roboter” program [ 3 , 4 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 17 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 29 , 30 , 32 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 45 , 46 , 50 , 52 , 55 , 57 , 61 , 63 , 64 , 67 , 70 , 71 , 73 , 78 ].…”

“…The competition has a duration of six weeks. The Lego League is designed for young ages [3,4,9,18,22,29,50,52,58].…”

“…It is a competition which has a mission to inspire students to pursue careers in STEM areas through robotic design and competition. [50].…”

“…The challenges addressed by the educational robotics competitions usually includes tasks that the participants have to build a robot to perform some activity, in order to allow them to apply the knowledge learned in classes in real-world problems and put it into practice. Sometimes there are several stages, like eYRC for example, in which the students firstly answer questions, realize a preliminary test or learn concepts about programming and electronics and then, they use tools provided by the competition to find the best solution for a problem, involving hardware and software approaches [21,29,42,45,50,57,71,78]. This kind of competition usually elaborates simple tasks like dance and games and with a focus on students working in teams and developing soft skills [3,10,29].…”

The Impact of Residential Engineering Summer Academies on Middle and High School Students

“…There is currently a demand in the United States for the development of skilled K-12 and post-secondary students with transferable technical skills, a knack for scientific exploration, and the ability to drive innovation through engineering design processes [1]. Scientific exploration and engineering education enable students to develop 6C skills (critical thinking, collaboration, communication, creativity, citizenship, and character) vital to problem-solving and growth of the United States economy [2].…”