PROJECT TITLE :

Controlling a Robotic Fish Via a Natural User Interface for Informal Science Education

ABSTRACT:

Informal science education could be a key contributing issue to scientific literacy, that determines our capacity as a society to technologically progress and create cognizant decisions on pressing issues of world scale. Each the fields of robotics and natural user interfaces are separately proposed as effective suggests that to assist informal science education, by increasing users’ engagement through multiple interactive features. Here, we demonstrate the combination of these two fields of investigation toward a completely unique educational platform, revolving round the control of a robotic fish via a natural user interface. Users control the robotic fish through upper limb gestures that are captured by the Kinect. The robotic fish incorporates a temperature sensor, that collects knowledge during a tank instrumented with heating and cooling sources. Participants observe the measurements they are recording in real-time to map the surroundings. Self-reported post-activity surveys and behavioral coding data on young users were collected to assess their level of engagement in the activity and their perception of the system. Our results indicate that the robotic fish is intuitive to drive with the natural user interface, the activity of collecting water temperature is fascinating, and robotics might be a viable and accessible career option.