Using soft robotics as a medium for gender accessible STEM education of preschoolers

Master thesis (2020)

Authors

S. Prakash Industrial Design Engineering

Contributors

S.G. van de Geer Design Aesthetics - IDE (supervisor 1)
R.B.N. Scharff Industrial Design Engineering (supervisor 2)
Ellen Pennings (supervisor 1)
Faculty
Industrial Design Engineering
Copyright: © 2020 Shreyas Prakash
Education Lego bricks Gender bias Soft Robotics Soft actuators
More Info
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Published Date

28-08-2020

Language

English

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Faculty

Industrial Design Engineering

Abstract

Only 35 percent of the recent graduates are women. The figures are even lower for traditionally male dominated workforces such as engineering and robotics as women constitute only 12 percent of the engineering workforce. It is quite evident that we cannot ignore the gender equation when it comes to bringing in more equity in the workforce. As even the toys are heavily gendered, to take an example. Right from the way girls are prompted to play with Barbies and boys with G.I. Joes, this societal conditioning influences their future interest towards professions. In order to counter act the disparity in the STEM professions, a play based learning approach through the medium of soft robotics is used to get preschoolers equally interested towards the field of robotics in a gender-accessible manner. Silly Stompers consists of a reconfigurable base to which wide range of soft actuator blocks could be connected in various ways to create custom body movements. This provides a very tangible, screen-free, open ended experience for pre-schoolers through a fun way by allowing creating to create various pumping patterns. This provides compatibility with LEGO providing more open-ended outcomes. The learning outcomes mainly focus on constructive play and role play for pre-schoolers through the medium of soft inflatable actuators.